7 July 2012 marked my official retirement. This meant that I no longer get a pay cheque from the ANU. Nonetheless for the foreseeable future I will continue to pursue many of the activities that have kept me busy since first arriving in the Demography Department in February 1971. It is hard to summarize the nature, the highs and the lows of over forty years – more than 15,000 days – other than to note that I have been incredibly luck in my choice of teachers, colleagues and partner. The Coombs Building has been my base, but as my students remind me it is the base for many launches into overseas travel. I haven’t done the calculations but there are people who say I have probably spent as much as twenty of those forty years tramping around Asia and occasionally living in Indonesia while working on secondment from the ANU.

One of the advantages of looking back on forty decades is the sense of change that infuses your memories. The Demography Department that I joined was newly headed by Jack Caldwell. Seminars were times of roneoed papers, lively discussions, and drinks, first beers in the Fellows Garden after the seminar, and in the mid 1970s wine or sherry served during the seminar. All students were expected to have a question or comment at each seminar. Over time we lost the wine from the seminars, changed from Department to Program, added and then lost Sociology, and eventually adopted an unpronounceable acronym. Change in the administration of the University was always and will ever be unsettling to academics and students. But for Demographers the change that really stands out over these four decades is not the vagaries of university politics, but the stunning global declines in fertility and mortality, the transformation of marriage patterns, and the mass movements of people across and between the countries of the region. ANU Demography fostered outstanding research on these issues, and established an enviable international reputation. I count myself lucky to have joined in this work.

My email remains terry.hull@anu.edu.au, my office door remains open to colleagues and students, and my calendar remains full of challenging trips to come. But changes are in train. There are thousands of books to be sorted and resettled. There is a granddaughter to train in demographic methods. And there is now a time to turn to recording some of the experience of the past for the benefit of the students yet to come. I am looking forward to these changes.

Photo: Valerie and Terry Hull on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
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