Gary on the road to a happy life

The pain is raw and the wounds are fresh but Gary Warner is beginning to rebuild his life from the pieces that remain after the loss of his wife and soul mate, Basia earlier this year.

Struck down by cancer, with a body already racked by two autoimmune diseases, Mrs Warner passed away on January 7 with her hand clasped tightly by her husband of 41 years.

“She was a woman of innate elegance and good taste,” Mr Warner said.

“I always thought she was beautiful. She had inner warmth. People were drawn to her because she was so compassionate.

“She was a selfless person who never thought about herself. Our wedding day was the happiest day of my life. The day she died was the worst day of my life.”

A former chief photographer and senior journalist at TheGeraldton Guardian, Mr Warner provided emotional support and daily care for his wife, whose cancer treatment was complicated by pre-existing autoimmune diseases.

He said the former nurse, who was born and raised in Geraldton, suffered so much in the last nine months of her life and walking the harrowing journey with her left him with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Her illness was one great big long shock. Lots of little shocks, little disappointments and spirits lifted briefly but then back down again. It was a roller-coaster of emotion for the whole nine months,” he said.

After Mrs Warner passed away their only child Lara insisted her father undergo grief counselling.

“I thought I didn’t need it because I’m a bloke. That was my attitude at first but Lara pushed me into it. It’s been fantastic value.

“There’s a trained psychiatrist and she’s turned me around. It has been a huge help.”

Though the couple shared many tears and trials, Mr Warner said theirs was an enduring love story with a woman who made him very happy.

“I was besotted with Basia from the age of about 15. I thought she was wonderful. I viewed her from afar for quite a while and years later I met her again,” he said.

He was 20 when he took a day off from cutting hay at Georgina (near Walkaway) and went to the beach in Geraldton.

There he bumped into Basia Anastasia Szczygielski, whose name was officially recorded at birth as Barbara Anne by a courthouse clerk with little tolerance for Polish names.

Romance bloomed and Mr Warner invited the young nurse to go with him to the drive-in picture theatre that evening.

They married eight months later, in July 1973.

The only child of a panelbeater and a fashion shop assistant, Mr Warner had longed from his childhood to be a news reporter.

“In Grade 7 at Geraldton Primary School they had a fancy dress party in the old Town Hall. I had a notebook and pen and a little toy camera and a hat with a card in the band which said Press, and I was asking people for interviews. I just wanted to be a reporter; I wanted to be a journalist,” he said.

He worked a variety of roles in the 1970s when jobs were easy to come by; on farms, as a deckhand on a cray boat and laboratory technician at Alcoa in Kwinana, but it was a developing interest in photography during a graphic design course at TAFE that finally provided him a foot in the door for his dream career.

“I always read a lot and loved writing. The word is everything and the camera was my passport into what I’d always wanted to be,” Mr Warner said.

And so began a varied media career which included working as a journalist, photographer, sub-editor, radio news editor and presenter and TV presenter at various outlets including The Mandurah Telegraph, Esperance Express, Elders Weekly, Australian Motorcycle News, Radio 6PR, Radio 6MM-Coast FM, Channel 9 Perth and online motoring magazine www.fastlane.com.au.

This was punctuated by several detours into photography and signwriting ventures and roles as media adviser/research officer to ministers on both sides of State politics.

In 2002 he returned to Geraldton and worked at Geraldton Newspapers until 2013 in a variety of roles including sub-editor, chief photographer and senior journalist.

These days he’s a “pen for hire”. He’s recently completed a written history of the Geraldton Yacht Club and is currently collaborating on another local history book and other writing projects.

Recovering from the emotional ravages of the past 12 months, the self-confessed revhead has found solace with kindred spirits at the Ulysses Club, a social club for motorcycle enthusiasts over 45 years of age, and a motorbike he calls Bumble Bee.

It’s been a joyous return to motorbikes, a passion he quenched out of a sense of responsibility to his wife and daughter following a serious motorbike accident many years ago.

“I call it my ‘MTD’, which means Mechanical Therapy Device, because I can really relax riding it,” he said.

“A motorbike for me now, is not about the destination, it’s all about the journey. I’m in the Ulysses Club, enjoying their company and rebuilding my life.”