Obituary, Graham Canterbury, Davis 1986, Maintenance Carpenter. By Graham’s daughter, Calleigh (Claire) Bristow, July 2026.

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In Loving Memory of

Graham Charles Canterbury

14th November 1949 – 12th April 1992

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In April 2026, I made the journey to the Davis ‘86 40th reunion, I did so in memory of my father, Graham Canterbury, a man I never got the chance to know, and wrote this for the little girl who used to sneak into her mother’s bedroom in the dead of night to try and read the hidden stack of letters she wasn’t old enough to understand and for the memory of a ghost who deserves a place, for the father I never had the chance to get to know. Thank you Davis ’86, for bringing a piece of him home to me. For most of my life my father has been akin to a forbidden book on the top shelf, covered in dust and just out of reach. Acknowledged but never studied. I knew the title, someone had once told me what the book was about and another told me a version that didn’t quite match. But for too many years the truth of the matter was kept just beyond my reach. So when I finally made the choice to pull that book off the top shelf and dust it off to read it for myself instead of sneaking peeks at the blurb in the middle of the night I was unknowingly writing myself into the journey of someone I’ve now come to realise was a very complex and sometimes conflicted man. The book consists of a pile of letters, teletexts and some old birthday cards, 4 photographs and a lifetime of other people’s censored memories and too much silence. It’s missing too many pages. The conversation; what there is of it, only goes one way. From my youngest years, I knew without a doubt, four facts about my father:

1. My father was a colored South African.
2. My mother loved him unconditionally.
3. My father died of a brain tumor.
4. And finally, my father was a proud member of the 1986 Antarctic Expedition to Davis Station. An “86 Winterer”.

Many other things I was told growing up about my father have since proven to be misremembered, misinterpreted or made up by those around me. Possibly intentionally, possibly to protect my father’s memory or perhaps simply to spare a child the pain of a parent she was never given the chance to know. But no matter the history or the context of it, I started my own expedition of exploration to get to know the ghost of my father, instead of just the rumor. Some of that lives in a sunbaked land I have promised myself I will one day visit. Some of that lays in the great icy desert to the south where he left a piece of his soul, a place he yearned to return to even as he discovered his life would be cut short. I have only his letters to go by, one side of too few conversations filled with love, joy, pain and ultimately the reflections of a man confronted by his own mortality far too soon. I was almost 5 years old when my father died, though I never knew that until recently. I love my father, even if only as a concept; you see the day I was born was the exact same day that my father found out he was going to die. Not a timeline for death, only a confirmation that it was coming soon, unavoidable and that he would simply have to wait for the end as his dignity slipped away. I cannot imagine the reality that faced him in that moment, the twisted experience of life and death wrapped up in a day of life changing events. He made choices in his grief that impacted every aspect of my life since. But any peace I needed to find at his decisions, or forgiveness I needed to find within myself, came before I even started this leg of the journey and I am grateful for that because it has allowed me the freedom of getting to know this wonderful man, without the burden of confusion. My journey started ironically with a death of a friend taken far too soon, his death however led me back to Tasmania and put me in a place to connect with someone who not only used to work at the Antarctic Division down in Kingston, but also recognised one of the few names I knew from my father’s time at Davis. Tim Price. This was not long after I found out that my father had also had a landmark named after him in Antarctica, this had reawakened my motivation to start back down the trail of getting to know the man that was my father. In less than a few days a connection had been made however I had to return to Queensland for work so email and text had to do for the time being. It was one of those emails that led me to Cape Schanck, an invitation to the 40-Year Reunion of the Davis Station crew of 1986. I’ll freely admit it took me a while to decide to accept, I wasn’t sure it was my place to be among these people who were almost as much of a myth to me as my father. But eventually I decided that this was a chance I may never have again. So I said yes. In the weeks leading up to the trip I made plans and co-opted one of my best friends to come with me as an emotional lifeboat because despite wanting this, I had no idea how I would react. Even when you think you’ve made your peace with something the world will often throw you a curve ball and I wanted someone I trusted to pick me up off the floor if I fell. From the morning we set out I was a wound-up ball of anxiety, I hate flying and I can’t thank Jade enough for tolerating me during our flight to Melbourne. The drive probably wasn’t much better, though the random abandoned wedding dress at a truck stop on the drive down was a good laugh and also truly bizarre. We arrived and checked in and then headed to the resort bar, at which point my brain went “so what now?”. I knew only two names and had no idea what anyone looked like. I stood there awkwardly hoping someone would sense me and give me a prod. Yeah, that didn’t happen. What did happen however was someone sat down in the bar, I wouldn’t have picked him except for the fact he was wearing a very old orange jacket that looked like it was made for colder weather than the Victorian winter would dole out. Slowly others arrived and gathered around him, chairs were pulled up and more and more people sat down. Well unless there was another large group of random people due to meet in this bar at this time, Jade and I deduced we’d found our people. I fumbled over and made some ambiguous comment to try and find out if I was right and this was my group of people. And the circle opened up and from the first words we were welcomed. Dinner that night was nothing like I expected, I felt like I belonged. For the first time in my life I felt like my father’s daughter. I got to know people, got a few shocks along the way; Mike’s daughter was a year below me, we went to the same high school. I grieved a lost chance at an earlier connection at that table, but that made me even more grateful to be there. Over the course of the next few days I was given so many gifts. Photos, USB’s full of video; an opportunity for the first time in my life to hear my fathers voice, stories and anecdotes, Gillian looking at me and telling me she saw my father in me. That one still makes me cry, to have someone who knew him see him in me. Dick and Russell taking the time at lunch to tell me about him and them, I blame you both for my strange desire to now learn how to play golf. My mother will be horrified. I’m still laughing at the thought of him hauling a crate full of golf clubs to one of the most remote places in the world just to try and make a record breaking drive. I wonder how many golf balls are floating around down there left by you lot. Giuseppe on the last day at breakfast sharing his memories over cooling cups of coffee. The photo from Mike, “his favorite of my father” he said which now has a pride of place in my home. I learnt so much about the amazing people that made up the Davis crew of 1986 and the time you spent together. None of you have led mundane lives and I am proud to be connected to you by the thread that is my father. I can see why he loved his time down there so much, why his dying wish was to be able to go south one more time. By this point he knew he was sick, but not how bad it was and all he wanted to do was return to Antarctica. I think he knew that was no longer possible and it pains me to know his dying wish could never be fulfilled I’d like to share part of one of his letters to my mother, I share this not just for my father but also to acknowledge the struggles of returning to normal life after living the extraordinary dream that is surviving in a place so cut off from the rest of the human world, only to return to the tragedy of a life falling apart. After reading and rereading my fathers letters so many times I know now that he left his heart at Davis, and I think that’s were it belongs, in the last place he was truly happy. Parts taken from a letter my father wrote to my mother April 14 1987 (4 months before my birth)

“Sorry I didn’t write for so long but things haven’t exactly been going too well for me over here. Since I got back from Davis I’ve been very depressed and finding it very hard to fit into “normal” life again. I don’t want to bore you with the details but I had a stroke at work last month and my whole right side was lame for a week. Ever since then I’ve been seeing specialists and doctors…”

“Please don’t tell anyone at the Division about my stroke as I’m sure it would spoil my chances of going South again – I can’t wait to get away. I think my time at Davis has really changed me in more ways than one. I still find it difficult to talk to anyone and even my friends aren’t interested anymore…”

“I’m not angry with you or anything like that it’s just that since I’ve come back everything has gone wrong for me – maybe that’s Gods way of evening things out…”

“Excuse the handwriting but its all gone out of whack since the accident. Fondest regards Graham. P.S. I still think of you even though I don’t write. xxx”

If God had a hand in the final years of my fathers life I’m not sure the punishment fit the crime, though what the crime was I’ll never know. When I think of my father now I’m brought back to the ink that wraps around my right wrist “Ad. Astra Per Aspera”. It’s Latin. Roughly translated it means “To the stars through hardship”. It’s a reminder I carry through life and not just of trials overcome and a personal motivation to keep reaching higher but also, unspoken, a warning. That once you’ve made it to the stars you still have to come back down to earth and you never know how hard the landing might be.

On Friday July 17, 2026, I met with Neale in Brisbane, he wasn’t able to make the reunion in person but he connected with me and we stayed in touch. On 17th he presented me with something I never expected. For those of you that came together and advocated for me, for my father’s memory I can’t thank you all enough. You have made me feel more like Graham Canterbury’s daughter than I ever have before in my life “Graham’s little girl” (yes that made me cry too). I treasure this and his winter service medallion. I plan to see if I can have it framed along with the photo Mike gave me of my father cooking in a hut down south and a copy of Jeremy Taylor’s “All Along the South Coast”. I have included it below because like Davis it is also a piece of him.

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