Don't GOOGLE me, I GOOGLE you!

Helmut and I raise our glasses in June 2011 at the Lake Eacham Hotel,
the one and only Husbands' Daycare Centre in Yungaburra

 

I always visit bookshops, so when I toured the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland in mid-2011, I called in at the Spencer & Murphy Booksellers in Yungaburra which was minded for a few days by Helmut Brix, a fellow-German who'd come to Australia and also passed through Bonegilla in 1961, four years before me.

 

Helmut's Bonegilla registration card indicating he stayed there for just over a month, after which he was hired by KODAK Australia in Abbotsford and lived at the Maribyrnong Migrant Hostel in Melbourne

 

Helmut 'holding the fort' at Tony's bookshop

 

Entry in National Archives of Australia: "BRIX Helmut Franz born 9 December 1938 - German - travelled per MIKLM departing in 1961 under Australian German Migration Agreement" Perhaps I ought to request a full copy of his immigration papers in celebration of our short and accidental meeting and ensuing friendship which lasted for several years. And I did - click here.

Being almost seven years older than me, Helmut immediately settled in Melbourne and finished up with a wife, children, mortgage, the lot - or, as Zorba the Greek called it so fittingly, "the full catastrophe".

 

A young Helmut Brix in his camerashop in St Kilda

The new shop was at 177 East Boundary Road, Bentleigh East

Helmut in his former career as Camera repairman

 

Fifty years later, he said goodbye to his grown-up kids, told his wife he needed time to himself, and travelled north. In Yungaburra he found friends and a free flat in exchange for looking after several more, and I admired (and envied) him for the ease with which he had escaped from half a century of domesticity. Lotus-eating in Bali or Bora Bora next?

 

Helmut's new-found domesticity at Yungaburra.
A romantic at heart, this one must've got him in:
"Liebes Laube" means "Love Shack"

 

However, we all seem to be creatures of habit because a few months on he told me he had bought a house at 17 Currawong Avenue, Yungaburra and turned domestic again! (he bought it in July 2011 for $430,000; after his death it was sold in March 2019 for $355,000; the new owners carried out some renovations and advertised it for sale in March 2023 for $675,000; it sold the following month for $600,000. Pity you never spent that money in Bali or Bora Bora, Helmut!)

Which is where the story should end, except when I GOOGLEd him, I found he had escaped again, this time for good:

 

born 9 December 1938 - died 18 March 2018

 

Rest in Peace, my friend, and I'm glad we had those beers together. I'll stay off GOOGLE for a bit as this has been enough bad news for one day.