MORISON David George
professional soldier, welfare worker and golfer 1920-98

David Morison was born in Salisbury; he articled for accountancy in Bristol and joined the Territorial Army in 1938. Following the outbreak of war, he joined the Regular Army and served in France during the Phony War as a sergeant in the Tank Corps.

He was commissioned in 1940, then transferred to the Indian Army where he commanded a transport company in India, Burma and the Northwest Frontier until he end of 1944. During this time he contracted rabies, beri-beri, dysentery and recurrent malaria, and also met his future wife Elva in Rangoon in 1944 were she was serving with the Women’s Auxiliary Service-Burma. In 1945 he was posted to Singapore working with the Japanese War Trials. Then followed a posting in Palestine in 1947, and Egypt 1948-52 where he married Elva.

David migrated to Australia, joining the Australian Regular Army in 1953, and became a naturalized Australian. His next postings included 103 Car Coy South Melbourne, 36 Coy RAASC Horsham then back to Melbourne again, during which time he was elected as a Councillor with the South Melbourne City Council.

He was posted to Singapore, Malaya and Borneo 1959-62. It was in Singapore that he was bitten by the golfing bug which remained with him all of his life. On return he was posted 2IC RAASC Centre Puckapunyal 1962, Chief Provision Officer Melbourne, and then back to the RAASC Centre as the Commanding Officer and Chief instructor until early 1968. His talents enabled his election to inaugural president of the Puckapunyal Golf Club.

David was posted as Australian Army Representative SEATO in Thailand in 1966; then in 1968 to AHQ Canberra, first as ADST in DST and finally AQMG Works, retiring from the Army in 1973. As well as the extra-curricular activities on the South Melbourne Council and the Golf Club, he played cricket for Army and was later a Life Member of the RSL and member of the Regular Defence Force Welfare Association.

After retirement from the army in 1973 he was appointed Executive Director South Australian Royal Society for the Blind 1973-81. He was instrumental in achieving significant benefits for the blind community – gaining superannuation benefits for the blind, installation of audible traffic lights, ending unofficial cracker nights to avoid the prevalent eye injuries, and developing this small under-resourced organisation into a modern, multi functional, efficient society providing training, employment, welfare, marketing and retail services for the blind and disabled community. In recognition he was made a Life Governor of the Royal Society for the Blind.

In 1981 he retired to Mackay to play golf, his first love – probably playing most of the golf courses on the eastern seaboard and inland as well as several in Western Australia. In 1990 he had heart bypass surgery which gave him a new lease on life and spent the years travelling to Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Port Stephens visiting his four sons, their wives and 11 grandchildren; but always he returned to Mackay to thaw out.

Not a deeply religious man in the conventional sense, he recognised that a universal energy exists. He held his own personal beliefs which sustained him during his latter years. David passed away on 6th July 1998.