I first met Gavin in 1973, in the virology department, the “yellow submarine”, of the Royal Veterinary College in Camden Town, London.   Gavin had just begun his work of equine viruses that would lead to his PhD and his fruitful collaboration with Jenny Mumford. Following his advice I took the same MSc course as Gavin but never imagined that a year later I would his follow his footprints so closely that I also landed up in the yellow submarine in the lab directly opposite Gavin’s. Under Walter Plowright’s firm eye we worked hard and Gavin, Jenny and I together with Neil Edington and Estomi Mushi became a close band of friends.

Not only was Gavin hard at work but together with Margie was bringing up a family which he devoted much time too, and as a fitness fan addicted to running and squash. Just once or twice I cajoled him into playing a game of rugby at weekends and could see why he had been picked for some senior invitational teams at home in what is now Zimbabwe.  

Moving on from the Yellow Submarine we stayed in dilute but regular touch, Gavin in Onderstepoort and me at Muguga. With both of us living and working in Africa and enjoying the “bush” two stories come to mind. The first of these was during an unexpected visit to attend a conference in Kenya in 1980 by Gavin and two colleagues from South Africa, Bob Swanepoel and Baltus Erasmus.  There are several very recountable episodes from this trip but the one concerning only Gavin took place during a weekend visit to the Maasai Mara national reserve. The spectacle of the wildebeest migration eclipsed anything the visiting team had seen before, bringing lively conversation to an abrupt halt for a good hour.  For once, lions were everywhere including, eventually, a single lioness sitting on a termite mound very close to the left-hand side of the track. Stopping my aged Landover she was only fifteen metres away. Gavin, in the rear nearside seat asked what would happen if we got out of the car. I replied that it was illegal and also highly inadvisable which was fully endorsed by the others.  Gavin thought otherwise and opened his door a little, the watching lioness, blinked and flicked an ear. Gavin stuck one leg on the ground and the lioness flicked her other ear. By now we were all suggesting caution. Gavin opened the door fully and stepped fully out onto the ground beside the vehicle.

There was a thin sliver of time when nothing happened, when we were holding our breath, when the lioness was not blinking or flicking her ears just staring at Gavin and then – with no warning growl or movement she was suddenly a further fifteen metres away into the bush and fast disappearing.  Once settled back inside the car Gavin remarked admiringly how fast she had moved and that if she had chosen to run at him rather than away  she would have caught him long before he could have turned around let alone get back into the vehicle.  Eventually, with some prompting he admitted he had been a little lucky. Lucky, maybe. Reckless, definitely!

The other safari, with Gavin, Jenny and Koos Coetzer, was to the Tuli Block in around 1995 where the memory long shared with Gavin and Jenny and I up until 2019 was just how perfect the sundowner G&Ts had been served with ice and lemon during the evening game drive. 

Because of our different viruses of “interest” I never had the opportunity to work closely with Gavin.  I clearly remember him saying “Rossiter, laddie, you rinderpest guys are doing yourselves out of a job – you should move on to FMD which is a job for life”.  I never advanced up to FMD though Gavin moved to rinderpest for a while with his advisory work and expertise to the FAO EMPRES TADs programme and eventually the rinderpest PACE team.   

Latterly, with his renowned FMD expertise, Gavin made several shorter trips to Kenya giving practical advice and experience on the control of this disease and opportunities for trade, as well as on other viruses. On what may have been the last of these visits I was fortunate that we enjoyed dinner and a drink together in Nairobi, swapped stories about family, work and play and sent a photo to his former colleague and our great friend Jenny Mumford who we knew was fighting her own losing battle against cancer. I shall miss being told I am talking bullshit, almost always correctly, and the only person who still called me laddie.