THE MOTHER OF my daughter’s best friend called him ‘the composer’. She said she bought ironbark honey from him, and that he had a violin for sale. I told her it had to be a good one; Mei was entering Brisbane’s Young Conservatorium Orchestra, and I felt it was time she had an instrument befitting the music she would be playing.

‘It’ll be a good one if he owns it,’ she said. ‘He’s a real composer, you know.’