Laurence Leonard Dowling : a man for all seasons

Laurence Leonard Dowling, born in 1915 in Albany Western Australia was a man of few words but with a history of life experience that is testimony to the troubled times in which he lived: the Great Depression, the Second World War and the unaddressed problems of a wartime survivor. A childhood of poverty, schooled in a life of hard knocks, he remained a stoical survivor despite life's many adversities. He fought in El Alamein as well as Tobruk and received an oak leaf for his courage. Descended from a long line of miners, he found solace for his soul prospecting for gold in the outback of Western Australia which was the only medicine he knew for his soul that had been ravaged by war. As my father, he inspired my love for the Australian bush, gifted me his love of Australian poets, the stars, the fl owers and the natural world. He was a man of action, an incisive thinker, courageous and generous and one who was well acquainted with this land, its pastoral stations, fi shing and mining industries, and heavy manufacture. He had turned his hand to it all including building sections of the remote Trans-Australian railway line across the Nullabor plain. He was a poet and a dreamer even in his darkest hours. Laurie was a true Australian patriot and pioneer of extraordinary talents which he applied in both the good and bad times. He was indeed a "man for all seasons."