Jack Harrison was eating oysters in the sunshine four days before he died. New to hospital life, he tipped his hat at the palliative care nurses and asked if he might enjoy the gift of a dozen molluscs in the garden. He wasn’t the Messiah, but he did reduce his last supper to a rubble of briny shells on Easter Thursday afternoon.

All week, the corridor outside room 29 was thick with his visitors. They took turns finding a space around his bed and huddled in twos and threes in the corridor. In the waiting room, more friends and family gathered – bewildered at the news Jack’s demise was imminent. At 81, the indomitable head of one of Australia’s musical families was mortal after all.