My husband Andrew, who began this blog in October 2007, died peacefully on September 3rd 2012, at the age of 83, after long and well-controlled illness culminating in a sudden, brief decline. He worked on his autobiography for years but never completed it. Instead he left behind various pieces of life writing which would have formed part of it. I will gradually include this material here, giving the dates on which the pieces were written. I'll also add some of my own reminiscences and items of information I have about him. At some point this blog will become an archive, without further additions. — Rosemary Nissen-Wade

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Heart Trouble Begins

The pain stabbed across my chest as I walked up Toorak Road toward my car.

It was like a belt being pulled tight around my heart which was pumping harder to keep up the flow of blood.

I stopped and held onto the iron fence rail next to me, waiting for the throbbing to subside.

It was November ’93 and over the previous month or so the pain had worsened.

I was under a lot of stress. My job, as Coordinator of the Watchdog Association, had brought me in contact with corruption at many levels of society, and my sense of frustration and anger had, I thought, brought about  a metaphysical, not a physical result.

‘Go to the doctor, Sweetheart,’ my wife Rosemary had urged.

At first I resisted. I couldn’t see the point. I wasn’t dying. It would go away, I thought. I just needed to slow down.

But it didn’t. I said nothing to my work mates. I didn’t want to promote any feeling of ill-health.

Then there were other messages.


Andrew was obviously planning to write the whole story of his heart problems but got no further at this time. He had a very successful triple bypass and valve replacement in 1995, by which time we were living near Murwillumbah, NSW — Rosemary


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