At 6.30 this morning an Uber driver arrived to take us to Melbourne Airport. Within minutes of settling into the car, a smooth electric vehicle, Omer asked us where we were travelling to. A little wary of explaining that we were going to Perth for my 99-year-old mum’s funeral, Steve explained that we were visiting family there and no we don’t live in Melbourne, we are just visiting our daughters. Instead, we explained, we live in Wollongong.

As usual I asked whether he was familiar with our city. With enthusiastic delight in his voice Omer told us that he knows the place well because he lived there for 7 years, studying at Wollongong uni. On the 27^th May 2007, the day that he landed in Australia and arrived in Wollongong from Pakistan, he and his friends made their way to North Beach and had a dip in North Wollongong Rock Pool. But the 27^th May has acquired even more significance for Omer as it also the birthday of his now three-year-old son.

That the birth of Omer’s child has become wedded to his first day in Australia and in the city that has been our beloved home for more than half our lives, established an immediate emotional connection between the three of us. And that this arrival was celebrated by a dip in the Rock Pool just added to our shared delight. Not only do I love swimming in any one of the many ocean pools that dot the NSW coastline, but as Steve shared with Omer, he calls me ‘the Minister for the Illawarra’ very largely because of the way that I boast to anybody that doesn’t live in Wollongong about the many wonderful natural and cultural attributes of the place including our beautiful ocean pools.  

In keeping with my ambassadorial role, I explained to Omer that when the pool was built in 1870, it was exclusively for men and called the Gentleman’s Pool. At the time it was considered inappropriate for women to swim in the company of men. However, some years later, as conventions relaxed a little, a publican from just across the road from the pool built a little cabin with a door at each end. Sitting on wheels, the cabin was towed by a horse down to the water’s edge from where ladies would enter it from the land side full clad, change into neck to knees swimming togs, and discretely exit the cabin from the other end and slip into the water for a ladies only swim.

It soon became evident that Omer’s fondness for Wollongong is deeply personal.  Not only has his band of uni friends maintained a strong bond; now living either in Melbourne or Sydney they will shortly be catching up for a few days in Thredbo.  But he explained his ‘missus’ comes from the coastal town of Batemans’s Bay about a two hour drive south of Wollongong, and her grandparents were from Shellharbour a council area immediately to the south of the City of Wollongong.

‘So, are you both retired?’ Omer asked. Our response to this question is typically a mix of yes and no. I explained that Steve runs a poetry publishing company, 5 Islands Press.  Steve added with a wry smile that this was definitely a not-for-profit project of love. The conversation that followed was as culturally rich as it was intimate. Omer explained that poetry is very special to him: that he has a book of poems that he frequently reads written in his native tongue, Urdu, which he explained is a mixture of Persian, Arabic, and Turkik, as well as a smattering of Sanskrit. He also told us that Urdu is the preferred language that is sung in Bollywood films. Then with joy in his voice, Omer shared that his wife fell in love with him when he translated his favourite poems into English for her.

With such a beautiful connection having been established, it seemed fitting that Steve let Omer know that 5 Islands Press is hoping to publish a collection of poems written in the different native tongues of poets living in Western Sydney, and invited Omer to contact him via the press website if he is interested in the collection.

When we stepped out of the car at Melbourne Airport, we farewelled each other and expressed our mutual gratitude for the serendipitous opportunity to share such a precious exchange. While Steve and Omer enthusiastically shook hands, I stood back, wishing I could throw my arms around him.