Indomitable spirit - Another bolt out of the blue

Indomitable spirit - Another bolt out of the blue © Jack and Jude

Roger Wooller, now 75 years, was born in Kenya and contracted polio at aged two while living with his parents at Lake Victoria. From that young age, without the use of his legs, he remembers being carried about on the shoulders of native servants.

Roger's married to Jan, and together they have two children; Ben and Renee.

Our first encounter with Roger came about in 1978 in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea when he was our neighbour on a sailboat anchored close enough for us to see him hauling himself about the vessel using only the strength in his shoulders and hands. To say we were amazed would belittle how astounded we were to see a man without the use of legs, with a toddler, manage a ship while we were having a fair bit of difficulty doing the same with full capable bodies. Like Tarzan, he'd fly from rigging to railing to handholds as fast, if not faster, than we could. Then gobsmacked we'd watch Roger sit himself in the anchor well to bodily pull his ship up to the anchor, hand over hand, then stow the great beast, before swinging aft to conn his ship out the harbour.

Years went by and we lost contact with Roger and Jan, until by chance, after enrolling our two sons in the Queensland Correspondence School for their high school years, a note came along from the school asking us if we remembered meeting the young Wooller family many years earlier, because Roger was one of our boys' tutors. Amazing, hey!

The life of a traveller is such that we never had an opportunity to meet them again, except through Roger correcting our son's school lessons. Then, after we'd completed our world circumnavigation and their terms had finished, our lives moved at a rapid pace and we lost all contact. And that's how it's been until just the other day when a camper-van pulled up near Banyandah, standing high and dry on hard stand, midway through a major refit.

Busily getting ready to apply our first coat of topside paint, we paid little attention to the man behind the wheel of a rented camper van pulled up behind our vessel, until he called out to Judith to ask if we'd ever been to India, or some such place that we'd never been. Shaking her head, from behind the wheel the man said, "I once knew a boat named Banyandah. Can't recall exactly where?"

Jude walked over to the driver's window and while I casually watched as I readied the brushes and paint pots, she leaned through the window to give the man a kiss fair on his cheek.

You could have knocked us both over with a feather when we discovered that it was Roger from 1978. Polio stricken Roger who had so impressed us with his steel nerves and gritty determination raising a one-year-old son on a small sailboat called Thurloo.

Naturally, our paint job had to wait while Roger laboriously extracted himself from the van with the aid of crutches and steel leg braces, and then over a cuppa we heard his most extraordinary story. In those days, it was tough even for able bodied folk to sail a boat with kids on board, so to hear that Roger and Jan with Ben had sailed Thurloo around the Pacific before Roger took a desk job to fund their growing family, impressed us greatly knowing how demanding it was to raise a family afloat. Then Roger disclosed that after tutoring our sons on their sail around the world, he and Jan got the hankering to do the same, so the family of four bought a boat called Hagar the Horrible, an Adams 40, which Roger told us was a dream to sail. All aboard! The four of them then took off around the world with Roger in his forties, still lacking the use of his legs.

Wow! Doesn't Roger illustrate what a determined person can do. Over dinner that night at the local pub, while each of us exchanged story after story, we saw what this man has achieved and we continually encouraged him to write a book on his experiences. But Roger's rather modest. Unbelievable we think, and you might agree. So if you'd like to read his story, send us a note, and we'll pass it on to inspire and motivate this fine gentleman. Jack and Jude believe the world needs to hear of such a man as he, and we think you'll agree.

This article has been provided by the courtesy of jackandjude.com