APRIL 2017

DAVID LAING passed away on the 18th March, 2017 at the Deloraine Hospital after a long illness. He was seventy three.

When he was eight years old, his family emigrated from Scotland and settled in South Australia.

As a teenager he played league football with the Port Adelaide Football Club and represented South Australia in a game against Victoria.

After graduating with a Batchelor of Education degree, David taught at schools in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Tasmania.

During this time he started theatre groups in the towns where he was teaching and both directed and acted in one act plays and musical comedies.

His love of fly fishing began forty years ago when he was Deputy Principal at Geeveston Area School in the south of Tasmania.  David enjoyed showing school students how to use a fly rod and tie their own flies.

After retiring, he and his wife Wendy settled in the Meander Valley where he joined the Deloraine Bowls Club.

He became a Level 2 Coach and was proud that he coached two young lads, Thomas and Matthew Mitchell to State level.

In 2008 he started writing young adult novels and his Forest Trilogy, ’Forest Spirit’, ‘Forest Shadows’ and ‘Forest Secrets’ are in schools and State libraries in Tasmania, the mainland and are also distributed overseas by his publisher.

He is survived by his wife, Wendy, daughter Carla and grandchildren, Tiahn and Kelei.

Photo | Photo supplied