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who was and is a total joy. She had the most amazing voice and was hilarious in sketches. Many years later I saw her perform as Miss Hannigan in a matinee of Annie in Century City, Los Angeles and had dinner with her after the show. Years later again, we flew her over to Perth to perform in cabaret at DownStairs at the Maj with the gloriously urbane Stuart Wagstaff who played Professor Higgins in ‘My Fair Lady’ in Australia plus hosted, very successfully, several television shows, Stuart sadly just recently passed away. Toni’s talent was as keen as it was years ago and she and Stuart delivered a stunning show. A friend of ours, Kevin Coxhead, along with David Mitchell , recently helped organise a tribute to Toni at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne. So well deserved!
    I remember waking up one morning with excruciating pain on the right side of my stomach, which Mum insisted was just wind, so she gave me a dose of bicarbonate soda. I can’t really blame her because I was quite the hypochondriac. Later that day I was walking down Collins Street in Melbourne when I collapsed in pain and came to in a doctor’s surgery with the doctor’s finger inside my rectum! I was pacified when he said that by touching certain spots inside my rectum he could tell I had bad appendicitis. I was rushed to hospital and shaved - this time professionally by a nurse - who told me that she had a cold spoon for any men who may become aroused. Believe me, I was far from aroused! After the operation the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was my appendix in a jar - it was all twisted and looked like a spring because it was just about to burst, so they saved my life.
    The above incident reminds of a more recent one involving a similar part of my anatomy. I used to suffer from the most debilitating migraines from the age of about fifteen and all through my years with Su. Last year after a brain scan - some may be surprised to find out that I have a brain - the migraines were diagnosed as ‘cluster headaches’, also called ‘the suicide disease’ because the pain associated with them is so excruciating. However, earlier back in Perth I had found a doctor who prescribed suppositories for migraines. I think they may have contained a bit of morphine. One night I was in agony with an acute migraine so I popped in a suppository and waited and waited, to no avail, so I popped in another and then another. Talk about a full house! Suddenly I was violently ill from both ends of my body for hours. Finally, as I was starting to black out Sach called an ambulance. When it arrived they found that because I had lost so much fluid my heart had gone into atrial fibrillation, a dangerous condition. They told me to sit there while they got the stretcher and as they left the room they asked Sach if I was his FATHER! That riled me so much that I ignored waiting for the stretcher and as sick as I was I literally stormed - more like staggered - into the back of the ambulance and then collapsed! How dare they?
    To help me recuperate Dad and Mum sent me back to Perth by train for a couple of weeks’ holiday. However, half way across the Nullabor Plain in the midst of the longest straight stretch of train line in the world - 477 kilometers - there was a sudden storm that washed away part of the track. It was going to take at least two days to fix and there was no air-conditioning. On the second day, because of the heat, many passengers washed their clothes in the sink in their compartment and left them overnight to dry on small bushes. The next morning most of the clothes were gone, apparently taken by some of the desert dwellers! I remember one woman screaming out, ‘ There go my bras. That woman is wearing my bloody bras !’ It is quite funny looking back. Also on the train was a young woman who was determined to get me into her bunk. I was so obviously gay she must have seen me as a challenge. She asked me to kiss