Unshakable Dreams

1. Alisdair’s Letter My first meeting with Alisdair Schultz took place during my days at the Victoria University of Wellington. By then I had spent some ten years in this fair city and consequently considered myself an Honorary New Zealander. Alisdair’s letter came when I was preparing an important document on behalf of the Professorial Board. The Government was seeking to abolish our generous sabbatical leave scheme. It was thought that a Report in its support, prepared by a professor who had migrated to New Zealand after a successful career overseas, would sound convincing. I was expected to say that the leave scheme had lured me away from thriving Singapore. ...

1. Dean O’Flyn The Dean at Monash was a tall, self-made Irishman, whose parents had left Dublin at about the very time that mine had, out of necessity, migrated from Vienna to Israel. The O’Flyn family was poor and Ted had to pull himself up by his bootstraps. He supported himself right from his teens by working at the docks, got admitted to University and, spurred by the desire to prove his point, finished his law course with distinction. According to the grapevine, he had worked some sixteen hours a day! ...

1. Return to Singapore My wife - alas - did not like Melbourne any better than Wellington. She kept castigating me for my having failed to investigate the place properly before I took her there. The domestic problems, resulting from her inability to get accustomed to Australian society, kept bringing pressure on me. Whilst this situation induced me to get engrossed in my individual research work, it also produced a sense of isolation which started to affect my university work and standing in the Faculty. Eventually, my inability to relax led to genuine disruptions with Ted’s successor to the Deanship. A further change of scenery started to look advisable. As I was becoming convinced my wife could not find her feet in any place except her hometown, and in close proximity to her large family, there was little room for choice. The move, she kept nagging me to make, was further dictated by another, rather more positive, consideration. I was, in reality, approaching retirement, had made my mark in my own field and the University of Singapore, where I had made my start in academic life, was developing a special interest in my main area of work. The offer made to me, when I sent out feelers, was financially irresistible. After months of indecision, induced by doubts and fears concerning my ability to start afresh once again at this rather late stage in my professional life, we went. ...

1.Leave in Hambourg Another three years passed by since this last, most revealing, encounter with Alisdair. During this period I published additional learned articles, won some court cases and was defeated in a number of others. Also, I lost the remnants of what had once been an acceptable shock of hair. Although Mei Ling kept her word and organised a period of study leave, I had to postpone embarking on it as one of my collaborators left the Faculty in order to pursue a far more lucrative career at the Bar. All, though, ended well. A famous Institute in Hamburg, which hosted the best comparative law library in Europe, awarded me a prestigious fellowship and, at long last, I departed for four months of a much needed refresher cum study leave. ...

Back in Singapore, I have had quite a few occasions to think of this latest development. Somehow, the slate has been wiped clean. On three occasions Alisdair had, unwittingly, done me a good turn. In the end I repaid my debt to him, even if not quite as innocently. In some bizarre fashion, our respective careers became intertwined. I knew my side of the story and was amused by it, although the last laugh was at my expense. I often think it would be nice to hear the story as told by Alisdair. But Löwe, who might have worked out both tales, is too discrete to disclose to the one party what he gleaned from the other. ...