Scotch College

Scotch College: Great Scot: Lunch with Jim

Lunch with Jim

Newly sworn-in Tasmanian Premier, Jim Bacon ('67) hosted this year's Richard Hogg Memorial Lunch in Hobart on Friday, October 9.

The annual lunch is held by a group of Scotch friends reunited sadly through the death of one of their central members.

The Hobart lunch was the fifth held in the memory of Richard, who died after a long struggle with cancer on 30 September 1993.

The 1998 lunch was held in Hobart - the first time away from the traditional haunts in Melbourne - to celebrate the election of one of the group of friends as the leader of the first majority Labour Government in Tasmania for nearly 20 years.

'I met Richard and David Ball on my first day at Scotch, as a terrified seven year old in 1957' Jim said. 'We struck up an immediate friendship which lasted, and strengthened for ten years - wonderful and sometimes difficult years for us all.

I am very grateful to Tom Hogg and Andrew Fairley (unfortunately overseas this year), and Dave Ball for giving us the chance to re-ignite old friendships - as if the gap of more than 30 years had just disappeared.'

The group of friends - which grew over the years to include Simon Laurie, Frank Edwards, Ian Goddard, John Field and Rodger Morton - was, as usual, joined for lunch by Richard's father Tom. 'Tom and Billa were very good to me and my family when my father died when I was twelve' Jim said. 'I was especially pleased that he and Richard's brother Charlie were able to come to Hobart.'

The whole group was later entertained in the new Premier's office with their partners and Richard's widow Louise, for pre-dinner drinks.

'Although we now work in diverse fields, the strong bond of friendship always makes for lively conversation, and we are united in the view that long lunches (at least annual ones) should not become a distant memory, no longer to be enjoyed,' said Jim.