31. David and the tomahawk by Debby McColl

In 1988 I looked after David for a few hours after kindergarten while Anne was doing a journalism course in Wellington. He was just a month younger than my son Sam, and I thought they would be good company and keep each other amused.

Well, it worked to a degree – they did get on well and had a lot of fun, but I found, with the mischievous David, I had to learn to have eyes in the back of my head. I remember popping out into the back yard one day where the boys were playing, and finding David wielding my wood-chopping tomahawk to good effect upon the fence!  Sam was nowhere to be seen – perhaps he heard me coming and took off. David just looked at me with that disarming sweet smile of his, and happily handed me the axe when I asked for it. A good lesson to me – don’t leave weapons of destruction lying around.

My kids loved dressing up at this stage in their lives, and poor David was often persuaded, somewhat reluctantly, to don various items of clothing and join in on some fantasy. In the photo with Sam and Emily I think he is resisting putting on something that looks vaguely like a pink dress. If he had decided not to put it on, then that was that – he knew his mind.

After this period of time (about six months, I think) I hardly ever saw David, but now and then there’d be a friendly wave from across the street. Much later I heard tales from Sam about the naughty things David and his brother James got up to when they were a bit older – such as giving a woman money to go in to the dairy and buy cigarettes for them, and sneaking bottles of beer when they were around at David’s Dad’s place in Moera.

I do remember thinking that David had made a wise choice going into the Army. I was of course shocked and saddened at his untimely death.