They are totally engrossed in their task, which is to feed a swarm of fat, well fed seagulls smart enough to know their way around a camp site.

They are sturdily built, these little fellows; one has straight snowy white hair and is as brown as a nutmeg. The other has tousled black hair and pale skin.

They couldn’t be more different, but they share their chips equally and are clearly enjoying each other’s company on this family camping holiday.

These small boys are now in their early forties. Their life trajectories have changed dramatically over the years.

Today they wouldn’t recognise each other or remember that camping holiday, and my photo would see them looking surprised if I produced it. Both are now as bald as badgers.

One of these boys, the tousled haired one, is now a serious accountant; the other a serious IT executive.

They have had some tough challenges to face in life, but ultimately Lady Fortune has smiled kindly on these two young men.

It has been so from those days when the most joyous thing to do in the moment was to feed seagulls.

The tousled haired boy was a climber as a young man and travelled to Europe after university, seeking adventure.

He fell, nearly to his death, and broke bones in every part of his body, most seriously his face, which was brilliantly put back together again by doctors in Geneva.

The skill of the surgeons is evident as he appears to bear no obvious scars from the fall.

The snowy haired boy sailed through school, dropped out of uni, made his own way through the pack and has succeeded in a career beyond his wildest dreams or that of his parents.

He shared a house with mates in those post-school years.

One of those housemates was travelling on the back of a motorbike which hit a car, killing both motor cyclist and pillion passenger.

The snowy haired boy held his closest friend in his arms as he died on the road. The second boy died later that evening in hospital.

They say time heals all things but it took several years to heal that private grief. The remaining house mate took to drugs and depression and a few years later suicided.

What a terrible toll an accident may have on the lives of so many extras in such a tragedy.

Even as I tell these stories they cannot compare to the traumas that young men the same age are experiencing as refugees. They won’t have a chance to carry any remembrances in their knapsack.

Room in a bag would be at a premium...and maybe they wouldn’t want to be reminded of what could or should be as they tramp their way across an increasingly unwelcome Europe, desperately seeking to find a new place in an unfriendly world.

Life for them has become a story of day to day survival, of hunger, homelessness and despair.

Even a university degree won’t guarantee them any future or security.

These two young chip feeders of seagulls have moved on to marry, to have children of their own, to be successful and to feel safe and secure in Australia. They are the lucky ones.