By Stan Joyce
In 1942, a country baker—then an army Gunner—married a sales girl in Sydney. Returning in 1944 from Papua New Guinea, he met his 18-month-old son, christened Alwyn but evermore called Stanley.
In Telegraph Point, NSW, Stanley led an idyllic childhood, free to roam rivers and forests—provided the two house cows had been milked and the pigs, ducks, and chooks fed.
Schooled at Telegraph Point, Kempsey, and Wauchope, I placed 94th in the NSW Leaving Certificate. After a year delivering bread in Wauchope, four years followed at UNE in Armidale, culminating in a BSc with First Class Honours and a University Medal in Geology.
Acceding to an ultimatum regarding parachuting, I married at 21 and spent two years in Canberra as a BMR geologist, then three years gaining a PhD in Geochemistry at ANU.
In Canberra, the shocking stillbirth of our first son was followed by the successful birth of our second. During six years as a geology lecturer in Adelaide, a third son was born and a daughter adopted.
Near Adelaide, my first glider flight crashed, causing a second veto. Consolation came in the form of geological exploration in New Zealand’s Fiordland, working from helicopters in rugged terrain and bad weather. You take your adrenaline where you can find it! That was followed by mineral exploration in the wild forests of western Tasmania.
In Brisbane, I was Head of Applied Geology at QIT, but after five years I became an independent consultant. That allowed me to roam foreign locations, where I could be stalked variously by Communist rebels or Muslim insurgents.
On Mindanao, I accepted that the cooked fingers in my stew were not human—just those of a hapless monkey. Near the Afghan border in Pakistan, I learned that goats are smarter than some humans: they ate all vegetation except wild marijuana. Perhaps marijuana-loving goats don’t breed because they miss their footing on cliff faces.
After 20 years in Brisbane, my wife and I relocated to two acres of paradise in Reesville to spend our dotage. But in 2022, disaster struck: after nearly 58 years of happy marriage, my beloved wife died.
My consulting work had taken me to New Zealand, PNG, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Thailand. Our private travels added Singapore, Malaysia, Vanuatu, China, Britain, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovakia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland.
So, I now find myself downsized to a villa in Maleny, occupying myself with sports and clubs—none of which adequately occupy me, nor do they satisfy my interest in travel or adrenaline. My eyes remain peeled for an adventurous companion.