Last Week's Meeting
David Gale - behind the badge
By roving Journalist - Vick Van Den Bergen :)
David took us for a great ride in his “Behind the Badge” talk to the club last night. I took some notes in Kris’s absence so that those unable to attend could gain some insight into David, and what he has managed to pack into his life so far:
David was born in Melbourne and moved to Tasmania at the age of four. His dad is an engineer and his mum a teacher and they met at university. David has two younger brothers Richard and Phil. He describes his family as “typical bogans” and Tasmania was a great place to grow up. The family moved a couple of times and Cremorne, a beachside town was the third place he lived. They enjoyed walking on the beach very much.
David was a very active boy and youth; he enjoyed soccer, sailing, table-tennis and judo; the latter he was very successful at. David played chess from the age of five and was a State Junior Champion later on. Skateboarding was also one of his passions.
While at Uni, he performed fire-twirling shows at most festivals including at the Royal Hobart Show, and at corporate functions. He met his wife Jonelle when she came to one of his shows. At that time, he was a door-to-door salesman selling steak sets and singing donkeys among other things. Jonelle encouraged David to return to uni to study law, and they spent nine months together in Hobart. Then Jonelle had to go back to Taiwan for two years. David visited her and at one stage spent six months there. He learnt Chinese in order to communicate with Jonelle’s parents, only to discover that they didn’t speak Chinese, so then he learnt Taiwanese.
David and Jonelle married in 2011in Tasmania, while he was still a student. The wedding cost $1400, so if you want to know how to do a wedding on a budget, David is your man. Andre was born in 2013 and Alistair in 2015. In 2014 David graduated in law, specifically Family Law. Law was always something he wanted to do and it was a natural fit for him; he was always into interpreting rules of games, was good at English and liked helping people too.
David got a job with the Legal Aid Commission, it was the only job available in 2014-15. He did a stint as an advocate for people with mental illness and disability. He got a job in Sydney but found that he missed the countryside so came to work at Falcone and Adams.
At the moment, Jonelle is doing a TAFE course in bookkeeping. Andre is in prep at Emerald Primary School and has the school’s best teacher according to Emma, Lorraine McKenzie. Alistair is trying to keep out of hospital – he’s been there twice.
David describes himself as the academic nerd, and his brother Phil as good at everything; he is a doctor and is travelling the world as a locum. His other brother Richard has suffered with mental illness but is now doing well.
If you want to see David’s fire-twirling skills, go to YouTube.
It was a most interesting and entertaining presentation, and we learnt a lot about David and his family. He is not actually the shy reticent type. David should be invited back at a later date to tell those other stories that time didn’t permit.
At Gale’s suggestion, it was put to David that he perform his fire-twirling act at “Cocktails on the Catwalk” and would consider doing so if our insurance policy would allow it.
