I have been an ANARE Club member since travelling to Antarctica as part of the Centenary Voyage in early 2012, the trip that literally changed my life! I was the station doctor on Macca later that year, and like so many I was hooked for life.
Before becoming a doctor, I was an archaeologist, so I have always had an interest in heritage and in human stories from the past. I have become very aware of the remarkable Australian Antarctic story, made up of thousands of stories, many of which are not heard due to the lack of an Australian Antarctic heritage policy and museum.
The ship that took me to my own adventures, the Aurora Australis, came to mean a lot to me so I’ve been working for several years on setting up the Aurora Australis Foundation. The AAF is currently working hard to save the AA as a ship museum for Hobart. Even if that doesn’t happen, I will continue to work on collecting and preserving Australian Antarctic stories and finding a way to tell them to our fellow Australians.
When not obsessing about Antarctic ships and heritage, I’m a rural doctor working in general practice, emergency medicine and anaesthetics; and I am also a military doctor in the Army Reserve. I still dabble in archaeology in the United Kingdom where I am part of a research team recreating the lives of an Early Medieval English village through studying the skeletons they left behind! And I occasionally find time for playing and listening to music, reading and writing, and enjoying time with good mates.