Sid is 74. He is married to Peggy, who is also an interviewee in A Conversation for Life (Conversation with Peggy).
Sid was born in South Africa in 1936. (For younger readers, that was 3 years before the Second World War.)
Sid has had a fascinating range of careers. After training in the jewellery industry in South Africa he went to London in 1960 and pursued a career training guide dogs for the blind. In 1962 he returned to South Africa.
Sid and Peggy were married in 1965. They bought a farm and set up boarding kennels, a veterinary hospital and riding school. They had become engaged after knowing each other for only four days.
Their years in South Africa were during the period of Apartheid. (For younger readers, Apartheid was a South African government policy of legal racial segregation between 1948 and 1993, under which the majority black population were segregated from the ruling minority white population.) Sid and Peggy found this system hard to tolerate. Although they loved South Africa and were very sad to leave it, having built and run a successful business there, they tore themselves away and emigrated to Australia in 1980. They had friends who had already settled here.
"The family could not understand me talking about leaving South Africa, of breaking up this incredible farm that we had built. This unbelievable establishment; it was just magnificent. And there we were ready to plough it into the ground just to be able to leave the country."
The most important thing to Sid when he was in his 20s was to achieve careers with a sense of purpose.
What is most important to Sid now is simply good health.
Even though Sid lost a large part of his family in the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War, he feels that the world is a worse place to be living in now, compared to when he was a child.
The greatest benefit of advancing age is no longer having responsibility for a family. The children are grown up and "we only have to look after ourselves now".
The greatest disadvantage of advancing age is ill health "and not being able to do all the things I still think I want to do".
Two particularly happy experiences in Sid's life were, first, seeing his wife in the Synagogue on their wedding day.
Secondly, handing over the first guide dog he had trained to its new owner.
Sid told me a story about the single event that most changed his life. It is a good example of how a seemingly ordinary event can have a profound effect. The event was meeting a man called George Moss in 1956 in South Africa.
Sid had been interested in magic all his life. George Moss was a world famous magician. After attending one of George's shows, Sid happened to meet him at a wedding two weeks later. George invited Sid to attend regular meetings of magicians at his home.
"It was the moment I think that changed my life, because somehow everything else that I did in my life hinged on that moment of meeting George and going into magic in a serious way. Since then magic has been at the base of everything else I've done. Magic has always been there. Since retiring, magic has come to the rescue."
Sid now performs as a successful professional magician at corporate functions, parties etc.
Sid has an interesting and valuable insight into what is important in life. He told me that after leaving their business behind in South Africa, their home had been broken into soon after arriving in Australia and all their gold, diamonds and family jewellery collection had been stolen. Yet when I asked him what was the most valuable thing he had ever lost, the answer was close friends.
"People say possessions are nothing. That is not true, because they do give meaning to your life; as long as they don't rule your life. But I would say the loss of departed friends. Over the last few years I have lost three of my closest most meaningful friends and they have left a void that nothing can replace."
(Conversation with Paul, a friend, 15 January 2011)