By Phil Jarratt
Almost exactly a week to the hour since a brutal, senseless and apparently random act of violence claimed the life of an octogenarian gentleman and shocked Noosa to the core, a dense black cloud rolled out of the clear predawn and across Laguna Bay, cloaking Main Beach in a surreal gloom.
It seemed an appropriate natural response to the mood of several hundred residents as they clomped along the tideline, some silent, some indulging in idle chitchat to mask an underlying sense of quiet despair. Some were no doubt grieving the loss of John Campbell Kerr, by all accounts a fine and well-respected member of our community, but many were also grieving a perceived loss of innocence. Still dealing with disbelief. Not here, not in our town.
Of course this is not the first time our cocoon has been invaded, our happy bubble burst.
But we can count our blessings that you have to go back decades to find similarly atrocious violations of our serenity, and hopefully many more before (and if) such a thing happens again.
As we walked in the now-foggy grey dawn I saw a broad cross-section of familiar faces, politicians, media, regular beach-goers and dawn patrollers. But I also saw many unknown faces of relatively fit citizens of a certain age who found it difficult to conceal one chilling fact: it could have been me.
For many, however, it was a cathartic walk.
As organiser David Knechtli, himself a dedicated dawn beachwalker, put it: “We are reclaiming our beach, our walks.”
And while a great many of us who walked last Sunday morning felt that in ways far more than symbolic, others who stayed home and have put the shutters up will hopefully take heart from this simple walk of faith.
It’s still Noosa, and it’s still ours. RIP John Kerr.
