Noel Carroll ordered a copy of the Official History of the 1914-18 War from the Australian War Memorial in June 1948 and it took nearly 30 years before he picked them up, just in time for some light reading in retirement.
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Mr Carroll, dubbed the man for whom history waited, arranged for a small amount of money to be deducted from his pay when he ordered the 12-volume set, and it proved to be a wise investment: the books had become scarce and valuable in the meantime.
He did not take delivery of the books because he was moving to Sydney and then he was stationed at the Australian Embassy in Bonn, West Germany, so he asked for the books to be stored.
Every time someone noticed the books among paintings, souvenirs and paraphernalia, it turned out Mr Carroll had again been posted overseas.
It took another phone call to check on Mr Carroll's whereabouts for the Memorial to learn he had returned one day previously from Rome, ready for retirement.
So, finally after 28 years, the task of presenting the last brand new full set of the official history fell to the director of the memorial, Noel Flanagan.
