He has traversed the country and been in the public eye for some time, but for Dave Stewart, his latest focus is enjoying the creature comforts of Tenterfield.
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Born in Wodonga, Victoria, in 1955, he spent most of his adolescence in the border city.
A brief move to Farnham, England as a three-year-old was the only exception.
“In 1958, Dad (Ian), Mum (Marion), myself and my brother Stephen moved to Farnham in England as Dad was posted to undertake a two-year military course to become an artificer in the corps of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (RAEME) - the same corps I was to join some years later and also became an artificer,” he said.
Dave attended the St Andrews Church of England infant school in Farnham for two years but did the majority of his schooling at the Wodonga Technical School where the focus was to churn out tradespeople.
His father spent much of his life in the army, so it was natural that Dave would continue the tradition.
After completing school, he joined the army as an apprentice vehicle mechanic, training for two years in Balcombe and then a further two years at the Bandiana army base.
“I joined in 1972 as a 27th intake apprentice – my father was in the second intake,” he said.
He was married in Wodonga not long after, and moved to Sydney and welcomed two daughters into his life.
After a series of moves around Australia, he found himself in the central highlands of Papua New Guinea.
“I was a special projects officer where we trained the local people,” he said.
“We relocated a lot of equipment to the Jara border - it was very isolated but very special.
“We would cut down land cruiser utes, tractors, grass cutters to fit onto small planes and then rebuild them.”
Back in Holsworthy, Sydney, he took on the role of supervising and co-ordinating army apprentices.
“After that I went up to Townsville to act as part of an army field workshop for the operational deployment force – we were always on standby,” he said.
“It was our job to respond to regional areas, at the time the coup in Fiji was going on.”
Soon after marrying his second wife Karen, he moved south to Melbourne.
“I was part of project Perentie which oversaw the introduction of the new landrover fleet of vehicles,” he said.
“We had to do maintenance support and ensure the SAS had proper training with the vehicles.
“I think they are still using them now over in Afghanistan.”
Having worked his way up the ranks, Dave was selected to undergo a meeting with the prescribed service officer’s selection board.
“It was a daunting experience - we were interviewed by senior military officers who had 20 years of reports and files on you.”
In 1992, he was successful and appointed a captain in Melbourne before moving back home to Wodonga as a training officer.
“After that I was posted back to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, for another two years as a training officer and second-in-command at the Port Moresby workshop,” he said.
His wife Karen worked with the Australian High Commission.
His time there was marred by the ongoing Bougainville civil war which engulfed Papua New Guinea throughout most of the 1990s.
“It was still a danger then – we were surrounded by eight foot man-proof fencing.
“The security threat at one point was higher than Beirut – safe rooms were built into the houses.”
They then moved to the Gold Coast.
A promotion to major soon followed and then he became a national training officer where he helped implement new training methods from a “lock-step approach to competency-based”.
“I would travel around and make sure training was undertaken by that method.”
In November 1999, a visit to Tenterfield for a golf tournament would effectively alter the course of his life.
“We visited with Jake and Margot O’Donnell and wanted to move from the city rat race to a country town,” he said.
“We saw the state bank up for sale and made a bid but were beaten.”
They now reside in their own heritage property where Dave admits to being 10 years into a five-year renovating process.
His wife started work with the Tenterfield Shire Council before Dave took up a job in the environmental department of council in 2002.
Dave played AFL growing up and went on to represent the army, navy and air force tri-service team in competition.
He now enjoys a game of squash and golf when community involvement and work allow. He admits he would “like to play more golf” if given the chance.
As the Tenterfield RSL sub-branch president he is looking forward to the future of Tenterfield’s Anzac involvement.
“We have set up the Anzac steering committee which is preparing for the Anzac program,” he said.
“We want to capture the Tenterfield link to the light horse.
“We need to capture and store that history for future generations before its lost forever.”
After having seen councils and councillors come and go since arriving, Dave said he was excited about the future this council was posing.
“There have been a lot of changes, but it’s very positive – we are working to meet community expectations.”
Now as the environmental services project manager, and currently the acting director, Dave has met with numerous challenges.
“The most challenging was the 12 months on secondment I spent dealing with waste management,” he said.
“The enormity of what we had to do to address the EPA problems, in a short time frame, was challenging.”
He was also heavily involved in the recovery phase after the floods which he said were also trying times.
A recent visit back to the couple’s motherland has them eager to return.
“Both Karen and my forefathers are from Scotland so we visited the area,” he said.
“We found out on the trip Karen’s family started on the coast and mine started only 40 miles east.
“My family moved out from Scotland to Quirindi – so we would love to go back and do some more touring of Scotland.”
He is also looking forward to a family reunion on the Gold Coast later this year with daughters Shannon and Emma and his five grandchildren.
But on his imminent agenda is completing his renovation works.
“I think that would make Karen happy – we are enjoying the lifestyle here in Tenterfield,” Dave said.