Bill MacGregor

tribute by PETER ENGLAND. rILL, there’s another old-timer gone. They don’t come like that any more, and the few it are left are getting a bit lonely . they see their old comrades idle up, one by one, for the last ig ride over the border . . .

Jill Macgregor was a man. He s a bushman too, and a horse n, and an adventurer; and a e man in the days when there 5 still freedom in the world, n the 1914-18 war Bill, with ther Roy, rode with the ht Horse in the campaigns ich made the emu-feather cock famous throughout the world, i the early twenties he was in Solomons, when conditions were it tougher, and natives not quite tame, as they are now. There a story of some trouble with authorities. Anyway, somewhere ind 1928 he came over to New nea. He did short terms i an oil company, with the ro. Board as a plantation in fer, then he joined Reg Beazley a recruiting venture on the k. .11 couldn’t be long without his ved horses. He landed a team pack and saddle-horses at ienberg with the idea of using n on his recruiting trips. This not a success. The narrow 3t tracks, the swampy plains, the rivers of the Sepik valley far from ideal for horses, the early thirties, he put in a years as a plantation manager -rang. Later, about ’35, he tried uck, with some succbss, on the rik goldfield. Later still he ;ed gold on the Maramuni and }aramambu. He was at the r when war broke out. joined up again and, attached arious branches of the Allied s. gave valuable and dis lished service throughout the

ic campaign.

len the fighting was over and 3 rovisional Administration was ling down to the task of getting country under control again, put in some 12 months as a ict Services Officer and played >art in rehabilitation and re ruction. t the bush called again, and in ft work boat, bought from the •sals Commission, he went back ie Sepik, prospecting. He tried :he Karawari, but with poor -P he was offered the job of lishing an experimental cattle n on the Baiyer River for the ulture Department. He took it n Bill was starting to feel it ime he settled down. He was with his horses and his cattle . Starting from nothing he up the station: houses, stores,

fences, yards, pastures. He got together a herd of first-class stock . . . And there he died, in the bush that he loved, surrounded by the work of his hands.

There was another side to Bill too. Just as he worked hard, he played hard. There are legends of Bin, S..U, „n i,.„. „„ hu

Ch o2U 6 in trad j tion al bushman style ~™ d 80 ®e of Bill’s cheques were pretty substantial ones. . A suite at one of Sydney’s lead ing hotels, a valet, a chauffeur-driven limousine standing by day and champagne, night clubs, theatres, parties—whatever Bill did ne did in a big way. Although he

was always a bushman, he was a playboy, & gallant, a fan breaker of hearts. In his yom days he was said to be the ha somest man in New Guinea, E Flynn chucked in. There is story of a lady anthropologist came to the Sepik to devote hei strictly to the study of na culture . . .

Yes . . . Bill was a man, right. And I guess there’s not n room left for his type here more. Well, where he’s gone won’t be troubled with permits visas and ordinances and a pac petty officials yapping round heels. It’ll be just like old t: to Bill.

But the world will be just a ] poorer, a little colder . . .