Comedian James O'Loghlin was one year ahead of James "Jum" Wallner at Canberra Grammar School and the pair later became friends in the mid-1980s, when they were both studying at the University of Sydney and living on campus at Wesley College.
Fast-forward 35 years or so to 2020 and Jum, as everyone knew him, was a vet scientist in Canberra, dying from mesothelioma after growing up in a Mr Fluffy house in Campbell.
And James O'Loghlin, better known as a comedian, host of The New Inventors and ABC Radio host, suddenly became an "accidental activist", working to secure compensation for people like Jum who had developed an asbestos-related disease in one of the Mr Fluffy homes.
