On the evening of Thursday September 5, my oldest friend, Ken Gooding, died of cancer at home in the Sydney suburb of Rozelle. At his side, were his daughter Nicole and his devoted second wife Iliana. They were married on November 6 2021, Ken’s 80th birthday.

Ken Gooding and I grew up close to each other in the Melbourne suburb of East Brighton – he in Elizabeth Street, me at 41 Charles Street.

In the 75 years we knew each other, Ken and I never had an argument. This was even the case when, during the years I was drinking alcoholically, I’d often arrive at his home in the Melbourne suburb of Elwood at three or four in the morning, as pissed as a fart.

Especially when I began studying history, politics and economics at Monash University in the 1960s, Ken was my intellectual inspiration. He had preceded me at Gardenvale Central School and Melbourne Boys High School.

But because parents often blame others for the wayward ways of their children, my mother Edna and especially my father Bill, who had captained Collingwood seconds in the Victorian Football League, would complain: “If it wasn’t for that dreadful Ken Gooding down the road, our beautiful boy Ross wouldn’t have gone off the rails!”

Yet, as I explain in my two memoirs My Name is Ross: An Alcoholic’s Journey and Fifty Years Sober, it was Ken who was instrumental in getting me back to Alcoholics Anonymous in Melbourne and help me on the path to recovery. This was despite the fact that Ken didn’t have a drinking problem himself.

Ever since my late wife and friend of 45 years, Lyndal Moor, moved back to Sydney in 2001, Ken and I celebrated brunch in a nearby Timorese cafe, almost every Sunday. It was only four months ago that for the very first time the energetic Ken said “I don’t fell well.”

According to the Hindu holy book, The Mahabharata “Death strikes every day, but we so often live as though we were immortal.” A week later, Ken was diagnosed with incurable brain cancer.

Darling Lyndal and our only child Emerald both loved Ken to bits.

Shortly before Lyndal died of cancer in January 2020, I vividly remember over what was to be the last meal we shared at our Redfern terrace “Greystoke”, Lyndal, Ken & I were discussing what makes a true champion.

Out of the blue, Ken quoted the American boxer Jack Dempsey, who from 1919 to 1926 had been the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

Dempsey, who dropped out of school after 8th grade said, “ A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.”

Kenneth William Gooding will be deeply missed.

Ross Fitzgerald AM is Emeritus Professor of History & Politics at Griffith University. He is the author or co-author of forty-five books.

Ken Gooding & Ross Fitzgerald, “Greystoke”, Redfern, 24 December 2008

Photo Lyndal Moor