It is with great sadness that I write this tribute to the passing of my good friend and colleague of more than 40 years. Indeed I have been privileged to have been enriched by countless memorable incidences both professionally and as a true friend. His untimely death will no doubt leave a big gap that will be difficult to fill. As with others that he interacted with he was inspirational and contributed immensely to the quality of my and other colleagues’ lives. In my opinion the following two quotes characterize Gavin’s unique professional life the best. During an interview with Elon Musk, the renowned businessman, he was asked what attributed to his highly successful career. He made this simple but profound statement: To be successful you must make your passion your purpose. Similarly, Jack Nicolson, the famous actor, said at an award ceremony when he received one of his numerous golden globe awards: If you enjoy your work you have a life. Both these are very true of Gavin. He had a true passion for his work (his purpose) and enjoyed his work very much and as a result made numerous invaluable and extraordinary national and international contributions to veterinary science. Even in the terminal stages of his illness he was still trying to follow his passion by contributing to some of the projects that he was working on. Gavin was one of the very few veterinary scientists in South Africa with a distinct international profile. He was blessed with the rare ability to see the big picture, which made him the talent that he was. In addition he could apply his unique laboratory and technical skills and knowledge of important transboundary infectious diseases (e.g. foot and mouth disease, African swine fever and rabies) and make them relevant under different field conditions in Africa and other parts of the world. The commodity-based trade concept that he initiated and spear-headed is a good example of the latter and also of his innovation. The video (https://youtu.be/rv8Vp23iUNs ) depicts the salient features of this unique concept vividly.

At a personal level he played a pivotal role as co editor in the publication of the first edition of the internationally acclaimed and award-winning 3 volume book titled Infectious Diseases of livestock. During this daunting undertaking of many years I worked closely with Gavin and was impressed by his editorial skills and his scientific and analytical thinking.

In our ’younger’ years we did a lot of running, cycling and canoeing together at Roodplaatdam canoe club. Often over weekends Margie and the youngsters, Charlotte, Rowena and Robyn, accompanied us and spoiled us with delicious chocolate or carrot cake. I remember clearly one Sunday afternoon the fishermen were angry with us canoeing close to their lines. They were full of brandy and coke and started swearing at us and wanted to beat us up. The three young girls did not like it and almost smashed the fishermen with our delicious cakes! During our running years we travelled several times  to the Kruger Park to do the Skukuza 21 km race and stayed together in a comfortable house in the research camp enjoying nice braais and even did at times prawns and trout grilled in lemon butter sauce. Robyn was still very small and threw the lemon peels over the low wall of the stoep into the bushes where the hyenas were roaming earlier the evening. As she was still small I could lift her over the wall to collect the peels. Although almost 30 years ago she still remembers how scared she was and made mention of the incident when we had tea with Gavin in their garden shortly before his passing. As a keen sportsman, he enjoyed rugby and cricket on TV and we often had heated debates over the performances of our teams!

Gavin was many things to many people in various parts of the world but he was intolerant to fools, as one of our mutual distinguished professor friends put it when I informed him of his passing. He will be remembered for all the great contributions that he made to veterinary science. 

Rest in peace my good friend and colleague.