Vale Phil Gall

This week our friend David Holmgren published an obituary for our mutual mate Phil Gall, who after decades of health issues passed away recently.

We can’t recall when we first met Phil but we remember him as being an incredibly positive, jovial and convivial spirit who, every time we caught up, reminded me how much of a ‘Keyliner’ he was at heart.

Our mutual friend, the late Geoffrey Booth, always spoke fondly of Phil as well and together they both shared an ongoing passion for ‘The Keyline Plan’ as a means of practical landscape planning, and their admiration of its founder, the late P.A. Yeomans.

We are always in debt to Phil for his sharing not only of many stories of the time he spent working with P.A. Yeomans, but also for some of the archival materials he shared with us from that time. You can hear Phil chime in on those great 3CR interviews with P.A. in 1979 (Part 1 & Part 2) and you’ll have seen some of the images and diagrams that Phil shared with me and that we’ve published here (in The Keyline® Plan group), used in course presentations and elsewhere—I’ve also shared some of these here.

I will always be proud of the time that Phil and I shared the stage at the 9th Australian Permaculture Convergence when together we presented to a packed tent (with the late Bill Mollison and Vries Gravestein in the front row), “Modern Approaches to Keyline® Design“—he was like a kindly, supportive and gracious bridge between P.A. Yeomans and myself.

Phil was always very generous with his time and I know that those that taught or did courses and workshops with him will be very sad at his passing and forever influenced by his boundless attitude to life and dedication to this world and its species.

Lisa and our family extend our heartfelt condolences to Phil’s family and his many friends,

Requiescat in pace old mate,

~ DJÓD