In this very special series of exclusive articles for the Property Chronicle, Australian property legend Norman Harker reflects on his extraordinary 50-year life in real estate. He will pull no punches partly because, as he freely admits, Norman has a limited life expectancy of five years from December 2018 due to a diagnosed terminal blood cancer, which he has cheerfully accepted in preference to (in his words) “kicking the bucket without notice”. We are honoured he has chosen us to publish these brilliant, funny and incisive reflections of a lifetime in property.

The half-a-dozen readers who have survived this far will have learned that very little that I write can be believed. In this chapter I just say, “Trust me! I’m a valuer, and I’m just trying to defer an appointment with the Grim Reaper.”

Now that I have lost all remaining credibility by saying, “Trust me!”, I’ll jump the period from my retirement to the peak of my bad health. I was carted off in horizontal extreme agony at 3:00AM one morning with advanced osteoporosis to the ICU at the local hospital. 

The best description of the pain is that it is the same as cramp that you may suffer in one muscle. The difference is that covers your whole torso on the smallest of movements and doesn’t pass off after a few minutes. It’s a fate I wouldn’t wish even on an ex-wife and her boyfriend. After taking more blood than Dracula on a feeding binge, X-Rays, and being scanned by cats the  ICU doctor, told me he was confused by a high calcium reading.

I told him that as an academic I’d used lots of chalk in the old days. He totally ignored that useful information and said he was referring me to a specialist at the large teaching hospital 21km away.

Dracula on a feeding binge and cat scans

I was transported at very slow speed over dead knights, to avoid being jolted by the 2,672 bumps on the road from the local hospital to the Nepean Cancer Care Centre. (I still can’t see why they ‘care’ for cancer rather than exterminate it). They took yet another bloody test and then drew cards as to who was going to tell me the result. The consultant haematologist, Dr. Man Yuk Ho, lost. 

She told me I had multiple myeloma and that she could get me mobile and free of pain but that I had a ‘use by date’ of five years. I immediately shook her hand and said I accepted her offer and that it was a great deal. Not for the first time, I rather confused her. 

I explained that I was expecting to ‘kick the bucket’ without notice. Five years, vertical, and without pain! It  was the best experience I’d had since we white-washed the Poms 5-0 in the 2006-7 Test Cricket series. That first time it had been done in 86 years of Test history.

The best news since 2006-7 Whitewash of the Poms 5-0

To avoid paperwork, nine various health participants have shunted me Hither and Thither (not shown on most maps). They made all sorts of tests and tried various ideas. They succeeded in removing pain and extending putting off instantaneous bucket kicking. Drugs are fortunately free for me under the Australian health scheme. I’d paid a special tax without any return for 25 years in Australia and years before that in UK. I’m getting my monies-worth now.

The poor health professionals didn’t know what they’d let themselves in for. Each of the nine participants was producing documents and sending them on their turbo-charged computers with go-faster stripes. The trouble was that they weren’t being received and, worst of all, they weren’t getting ‘failed send’ reports back.

Their worst problem was that the Medical World had its own version of Balrog (referred to previously). The administrative system was run by “professional” administrators rather than medically trained administrators. They didn’t know one end of a patient’s digestive tract from another. They also didn’t know the law drilled into every health professional about patients’ rights to properly informed consent.

As far as Balrog was concerned, I still only had the type of ring that we don’t mention in Australia. But I had experience. Using my renowned, charm, good looks, tact, and size 11 boots, I decided to intervene when things started to get ‘concerning’.

The Balrog appears again

I’m concocting this chapter in April 2022. It still hasn’t been sorted out and properly covered up to protect the guilty. But in Nov – Dec 2021 I had to ensure proper communication by sending by email attachment or did personal deliveries. I also had several telephone calls where I had to put my foot down with a firm hand:-

“When I picked it up and said “Hello”
This foot came through the line”

Bob Dylan: “Bob Dylan’s 115^th Dream”; Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

I ensured that the treatment was the treatment advised during a consultation with Man Yuk Ho. We had meticulously checked the regulated treatments from the source data. If I had not ensured Man Yuk Ho’s ‘specifications’ were followed, despite what computers ‘said’, I would have had a series of un-necessary, contrary to regulation, and risky treatments. It could have also risked various serious regulatory actions.

My years of following my nose through Excel had paid off in allowing me to deduce where another system was going wrong. But it was my underlying ‘tenacious but awkward’ character fault that combined with that to save me from the Medical system’s Balrog. I’m not feted to disappear quietly like Bilbo and Frodo! I could have been much more quietly diplomatic, but Balrogs don’t respond to that.

Despite how all the above may read, I was having great fun. I still have more Balrogs to defeat. And I still have to complete my magnum opus the free of copyright, spam and VBA excelfunctionbible for the benefit of the property profession and all Excel users.

Trouble is that here are only 24 hours a day a seven days a week for 365 days a year. Long days at the computer are my greatest enjoyment after playing and educating my beautiful granddaughters.