DAVID Lawrence was born in Brisbane.

When eight years old his family moved to Lae, Papua New Guinea that was a safe, cIean and a magic place.

Sent back to school in Australia, it broke his heart as he had fallen in love with PNG and was determined to return and become an anthropologist.

What's your job?

I am in my ninth year as a Beechworth Health Service director and am also attached to the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra as an Associate Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, College of Asia and the Pacific.

What brought you to this role?

Following a major car accident in Indonesia I had to reinvent my career.

Suffering serious injuries, it was traumatic and took 18 months to recover.

I became a writer and since then have published seven books on environmental history, the Great Barrier Reef, Papua New Guinea and the colonial history of the Solomon Islands.

Despite physical problems, the government sent me to Honiara where I managed a social assessment survey of 300 rural communities.

I loved it but caught dengue fever twice.

So you could say mosquitoes drove me south to Beechworth!

What do you love about your job?

I am strongly committed to developing the local hospital and have also reconstructed their archival records that are incredibly valuable.

Included in them are the original documents relating to the establishment of the Ovens Gold Fields Hospital in 1856.

What do you do in the community?

I live quietly with two dogs and a large library.

I am also an artist doing Chinese brush paintings and a Mayday Hills Art Society Board member.

Every day I enjoy the environment and streetscapes of Beechworth. I never take history for granted.

What's the most important current community issue for you?

Maintaining the health of the people of Indigo Shire.

COVID is a long–term health management issue.

What would you do to solve, change or improve that situation?

People must participate in and not take our health system for granted.

I have lived with the poorest of people in Asia and the Pacific where people have been without fresh water and sanitation.

I have seen teenage girls die beside the road during childbirth while waiting for transport.

What's the most important current world issue for you?

I lived in Finland as a student and know Russia.

The Finns say 'The big black bear is now awake'.

We all need vigilance.

If the person you would most like to meet came to Indigo, or was already here, who would that be and what would you show them?

The former museum director in Helsinki was Pirjo Varjola.

We are good friends and wrote a book together.

She was head curator of the foreign ethnology collection and is very smart and very perceptive.

She taught me good Finnish manners – particularly not to speak loudly in public.

Australians have become a nation of public screamers.

I would show her the Burke Museum, the archival collection at the health service and our wonderful built heritage and streetscapes.

Why would you show her that?

She has a strong museum background and her brother is a head archivist for the Helsinki city government.

History and heritage are important to her.

What book are you reading?

'Cold Night' by Frank Moorhouse – part of the Edith Trilogy set in Canberra in the 1950s during attempts to ban the Communist Party and the city was being planned as a national capital.