Duncan Thomson

Little did a young boy, growing up selling football records outside the Geelong football oval, ever imagine he would spend most of his adult life in the hot, dry, far north-west of the state. And little would he have imagined that he would work for many years, outdoors, in the extreme heat of a Mallee summer and the frosty mornings of winter. Duncan Henry Thomson was born in Colac on December 1, 1946. His parents were Ethel Croft and Thomas Thomson. He was named after his uncle Duncan, Tom’s brother, who was a soldier killed in the Second World War at twenty-one years of age. He was on the Japanese merchant ship Montevideo Maru when it was sunk by an American submarine on the first of July, 1942. Unbeknown to the Americans, it was carrying over 1,000 Australian prisoners of war and civilians who were being transported from Rabaul to Japan. The sinking and loss of life is considered to be Australia’s worst maritime disaster. The wreck was only recently discovered in April 2023.