When I first met Bon, he was in the Valentines, it felt like they were nearing the end of their span. We were miming our single on Happening 70 too. They were dressed in their orange crepe shirts and you could see Bon’s tatts showing through – it seemed an odd fit to me. They were nice fellas though and I saw them over the next few months at different gigs we shared till the Valentines split up.

Bon joined Fraternity. He was very much a junior partner in the band then as he hadn’t started writing and probably the lyrics he wrote later wouldn’t have been right for that band. I used to hang out at Jersey Road in Paddington a lot, which was where I started to get to know the Fraternity guys well and my band Sherbet shared a residency with Fraternity at the infamous Jonathan’s in Sydney. 

Bon was a true front man – a genuine rock star. This was always a contradiction to me because while the rock star always had the hell raiser image, when we were hanging out at the band’s house Bon was behind the facade, a really sweet, friendly bloke. I was not surprised he went on to become a star with AC/DC once he found the right vehicle for his image and his persona. He had the voice, he had the look, and he had the talent. 

On his last trip to Australia, I heard Bon looked everybody up. I hadn’t seen him for over 5 years but he came to one of my gigs and we had a long rave. Bon said he’d grown a bit tired of the whole touring scene and that he wanted to do just a bit more touring and then split and buy a pub. I’m not sure that would have been a great plan but, sadly, we weren’t to find out.

Always missed, Bonnie.