A special Diggies someone has left the valley. Vale Dave King, dear friend, dear brother, who cherished this place, and we him.

Dave wasn’t a full-time resident, but he made it as often as he could, especially for the Folk Festival and to ring in the New Year. We all knew when he was home at “the worst block on the best road” when the yard became a carpark due to all the visitors, the teapot constantly pouring, and the jams sometimes going loud and late. Morning found Dave sitting on the shack deck watching birds, listening to the creek, soaking up sun under the peach tree.

Dave grabbed these Diggies moments with both hands, because his time here was fleeting, precious and hard worked for. This could be said for all of us, but as a quadriplegic Dave had to line up a lot of support and care workers to make travel possible, and the long drive hurt like hell. This made every sighting of a king parrot or tawny frogmouth, every visit to the pecan patch, the juice of every orange from the orchard, that much sweeter.

Getting away from work was hard for Dave as he supported disabled students through the TAFE education system. With his gentleness, his playful use of language, his quirky sense of humour, and respectful treatment of people that I can only describe as a radical decency, I bet a lot of people enjoyed the benefits of an education thanks to his loving encouragement.

By far Dave’s best fun was dreaming, planning and executing projects. Sometimes bonkers and at other times genius, the projects could be new water tanks, shed improvements, tree propagation, or garden beds, but each idea took a lot (a lot) of discussion and deliberation.  His place evolved slowly, but surely, to become an accessible bush retreat that he sometimes called Diggers Rest, and other times Jaffle Rock Rise after a jaffle iron that sustained him on early visits to his beloved shack. I found a poem he wrote about it today:

The shack evolves
Unwittingly?
Unwillingly? No! It’s happy, it’s smiling
like its current possessor.

The light shines,
The life lives,
The candle burns, …. for a moment
then it’s gone.

The peach tree bends with the wind
The shack composts with time.

Now the decomposition is arrested
and evolution takes a different track.

The last time I hung out with Dave, his carers and friends had gone shopping. It was a rare moment alone. Feeling unwell, he had bounced back after a nap. Luckily, I had a batch of piping hot scones with me, and also some of Sally’s fig jam and a jar of Rici’s raspberry.  We scoffed 3 or 4 scones each, played with his dog Heidi and talked about some projects.  His long struggle in hospital started soon after the long drive home.

A musician, a genius gardener, a brilliant cartoonist, an obsessive chicken enthusiast, a dreamer, poet, wordsmith, Bob Dylan tragic, and total sweetie has left us. Diggies is poorer with Dave gone.  We are planning to dance with him and friends from far and wide under fairy lights in the pecan patch come midsummer to shake the grieving time out.  See you there.