This is a story of love, death and grief. John Martin and Helene Chung met as students at the University of Tasmania in 1963. Thirteen years later, when he was a lecturer in history at the Gordon Institute of Technology in Geelong, and she an ABC television reporter in Hobart, she interviewed him on This Day Tonight — an interview that sparked a lifelong romance.

In 1991, when the couple were living in Melbourne, John underwent apparently successful surgery for colon cancer but, a year later, an inoperable tumour was found in his pelvis. In 1993 he was suddenly admitted to hospital again, with an obstructed bowel. Although John and Helene thought he would be home within days, surgery was needed and he proved too weak to recover. John died peacefully and painlessly, Helene by his side.

Overwhelmed by her sense of loss, Helene wrote Gentle John as a private memoir to cope with her grief. And as she says in An Afterword, written after her decision to publish with Hill of Content in 1995:

‘This … is my tribute to John, my gesture towards life, an attempt through exposure to heal my wound. And if this becomes a vehicle to transport a few others some way in their own painful journey through grief, my tears will not have been in vain.’

A While

Wednesday, 27 October 1993

I will put on my dancing shoes but not yet awhile
I will put on my dancing shoes but still I cannot smile
I will put on my dancing shoes and walk into the sun
but while my heart is freshly laden
I must quiet myself in the shade

The man I loved is no more
His gentle touch has gone
But though I am in grief
I see his smiling face
And feel his presence in myself