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