He was tall, loose-limbed and dark-haired, with a blue-eyed gaze whose piercing intensity was mitigated by the amiable, good humoured look to him, and a generous smile that softened his Heathcliff-like mien. He appeared in the doorway of my Flinders University study one day in early February 1971 and asked if I was the one who was starting a course in Australian literature. His voice was soft and melodic, his accent beautifully Irish.
I told him yes, I was the one and invited him in. His name was Bernard Neeson, better known even then as 'Doc', although throughout the friendship that blossomed from that day, I always called him Bernard. His main interests were drama and film at both of which he excelled, but he was also an excellent literature student.
Beyond the academic walls, he was a member of the Moonshine Jug and String Band which came from nowhere, took the Adelaide music scene by storm, metamorphosed into the Keystone Angels and then, in 1975, after a string of successes, The Angels.
We saw a lot of each other in those years, until the fame of The Angels began to take him on national and international tours. He would often visit us in the Adelaide Hills and it was during one long conversation that he told me something of his early life.
Born in Belfast in 1947, he grew up amid the intensifying horrors of 'The Troubles' and, as a Catholic boy — he would in later years refer to himself as 'a recovering Catholic' — he witnessed and often fled from the brutality and naked violence for which that conflict became infamous. Eventually his parents emigrated and Bernard and his brothers grew up in Adelaide.
He was terrific with little kids and a great favourite of my young family. He would arrive unannounced to bring us signed copies — 'Doc Neeson/E=MC²' — of Angels albums as they appeared. One day I asked him how long he intended to follow the rock'n'roll path, given that he was highly qualified in the fields of drama and film. His answer, with a wry smile, was, 'Till it peters out, Brian. Till it gives me up.'
Gradually, sadly, I lost track of him. His name would pop up at various times in the press and once, when the band came to Adelaide, I tried but failed to get tickets and left a note for him, but I think