A 'good bloke' who helped me become a local

One’s public acceptance as a local is measured in many ways; personally it arrives when you attend a funeral of someone who is unquestionably a local.

The late Chris McPherson -
a 'good bloke' who
always 'had your back'.

That sense of being a local arrived sometime late in the 1980s when I was standing talking with friends after the funeral of a fellow I had got to know quite well since arriving in Shepparton earlier in the decade.

Suddenly I felt as if I was a local, far short of the 25 years many deem as the qualifying period to acquire such an attribution.

Well, sadly the death last week of another friend again reinforced my awareness of being a local.

This time however, it is different as not only was Chris McPherson my friend, he had given me work, he was my boss, or more correctly an integral part of the McPherson Family for whom I worked for many decades.

Chris was, in colloquial terms, “a good bloke”, someone who always “had your back” and although he may have been uncomfortable about things you said or did, he always stood beside you, helping fend off the critics.

Having been the Editor of this newspaper for more than 15 years, familiarity with Chris’s unflinching loyalty, his tireless enthusiasm and ceaseless endeavour for the success of the McPherson Media Group was evident every day.

Chris and I were fundamentally different people with seemingly incompatible values and although that may have created a publically never seen fissure in our relationship, it actually generated a strange productive energy between us that produced a vital balance.

Success in business for Chris, hinged on a certain relentless drive for profit and growth, which saw him painted as a rather ruthless businessman, a portrayal that did him a disservice, as he was actually a soft and gentle man.

At least twice, while praising the group’s staff for the role they had played in the overall success of the company, he became so emotional that he was unable to continue and his brother Ross took over.

Chris was known for many things, among them his love of the outdoors, but his notoriety as a local took an unprecedented leap when he became the driver of the Big Blokes Lunch to support prostate cancer.

Chris’s honesty while speaking at one of those events about his diagnosis and living with the disease was so powerful and moving that many ranked his address as among the best they had ever heard. Some people were reduced to tears.

Tragedy in one’s life frequently evokes honesty and openness that defies publically known and understood personal traits and that was the case when Chris talked about his prostate cancer.

Yes, Chris was a good bloke, he always stood with me through the ructions of running a newspaper and it is with great pride I claim he was a friend, a local friend.