The Radoks and the Rigbys met 42 years ago on the S.S. Himalaya sailing from the UK to Melbourne. Uwe and Anita were returning from a sabbatical year in Cambridge. My husband and I and 6 week old daughter were 10 pound pommie migrants. On the shop you were allotted your table for the entire journey regardless of the compatibility. For four weeks we were sharing with the Radoks. How fortunate were we?! The time passed very happy with lots of fun. Both Uwe and Anita had been migrants themselves in the days when conditions were very much harder. The information we learned from them was invaluable to our settling into the Australian life. Every evening without fail, Uwe would make his potent brew of coffee enjoyed tremendously by my husband. Every evening we chatted the time away.
After arriving in Melbourne we kept in touch even though we soon were living in country Victoria. For the first 2 years my husband did locums for single handed GP's. The next 8 years were spend in Donald - a tiny town- one doctor (my husband) and base hospital 100 miles away. We were tied to the practice, but many times Uwe and Anita visited us.
When we left Victoria for NSW I asked Uwe for a reference. No problems. When I opened the envelope and read it, I was aghast! It was as follows, written on official University of Melbourne notepaper:
I have known own Pip Rigby since a hilarious sea journey from the UK 10 years ago and watched her deteriorate into a real Aussie country drongo ever since. My only professional contact with her was a demonstration on my own back - how a relatively harmless infection pain can be made much more severe by pressing in all the wrong places; I am better now, thank you. I reckon it serves the Finlay cockies right to be similarly treated; they won't mind, since she's not a bad drop of skin. So by all means, let PIP RIP.
UR
underneath was written in Uwe's own hand. 'Pip - if you don't like this, here is an alternative version attached.
Needless to say, the official reference was very acceptable indeed!
When Uwe and Anita left for America, we still kept in touch and continued to meet when they returned to Australia for holidays.
I have never met anyone quite like Uwe and probably never will. He always looked like the absent-minded professor with his glasses perched in the end of his nose, his shirts invariably buttoned up wrong, His mind was razor sharp and his knowledge of so many things was immense. He spoke about 5 languages, had lived in many different communities and always could relate to just about everyone.
So farewell Uwe. You had a good life - an incredible wife and 3 lovely daughters. Thank you for your friendship your wisdom sense of humour and your dreadful coffee. I only had one in the entire 4 week journey. It was enough for me!
Pip Rigby - Benalla Victoria
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I first met Uwe in the mid 1970s when he was working with Joe Fletcher at the US National Science Foundation. Shortly thereafter Joe became Deputy Director of NOAA ERL and Uwe came to CIRES at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Uwe involved me in a project on the Physical Characteristics of the Greenland Ice Sheet and I met Dick Jensen, one of his Melbourne colleagues who spent long intervals in Boulder, and Barry McInnes. I transferred from INSTAAR to CIRES in 1981 and Uwe, Professor Colin Ramage and I regularly went to lunch together and had many discussions about polar and tropical climatology, ENSO, and snow and ice. Uwe and I would sometimes converse in German or Russian but he would invariably baffle me with proverbs or quotations from Goethe, always delivered with a twinkle in his eye. He and Anita were very fond of my two daughters Rachel and Christina and the affection was warmly reciprocated.
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Uwe was a guiding light in CIRES Climate Dynamics Program and later in the nascent Cryospherice Program, both of which I directed for several years. His counsel was always thoughtful and supportive. His many papers attest to his prodigious range of knowledge and expertise in meteorology, climatology, and glaciology. He will be sorely missed personally and professionlly.
My sincere condolences to Anita and his extended family.