I first met Denis at the National Folk Festival in Sydney in April 1988. I remember seeing he and his friends stand up at a concert when American entertainer Christine Lavin was about to appear. We had seen Lavin perform early in the day and thought she was great and was tempted to inform Denis and his friends of the talent they were about to miss.
As it turned out, the walkout was a protest against the festival importing US talent to our home grown festival. Den did a concert that year with John Dengate who used to perform Den's 'Woodchip Man'.
On the final day of the festival we were having a singsong around the tent when Den handed his business card to everyone inviting them to 'drop-in any time'.
We did - a couple of weeks later and Den fed us, sang us some poetry and we all got drunk on Hunter Old. He looked after us for three days and the second last we heard from him was when we received a copy of 'The Bastard Who squashed the grapes...' book and the last letter we gotg contained an invoice for $10 for the book.
Den old mate - Maxine and I will remember you forever.
Fred Wild