Anyone who knew or had met Paul was touched and inspired by his indomitable spirit and positive philosophical attitude to life.

He refused to be beaten by cancer or give up hope and preferred to say he was “living with cancer” rather than suffering from it.

Even when a large tumor growing from his chest was clearly visible and made sleep uncomfortable, he carried on his life without complaint.

Paul was interested in the things he could do, rather than the things he couldn’t, and was always looking for “the new windows of opportunity which cancer brings”.

Once he’d accepted he had the disease, he embraced it and used it for positive and creative ends, rather than let it defeat him.

Paul said cancer had given him a great opportunity to appreciate what he had in his life and time to celebrate it fully.

“I’m grateful for having lived life’s full experience, both good and bad,” Paul said.

“As far as I’m concerned, cancer is just a bunch of cells misbehaving.

“My plan of attack is to tell my body how to deal with them.”

This attitude gave birth to two beautiful, self-produced world music albums in 2008.

The first, Second Chance was “about what could be achieved when you think all is lost”.

Paul played 25 different percussion and wind instruments on the recording.

The second album, Matam Express, followed a few months later.

“The idea of recording the beautiful, unique, world flutes that I loved so much along with the rhythms that run through my blood each day was just a dream,” Paul said.

Paul’s love affair with the flute and recorder began at an early age.

As well as listening to baroque and classical music, he would learn to play along with anything he heard on the radio.

It was in recent years he fell in love with hand percussion and world rhythms.

In 2005 he travelled to Guinea to study percussion with master drummer Mohamed Bangoura and dedicated much time to developing his skills.

A year before, Paul had begun the KaSamba drumming group, made up of 45 of his music students from St Joseph’s College.

In June 2006, he took the group for an 11-day tour of the east coast of Australia.

This culminated with a performance at Sydney Opera House where the drummers won a silver medal at the 17th Australian International Music Festival.

Paul finished producing and playing on his devoted wife Pauline’s first album “Every Day Is Precious” three weeks before he died.

- Peter Morris.