"Dear Son,

"By the time you listen to this tape, yer ol' man will be long gone. On top of me diabetes and me wonky ticker, now me liver's packing it in fast. I've always had a problem with it, ever since the war, and malaria, and the bloody medicine they gave us for it.

"I hope you are alone, or maybe just with Carlo, when you listen to this. It's sort of private stuff, just between you and me.

"I was shipped out from Australia to New Guinea the day after you was born back in 1941. I only got to see you that one time then. You was so long and thin for a baby, but with wide shoulders. I told the doc you was born to be an Aussie Rules Footy Player. Bloody wrong, there, wasn't I?

"Hey, don't take me wrong, son. I don't mind a bit you wasn't the footy type, and I don't mind that you moved to Canada. I love you just the way you are. Bloody proud of you, actually!

"Anyways, as I was saying, they shipped me out to New Guinea, right to the mouth of the Fly River with about a hundred other men. The local fuzzy-wuzzies reported they'd seen a Jap submarine go up the river and not come back down. The Aussies didn't have the planes for an air search, but they did have plenty of men at that time, so they sat a bunch of us down there at the mouth of the river to wait for it to come back down.

"Maybe the sub got stuck somewhere up the river, or maybe it managed to sneak by us or the fuzzy-wuzzies, but we sat there for six months and never did catch sight of the Jap sardine can.

"There's a few pictures of a lot of this stuff in the envelope with the tape. I think you'll be able to figure out which is which. There is one of just the river and the jungle.

"We just sat there and waited, filling time, with the fuzzy-wuzzies for company.

"I guess its not done to call them fuzzy-wuzzies today. Papuans, I guess. But they was fuzzy-wuzzies to us back then, with their hair all frizzed out, and some of them even with bones in their noses.

"At this point I better make a confession to you right now: Yer ol' dad is a secret homo. You heard me right. Your dad's a bloomin' poofter. Just like you!

"Yes, son. I know you're gay, as they say today. I didn't need for you to 'come out' to me. I've always known, and I don't care. As I said, I'm proud of you, just as you are.

"Well, really I suppose I'm what you'd call one of them bi-sexuals.

"But I'll explain all about that soon. So there we are sitting at the mouth of the Fly, in that stinking tropical jungle. It was a bloody dangerous place, even without the Japs, what with sharks in the ocean and the river mouth, huge crocs in the river, and head-hunters in the jungle. Not to mention the bloody mosquitoes.

"Whenever we went for a swim, we had to have someone on watch with a rifle or a machine gun, keeping an eye out for crocs, sharks, Japs, or hungry wild natives.

"About me being a poofter: Because I'd had some advance first aid training with St. John's before the war, for me job as a first aid man in the mines, I got a little perk in the army. I got to be a Medical Corps man. No real rank, just the title. That's how Jonno and me got to be bunk mates. He had worked as a fireman, and also had lots of first aid, so he was a Medical Corps man too. The two of us got one real privilege over the other blokes. We had a tent just for the two of us and some of our medical supplies, not like the other blokes who slept eight to a tent.

"There's one real nice pic of me and Jonno in the bundle. We are treating a Malay fisherman who fell overboard from his fishing boat. His mates didn't realize he was gone and sailed off without him. A shark took a bite of lunch out of his leg, but he managed to dog-paddle to shore downstream from our camp. The fuzzy-wuzzies found him and brought Jonno and me to him. We fixed him up good, and he took off limping along the beach to the west a few days later.

"I'm the blonde guy in the snap. The tropical sun really bleached me hair. Jonno's the one with the dark stubble. You get an idea of his big nose in that picture. Some guys say blokes with big noses have big dicks. In Jonno's case it was true.

"But for the most part, those six months at the mouth of the Fly, there wasn't a lot for us to do. Of course, there was always the thought of the sub up the creek, and maybe a Jap sniper in the jungle, but mostly we just wasted time.

"We played footy and cricket on the ocean beach, but we didn't swim there. For some reason there were hundreds of sharks around the mouth of the river. Maybe they were eating fresh-water fish that got swept into the sea, who knows? But as our Malay fisherman and the death of one of the local black boys showed us, they liked man meat, too.

"There were also the crocs in the river, but they were easier to spot, and we always had that man with the machine gun ready to fire.

"It was at the river that I first got to see just how big Jonno's dick was. We always swam there naked, and even though the water wasn't that cold, most guys dicks' sort of shrivelled away. Not Jonno's. Even soft and cold it hung half-way to his knees. It made the rest of the blokes feel like shrimp. Some of them started calling him 'Dong-o" instead of Jonno.

"I'll tell you how I ended up in bed with Jonno. I had a little bit of a business going in the camp. I hired one of the local fuzzy-wuzzy boys and put him to work for me. I paid him in cigarettes and army chocolate, hard stuff that came in tins, just like our cigarettes. It tasted like chocolate, but I've got no idea what it really was. My black boy would go round the tents in the evening, collect boots from the other men, and bring them back to my tent and polish them. Each guy would pay me a ha'penny a week. That was quite a good little racket. I also taught the lad to carve coconuts into faces and vases and stuff, and I would sell them to the troops as souvenirs.

"We called the Papuan boy Jackie. I don't think he ever did tell us what his real name was. He slept in our tent, at the foot of me cot bed.

"At that time our tents were very close to the river. We didn't know better yet. We did know that the crocs were likely to come ashore looking for prey, so we'd set up a row of tin cans on a wire along the top of the riverbank. The idea was that an invading croc would rattle the tin cans and wake us.

"Well, either the rattling cans thing didn't work, or we never heard them, or crocs are smarter than we thought, because the only thing I heard that night was the crash of the huge beast crashing though the wall of the tent, the scream of Jackie, then the slithering crashing as the monster headed back to the river with his dinner. A splash, then silence again for a moment, before the calls of the other blokes - 'What happened? What's goin' on?'

"We searched the river bank with flashlights and pressure lamps for signs of the croc - or Jackie - but found nothing. The poor little bugger had become tucker for a hungry giant. Only after we went back to our tents and our beds did the thought come to me that it could just have well have been me. I started to shiver, and thought it was from fear or something. I just couldn't stop. My shakes were rattling my whole cot.

"Jonno must have heard them and felt me shaking. He felt me forehead. I was sweating like mad, but felt deathly cold. Without saying a word, Jonno slipped into bed with me, and although the night was warm, wrapped himself around me freezing body to keep me warm. Only vaguely did I realize that his big dick was pressed against me back, but even in me fever I realized it was hard. I guess after that I became delirious.

"It was me first bout of malaria. The atabrine they forced us to take did save our lives from the disease, but it didn't stop us getting it. In some ways the atabrine was worse than the disease. It gave some of us the shits, severe headaches, painful pissing, and turned all of us yellow - even our eyes. And the tablets tasted bloody awful!

"I came to myself about three days later. Jonno had nursed me through that first bout of malaria.

"I found a picture of a bunch of us at the river, taken soon after that. It's as close as you're gonna get to seeing us naked. I called this photo 'Adams and Steves'. We are all hiding our cocks from the camera with large leaves. I'm on the right, looking kinda skinny after the three days of fever and sweating and shitting water.

"Anyway's soon after that, Jonno and me became lovers, as you blokes say these days. We called it 'best mates.' Nobody ever said homo or poofta, but we all knew what it really was.

"It started with us laying on our cots, bullshitting about before the war. It was another hot, jungle night. I was lying in me cot, under the mosquito netting, Jonno on his. I told him about your mother, and me becoming a dad the day before I was shipped out. I told him about you, and how I thought you'd be a footy hero. We had never talked about any of this sort of stuff before. I guess it wasn't manly, or something.

"I asked him, 'What about you? You married?'

"'Nah,' he said, sort of uninterested.

"'Got a girlfriend?' I asked him.

"'Nah,' he replied.

"'How come? A good-looking bloke like you? You could get any girl you wanted.'

"He was quiet for a bit, then he said, 'Not interested in girls. I like guys more. I'm a poofter.'

"'Bloody hell!' I replied, thinking he was maybe joking. 'You're bloody well not?'

"'I bloody well am,' he told me, ' and I hope you'l keep me secret.' If the army found out, he be dishonourably discharged, even sent to prison. It was a crime back then.

"I was quiet for a while as I took in what he had told me.

"'So you really do like the fellas?' I asked.

"'Yep.'

"I remembered vaguely his hard cock pressed against me during my fever. "And you like me that way, do ya?'

"'Yeah,' he said softly. 'But you don't have to worry. I'm not gonna rape you in your sleep or anything."

"'Fat chance,' I laughed.

"I considered what he had told me. I have to admit, I had a real hate on for those limp-wristed poofters you sometimes come across in the lounge section of the local pubs, but I really had nothing against two guys getting together in private. I was not exactly a virgin that way. One of me mates and I had played round a little when we was about fifteen. We sucked each others dicks, and bummied each other. No kissing or anything. That stuff was for faggots! It had only been a passing phase. We both moved on to sheilas.

"And his huge cock did interest me!

"The tent was lit by a hurricane lantern hanging from the ridge pole. Jonno had been laying in his cot, but now it was time for sleep. He got up to turn out the lantern, and was practically standing above me. Just before the light went out, I saw he had a stiffy.

"My God, son, that was a bloody big cock! I'd never seen anything like it. I didn't think I was a homo, but for the life of me, I wanted to reach out and touch that thing.

"I couldn't stop myself. "Hey, Jonno,' I said to him. 'Can I touch that thing to see if it's real or not?'

"'I was hoping you'd ask,' he replied. 'In case you hadn't noticed, I been randy as a billygoat for some time now.'

"I had noticed, actually. He seemed to always had a stiffy on these days, and it stuck through the fly hole of his army issue underwear and pressed his army issue shorts forward constantly.

"What I didn't realize was that I was the cause of that stiffy!

"Before I knew it, the naked Jonno had slipped under the mosquito net, and was sliding into bed with me, naked under the itchy army-issue wool blanket on that narrow army-issue cot. I must say, they built those cots strong in those days, not like the ones you can buy from Army Surplus these days. The spacers didn't break under our combined weight, and the canvas didn't tear.

"I didn't have to search for his cock. It was pressing right against me. I grabbed onto it. Shit, it was hard! And hot!

"Perhaps you don't want to hear these things from yer ol' dad, but it's what happened. I'm sure you and yer room-mate Carlo have done as much. Oh, yeah, I knew when you brought him to visit from Canada you two were far more than just roomies.

"Anyway, Jonno moaned when I grabbed his dick, as if it were the best thing that had ever happened. It surprised me then that my dick was also hard as a rock, and it was pushing against Jonno.

"'Can I touch yours?' he asked me.

"'Oh, God, yes," I agreed. I wanted someone, anyone to hold my dick, to wank me off. The two of us lay there together in the dark, jerking each others cocks off. It didn't take long for us both to cum, all over an army-issue khaki cotton handkerchief that I kept handy for catching my cum.

"Jonno slipped out of my cot an went back to his own after that.

"The next day neither of us said anything about it. It was not that I felt guilty or anything, I just needed to think about it, and about my friendship with him. Then I knew that I liked Jonno very much - much more than usual male friendships. Until then, I hadn't thought of it in terms of sex, but during that first day I admitted to meself that my attraction to him was also sexual.

"When he slipped into my cot uninvited that night, I took it for granted, sliding over to make room for him, grasping his cock automatically, enjoying the feeling of his hand on me cock, and all over me body. We got more and more free with each other every night after that.

"I said earlier that kissing and sissy stuff like that was for faggots. However, from the first time Jonno tried to kiss me, I didn't remember that. I didn't push him away. My mouth opened for his, and we squirmed together, locked at the mouth, while our dicks ground into each other.

"The first time he whispered that he wanted to bummy me - that's what we called it back then; not butt-fuck like today - I refused him. I was sure his big dick would tear me open. I did agree to fuck him, though. It had been over ten years since I had done this with me boyhood friend. I don't remember it being as wonderful as it felt when me dick first slipped into Jonno's ass and his bum muscles tightened round me.

"It took maybe a couple of weeks before I agreed to let him try to bummy me - after getting all sorts of promises from that he would go easy, that he would pull out as soon as I said it was hurting me, that he wouldn't cum or piss inside me. He greased us both up with the heavy Vaseline from our medical kits. I lay face down in the dark, holding me bum cheeks open, not knowing what to expect, even though he had loosened me up with one, then two, then three fingers.

"When his big knob entered me I thought I was being ripped open. It was all I could do not to scream bloody murder and wake the whole camp. To me own surprise, I didn't order him to pull out, but let him force his way further into me. All of a sudden, the pain was gone. All I could feel was the wonder of his shaft slowly sliding into me. He slid further and further into me. Each inch felt better than the one before. He came to a halt. Something inside me was blocking him. He stopped and wriggled himself on top of me and his cock inside me. Whatever it was unblocked itself, and Jonno's dick slid easily all the way into my ass.

"In spite of the small pain of his thick cock stretching me asshole, it felt terrific! I didn't just like this bloke - I loved him - and his cock in me! When he came inside me, I felt real. I felt that Jonno and I had been joined together, and now part of him was still inside me, mixing with me own juices deep in me innards.

"Night after night, our friendship got stronger As we became easier with and more open with each other in private, the closeness of our friendship became obvious to the other men. It was general knowledge that we were more than just 'friends', but no-one ever gave us a bad time about it. There were no taunts of 'faggot' or 'poof', just blokes accepting the situation. Oh, there was the occasional joking poke at us, such as 'Where's yer girlfriend this morning?' Funny thing in Aussie Land back then: If you called a guy your boyfriend, it just meant male friend as compared to a female friend, nothing sexual about it. But if someone called a your boyfriend your girlfriend, they were saying that they knew you two were getting it on. Words is funny, eh? One of the most open guys said: 'At least you two buggers are getting some. The rest of us poor bastards aren't!' But there was no hostility. Me and Jonno just was whatever we was!

"Things carried on like that at the mouth of the Fly from 1941 well into 1942. I guess it was August '42 when Jonno and me and a bunch of the other 'veterans'- even though we'd never seen any action - were flown back to Port Moresby further east on the New Guinea coast. One of those new Catalina Flying Boats we'd gotten from the Americans dropped into the river mouth one day carrying a bunch of new recruits - mostly 16 and 17 year olds, who were flown in to replace us. We 'old hands' - Jonno and I were 25 and 24 then - were needed to go up the so-called Buna Road, to help the 39th Battalion which was trying to keep the Japanese from coming across the mountain trail across the Owen Stanley Range to seize Port Moresby as a jumping off place to Australia. It was not a road by any stretch of the imagination. In some places it was strictly one man wide, climbing up jungle-covered cliffs.

"In the history book these days, they talk about it as the Kokoda Trail.

"It was only three weeks of actual combat conditions for Jonno and me, but it was the longest three weeks of me life. We set out on foot from Owens Corner, east of Moresby, in August, the hottest, wettest month of the year. It was only a track at the best of times, but already hundreds of men had gone up and down it and it was a sea of mud.

"Jonno and I didn't carry rifles. We were loaded down with medical supplies, although most of them were carried by a couple of native boys we'd hired as bearers. On our arms we wore the Red Cross bands of medical personnel, but we'd heard the Japanese didn't honour that international agreement.

"From the first day, far from the action, Jonno and I were called on to give first aid to all sorts of men - those going up the trail with us who had suffered accidental injuries, and those coming down the trail with combat wounds or poisonous bites from insects or reptiles, or malaria, or foot fungus, or gangrene.

"The trail rose up steep from the sea. The higher we went, the wetter it got in the daytime, and the colder it got at night. We huddled together under rubber ponchos trying to keep dry and warm, but it was bloody impossible.

"Mostly all we could do for the men was wrap up or stitch up their wounds and douse them with iodine; bleed nasty bites and hope Condy's Crystals and/or hydrogen peroxide would help; and give them kao-magma to try to slow up their dysentery so they didn't shit themselves to death, anti-fungals for the crotch rot and foot rot and under-arm rot and ass rot everyone had; and sulphur drugs for everything from sore throats to infected wounds to syphilis. Penicillin wasn't round in those days. It wasn't till the last year of the European campaign that it became easier to get.

"We slogged our way up that jungle track. It was really slow going for me and Jonno, because we were mostly kept busy treating other guys coming back down the trail.

"I only ever did get to see the enemy once, and that was a Japanese sniper who had been hurt. He hadn't been shot. He fell out of the tree where he had been lying in wait, and got run through by a smashed bamboo stalk. It had gone right through his guts. I had thought the Japanese would be hard evil baddies, but this chap was only a kid. I'd say he was sixteen, maybe. He was very afraid. He didn't want to die. There was not much I could do for him. I held his hand until he died, then left him there at the side of the trail.

"It was kind of a twist that soon after that we had an run-in with another Japanese sniper who killed both our porters and put Jonno and me out of action. The Japs didn't stick to the Geneva Convention on the Kokoda Trail. They targeted medics, because we were the guys that helped keep the other guys fit and fighting. He was at fairly long range, but he took out both our porters first. I suppose it was because both Jonno and I were bending to check on them that his third and fourth shots didn't kill us. Or maybe it was because the regular troops were already blasting away into the trees where he was hidden.

"He got Jonno first, in the thigh, and he fell. The bullet that got me in the shoulder knocked me face first into the mud. It felt like I'd taken a terrific punch. I waited for another shot, but it didn't come. Our blokes had got the sniper.

"Jonno was kneeling beside me in the rain and mud.

"'Bill, mate, are you OK?' he was asking, really worried. I hadn't moved yet. I rolled over, and the pain hit me.

"'Yer not gonna get rid of me that easily,' I told him.

"Some of the troops moved the bodies of the Papuans off the trail. Others asked about us, but there was not much they could do for us. We stumbled off the trail into the shelter of a jungle tree and tended to each other. Luckily I had been shot in the right shoulder, so me right arm was still OK to use.

"I dug the bullet out of Jonno first. I slipped his pants down to expose the bullet hole in his upper left thigh. I didn't use the morphine we carried, because we needed to remain on the ready. He didn't complain at all when I cut the wound open with a scalpel, nor when I dug in with forceps and pulled the bullet out. But he yelped like a baby when I stitched it up, and bitched like hell when I poured some sulphur powder in it before bandaging him up. As I bandaged it, he joked that I was just using it as an excuse to feel his nuts.

"He removed the bullet from my shoulder next. Fucking hell! I don't know why Jonno hadn't screamed in pain when I did his wound. I know I did when he dug in to pull the bastard bullet out of me.

"My wound was harder to bandage, but he covered it up with sticking plaster.

"We started back up the trail, but one of the officers ordered us to head back to the base camp some thirty kilometres or so behind us. He said wounded medics were no real use to anyone. We did as we were ordered, and started back down, me with me arm around to help him along a bit. He was limping badly.

"Things might have been OK, except for the bloody malaria. By the evening of that day as we hobbled down the trail, I had the sweats. We huddled together under a poncho cover we made and tried to keep warm and dry through the long cold night. Who'd have thought it could get so cold in the jungle?

"By morning, I was delirious. I only have odd memories of the next few days. From what I've been told, Jonno half-carried, half-dragged me down that bloody trail for four days, limping and stumbling and falling often.

"Blokes camping a the side of the trail would give him a hot cup of tea, or a spot of stew, but he wouldn't stop long.

"He would head off again, sometimes with me across his shoulders, sometimes with me in his arms.

"He would tell the chaps we passed, 'Gotta get him to hospital. He's me best mate.'

"By the time he reached base at Owens Corner, he was in not much better shape than I was, both of us covered in my puke and shit, and both our wounds infected. You've seen the bloody great scar it left me with.

"They trucked us both to the hospital in Port Moresby right away.

"When I woke up a few days later, I was weak as a kitten. Jonno was beside my bed, in a wheelchair.

"'Thought we'd lost you, mate," he told me.

"'Yer not getting rid of me that easy,' I mumbled and we both laughed.

"When we'd both recovered after a few more days, we were sent back to the Moresby base camp, where they sent us straight back to the Moresby hospital - as nurses' aides.

"It was a bloody good lurk. We lived at the hospital, even had one of the little staff bungalows in the back. Even had a native boy to do a our cleaning and stuff.

"We had to share the bungalow and its two bunk beds with two other blokes, both civilian aides, but that was OK. They was both queers, and soon got the picture that Jonno and me were 'friends,' and on their matching days off would scram off out of the place, leaving Jonno and I to play house and fuck each other to death.

"Life was good in Moresby, especially after the threat of being overrun by 'the Yellow Peril' had passed when the Japs retreated to the north coast and finally left New Guinea. Jonno and I were very happy together. We had three years there at Moresby Hospital - lots of loving, lots of fucking and sucking.

"At the end of the war we were recalled to the Moresby base again to wait for shipping orders. It was good to be back with some of our mates again, though some familiar faces were missing, lost in action on the bloody Kokoda trail. Over 600 blokes lost their lives on that bloody trail, some of them our mates. But it was till good to see some of the guys from the Fly.

"Did you see the snap of Jonno in the tub? It's a bit of a joke really, because it makes it look like a battlefield scene. The old shed behind us was on the edge of the camp, and it blew down in a hurricane. There's not even any water in the tub. The guys talked Jonno into posing. Think they just wanted a look at his cock. I'm not in the picture. I was using the Box Brownie. I forget the names of the other blokes in the photo. Never thought I would forget, but I did.

"Waiting to be shipped home was rather hard on me and Jonno. We were in a large bunkhouse, and couldn't get any time alone, except on weekend passes, and that was pretty well restricted to a quickie in the bush or on the beach when no-one was around. The rooms in the two hotels in Moresby were always booked right up by officers - and prostitutes.

"The Kodak picture with the dog is the last one ever taken with me and Jonno together in it. It's outside one of the mess-huts in the Moresby camp. We knew were were shipping home the next day, and we were saying goodbye to one of the search dogs. We were leaving them in Moresby because of quarantine problems. The fuzzy-wuzzies loved them and would take good care of them. You can see some of the native boys in the background. That's Jonno with his hand on the dog. I'm right in the middle of the picture, the blonde with the part down the middle.

"We didn't quite realize then that our life together was pretty-well over. When the troop ship came to take us home, both of us being listed as "walking wounded" we were lucky enough to get assigned to four-bunk cabins, even though they were different cabins. We traded tobacco and chocolate and other favours with our cabin mates to move in together, and we traded more favours to get to be alone for one last night, the night before we reached Sydney. It was the last time that Jonno were to fuck - and make love - for a lot of years.

"At the wharf in Sydney, we said our last goodbyes. We actually hugged and kissed, and none of the other blokes turned a hair. Jonno was stuck on a train to Brisbane, where he came from. I was stuck on a train to Albury, and then Melbourne, and then to Adelaide, and then to Port Augusta, and then Kalgoorlie, changing trains every bloody time, and finally to Perth, where I was demobbed, and came home to you and your mum.

"You cried when you first saw me. You were five by then, but you'd never seen me before and you were scared of strangers.

"Jonno and I had promised we'd write, but I came down with another bout of malaria as soon as I got home, and I'd no sooner got out of hospital with that before I got bloody pneumonia.

"By the time I was up and about again, all thoughts of writing had gone - mostly because I'm not used to writing letters. I think I only wrote about four to your mum all through the war, and as you know, I've only ever written one to you, and that was on the back of a piece of cardboard from a Wheaties packet, when you first went to Canada.

"He wrote me postcards three or four times, but I am ashamed to say I never ever answered them. When your mum asked me about the cards I got, I just said, 'Oh, just from some bloke I knew in Moresby,' and left it at that. Jonno stopped writing. But I never really forgot about him. Or stopped loving him - but we were back in the real world now, the peace-time world, where mates were just friends, nothing more.

"I did see him once more, about twenty years after the war. I was president of our local Returned Soldiers League and went on a national convention in Sydney. You may remember me going. Your mum didn't get to come, because the RSL would not pay the costs for spouses.

"The show was at a posh hotel in Sydney, one of the big new ones that were shooting up at that time. I even had me own suite. I felt like some rich movie star or something.

"Imagine my surprise, at the big welcoming dinner on the very first night, to see who else but Jonno seated at the very next table to me. We both saw each other at the very same time. We leapt up and raced to each other. We started with a polite manly handshake, but soon dropped that in favour of a great big hug. It wasn't quite the 'done thing' for guys to hug in public back then, but this was a reunion for many long lost friends, and it didn't cause any raised eyebrows.

"We soon arranged for one guy to change tables with me so Jonno and I could sit together. There was no accusing questions like 'Why didn't you write' or anything like that. We were just happy to be together. But it was real tough sitting through the dinner and the long-winded speeches.

"At the end of the speeches and toasts, I whispered to Jonno, "Wanna come up to my room?'

"'Bloody oath, I do!' he answered, and we were out of there like a shot. We scooted straight up there, shut the door behind us and fucked each other silly right then - and every time we could escape from one of the meetings or events. He stayed with me in my suite for the full four days.

"When we said goodbye, we promised we would keep in touch this time, but we never did. Sad, eh?

"Which brings me to the point of my story here: I want you to do something for me. On the back of the photo with the dog is Jonno's address. I got hold of it through me RSL contacts. 'Cedric Johnstone, c/o some Retirement Home in some resort town in Queensland.' That's his real name, Cedric. You can understand why he called himself Jonno! I want you to get in touch with Jonno for me.

"If you are back here in Oz when you listen to this, maybe you could go visit him, or maybe ring him. Or if you are back in Canada, write to him.

"I just want to you tell him one thing: I loved him. I never stopped loving him. He was me best mate, always.

"As things were, Jonno and I could never be together, because I really did love your mum - I still miss her even though she's been gone five years - and you and your brother and your sister. But you and Carlo can be together. Things are different these days. I hear that in Canada you can even get married. If you and Carlo ever do get married, you know you have my blessing.

"I love you, son.

"Dad."

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