| General Non-Fiction posted April 12, 2025 |
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Please read the notes
Remembering Fez
by kiwisteveh
An old friend has died.
It is always sad when current or former FanStory friends pass away. These are people with whom you have chatted, conversed, disussed your own words or theirs and mused on the things that they have done and what they believe in. Anyone who has been around FanStory for ten years or more as I have will recall the pangs when certain writers have disappeared from our midst. Sadly, I must report another such loss, the man I first knew on FanStory as Feral From Malanda, although I believe he may have later changed his FS name to Walu Feral. He has not been active on the site for some years and it seems his account and portfolio are now gone.
I remember first coming across Fez about 14 years ago. I was struck by the name he used on FS. At the time I was living in Gordonvale, a small town just south of Cairns in Far North Queensland, Australia. Malanda is another small town in that sticky paradise, just a kangaroo-hop up the hill from Cairns. Even though it seemed we were basically neighbours, I never met Fez in person. I think he had already moved on from Malanda, but as many of us do, we formed a friendship through our writing.
And what writing Fez produced! It was not the quality of the writing that grabbed me. Even the most generous reviewer could not pretend that the narrative poems that poured forth was the work of a real poet. Instead it was the brutal honesty and the unbelievable nature of the story itself that was gripping. It was the kind of story that makes you gasp in surprise or even start to question whether it could possibly be genuine. It was also a tale that stuck in my mind so strongly that even now I occasionally drag it from my memory banks to recite the bare bones of it to other people.
Fez later went on to have his story published and the next section is lifted from the Amazon page summary of the book, "The One They Call Feral."
In 1975, Ricky, a fourteen-year-old Caucasian boy from suburban Melbourne, escapes years of childhood abuse and hitch-hikes over four-thousand kilometres, to the town of Marble Bar, in the far Northwest of Western Australia.
With a morbid fear of aboriginal people, after being told by his abusive, racist, father that they are cannibals, he is found living in a cave, alone, by remnant members of the Nyamal tribe, a small group, still living a nomadic existence. They forcefully remove him from the cave and take him into the desert where he is raised in their ancient ways for five years.
Whilst there, he undergoes many sacred trials and rituals, along with learning the Nyamal dialect and customs, to become an official, initiated, Nyamal man at nineteen-years-old.
Written in flashbacks and based on fact, with some enhancements and name changes, the book contains many dangerous, exciting, frightening, romantic and sometimes comical adventures out in the harsh Australian desert. Striving to become a man, Ricky stumbles his way, spear in hand, clad in a loincloth, from one coming-of-age trial to the next under the watchful guidance of Uncle Ronny, the tribal Chief, and the other tribal elders.
He learns to hunt, read signs of nature in order to find the best places to gather food and where to find and collect fresh water from beneath the scorching desert sand.
I lost contact with Fez for a while after he dropped out of FanStory. but some time later he popped up on my Facebook feed and we became FB Friends rather than FS ones. By now Fez had a new life it seems. He had left Australia and was living in the Philippines with the love of his life, his Princess Delia, as he called her and a cast of others, family members and waifs and strays taken in out of the kindness of his heart. At this time Fez was working to get his story published, having edited the original rhyming verse into prose.
With a morbid fear of aboriginal people, after being told by his abusive, racist, father that they are cannibals, he is found living in a cave, alone, by remnant members of the Nyamal tribe, a small group, still living a nomadic existence. They forcefully remove him from the cave and take him into the desert where he is raised in their ancient ways for five years.
Whilst there, he undergoes many sacred trials and rituals, along with learning the Nyamal dialect and customs, to become an official, initiated, Nyamal man at nineteen-years-old.
Written in flashbacks and based on fact, with some enhancements and name changes, the book contains many dangerous, exciting, frightening, romantic and sometimes comical adventures out in the harsh Australian desert. Striving to become a man, Ricky stumbles his way, spear in hand, clad in a loincloth, from one coming-of-age trial to the next under the watchful guidance of Uncle Ronny, the tribal Chief, and the other tribal elders.
He learns to hunt, read signs of nature in order to find the best places to gather food and where to find and collect fresh water from beneath the scorching desert sand.
I lost contact with Fez for a while after he dropped out of FanStory. but some time later he popped up on my Facebook feed and we became FB Friends rather than FS ones. By now Fez had a new life it seems. He had left Australia and was living in the Philippines with the love of his life, his Princess Delia, as he called her and a cast of others, family members and waifs and strays taken in out of the kindness of his heart. At this time Fez was working to get his story published, having edited the original rhyming verse into prose.
His new life was dramatically different from the years of hardship and excitement in the harsh Australian desert. His Facebook posts are (were) of two main kinds, firstly the words and pictures of a man besotted with his angel, Delia, and concerned with providing for the members of her family and tsecondly he silliest kind of jokes and memes you can imagine, especially those that have become known as DadJokes.
Although he never complained, it was clear that Fez was not in the best of health. Tidbits leaked into his posts about needing an operation that could only be performed in Australia and the impossibility of raising the money for that. Only a couple of weeks ago he was cheerfully celebrating the visit to the Philippines of his sister and her husband. And then we heard that he was admitted to hospital with breathing difficulty. He underwent major coronary sugery for heart failure and then the wild and wildly loving man passed away.
I am reminded today of one of the most resonant quotes in English Literature from John Donne:
Any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
Please read the notes below to see how you may be able to help Fez's widow Delia.
I am not interested in reviews or ratings for this post, but I am appealing for people to do what they can to help the grieving family.
Delia, Fez's adored wife tells me 'We have 18 people who are left behind.' Other sources tell me that of the eighteen, two are young girls and two are infant grandchildren and that it will be virtually impossible to keep this family group together after Fez's loss.
I heard that a GiveALittle or GoFundMe page might be set up, but apparently that is not supported in the Philippines. If you can spare a few dollars and have a PayPal account the easiest way to send money is via that site. The only info you need is Delia's email address which is deliaconsad@gmail.com
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. Delia, Fez's adored wife tells me 'We have 18 people who are left behind.' Other sources tell me that of the eighteen, two are young girls and two are infant grandchildren and that it will be virtually impossible to keep this family group together after Fez's loss.
I heard that a GiveALittle or GoFundMe page might be set up, but apparently that is not supported in the Philippines. If you can spare a few dollars and have a PayPal account the easiest way to send money is via that site. The only info you need is Delia's email address which is deliaconsad@gmail.com
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