When John Massey (Class of 1990) saw the first television images filter through of his university mate Tim Shaddock (Class of 1989), his first reaction was telling.
“Holy ****!” he said.
It’s hard to believe any of Shaddock’s fellow alumni would have responded differently as news of his rescue circulated on social media and news channels.
“We all stay in touch,” Massey says. “As you can imagine the story has been getting around the social channels like wildfire.”
Shaddock and his dog Bella were lost at sea for months, according to media reports.
They were found stranded in the Pacific Ocean after their boat was damaged in a storm just a few weeks into their trip from Mexico to French Polynesia.
The pair survived their ordeal by eating raw fish and drinking rainwater.
Gaunt and sporting a Tom Hanks-style ‘Cast Away’ beard, Shaddock told reporters he was very tired but well enough, all things considered.
"I have been through a very difficult ordeal at sea," he told 9News.
"I'm just needing rest and good food because I have been alone at sea a long time.
“Otherwise, I’m in very good health.”
Massey remembers Shaddock very well.
“Tim is a genuinely top fella,” he says. “He’d been at Bond from the start. He originally came up from Sydney to study business and got into the computer industry when he finished.
“We played rugby together and he helped set up the rowing club at the university and did a lot of dragon boat racing as well. You wouldn't know from the pictures on the news, but he was a big, strong second-rower type back then.
“I remember going sailing with him on Myall Lakes down in New South Wales. I have this quite vivid memory of Tim sitting on the deck of the yacht strumming his guitar and reworking the lyrics to Cat Stevens’ Matthew and Son to make the song about leaving Sydney to go to Bond. A really, really nice guy.”
Massey, now a rural real estate agent in Toowoomba, last saw Shaddock in person at a Bond University Ball a decade or so ago.
“He was always just an easy-going guy as happy in his own company as he was in the company of those around him.”
“Thank goodness he’s well and safe.”
Massey says alumni are pretty good at staying in touch and keeping an eye out for each other – a natural extension of the collegiate atmosphere he remembers from his time at Bond.
“Back in the day we were all living in residence, so we all knew each other. Everyone would go to the nightclubs together and we had busloads of people go up to Brisbane for boat races or rugby matches or whatever. It was just a real sense of community, and it was very rare for anyone not to get along.”