Charlie in Life
an extract from the memorial booklet
Charlie, Gösta, was born in Sweden in 1960.
His father Ragnar, from a family in the Swedish nobility, was a public figure in Sweden – lawyer, judge, Military Captain, UN Observer, 4 th generation CEO of a family business.
Charlie’s mother Anna Lena, daughter of a professor of physics, was a social worker and later worked in the family business. He has one younger brother Andrew, born in 1962.
The family moved to Australia when Charlie was ten. He attended various schools, completing his HSC at Richmond High School in 1979. He studied Agricultural Science at Hawkesbury Agricultural College (now University of Western Sydney).
Charlie travelled extensively throughout the world and loved exploring, meeting people and learning about cultures and languages. He held diverse jobs including waiter, administrator, chef, share farmer, avocado farmer, stock rider, health worker, development worker and community worker.
In 1987 Charlie moved to Nan in northern Thailand to work with Thai farmers on sustainable development and agriculture. This began his love affair with the Mekong region and the people of Thailand and Laos, and his work with CUSO, TERRA and Community Aid Abroad. Charlie and Christine married in Thailand and had two daughters, Tina and Kari. They then lived for five years in Vientiane, Laos.
Charlie, Christine and the girls returned to Australia and settled in Canberra in 1996. He and Christine separated, whilst remaining close friends with a wonderful parenting partnership. Charlie worked extensively with the community sector including ACTCOSS (where he was Deputy Director), Oxfam CAA, ANTaR and the ACT Greens. He was a tireless proponent of indigenous rights and maintained his commitment to the Mekong.
Charlie met Pam in 1996 thus forming the extended Pahlman-Boyer family.
- Andrew's (Charlie's brother) eulogy describes Charlie's early days
- A summary of Charlie's CUSO days from Alec Bamford on the CUSO website
- ACT greens Bio as candidate for Molonglo - PDF
- Green Left Weekly Obituary by Paul Oboohov
- From the Antar site - the vegetarian sausage BBQ chef:
Some articles on the web, by Charlie
- Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) - Private investment in public projects...or just more public subsidies for the private sector?
- Australia and the Asian Development Bank in the Mekong region
- The Politics of Studies (and economic fairy tales…)
-
In whose interest? The role of studies in hydro power development in the Mekong Region
