When you walk into David’s beautiful light-filled home, it is impossible not to admire his impressive collection of artwork adorning the walls from floor to ceiling. Each piece tells a story, a souvenir of roads travelled, places visited.

Honours are rarely about a single moment. More often, they are about accumulation of time, care, patience and showing up when it would be easier not to. When David received notice that he was being considered for an Order of Australia Medal, he says it came as a surprise. Like many recipients, he hadn’t applied, campaigned, or even suspected his name might be put forward. The confirmation arrived quietly in early January and an announcement followed. The medal, the ceremony and the formalities will come later. What stands out most is not the honour itself, but how little it seems to have altered him.

David describes himself as a private person. His circle is small and his routine steady. Following his retirement in 2012, David says he became busier than ever. “I knew I’d find niches to occupy my time,” he says - and he did. Volunteering became the backbone of those years. This includes with Meals on Wheels, first as a Volunteer Coordinator at the Mitcham branch, later through delivery and the coordination of customer meal choices, a role he still holds today. “Volunteering for Meals on Wheels seemed like a good thing to do - I was looking for something without responsibility, because usually I’m on committees as a treasurer or something like that. I wanted something where I could provide a service,” he says.

David also volunteers with Mitcham Council’s Library Bus, where each month he helps older members of his community - many living alone - travel to the library, share morning tea and return home with books and company. “Some of them are also Meals on Wheels customers so you build up a bit of rapport over time.”

What draws him back isn’t recognition or social reward. Volunteering, for David, is not about expanding friendships or filling a social calendar. It is about usefulness. About human contact that is warm but bounded. About knowing when to step in - and when to step back.

That sense of quiet order extends into his home, where art plays a central role. His first piece was bought at the age of 12: a small, colourful African painting picked up near Victoria Falls. It still hangs nearby. Over decades, the collection grew; botanical prints, irises - his favourite, landscapes, works by Australian and international artists, curated by instinct. Each piece holds a memory of where it was sought from and by whom - an intricate wooden walking stick from Africa, delicate glass strawberries from Sweden. Upon a shelf stands a scattered row of at least 15 small ornamental elephants, crafted from a range of materials from wood to stone, to lava - collected from all corners of the globe, some bought for him as gifts.

“It is an enjoyable part of my life. I buy what appeals to me,” he says simply. Some pieces carry stories: an unfinished painting acquired just in time before a flight home, a stained-glass window carted through several houses before finally finding its permanent place, built into a wall to catch the northern light at his Clapham home.

If there is a throughline in David’s life, it is care - for people, for institutions, for things worth preserving. Community galleries. Volunteer-run organisations. Quiet services that depend on people turning up again and again, without applause. When asked about the year ahead, his goals are characteristically understated: to stay well and retain strength, travel to Hobart for a few days, spend time at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), step in once more voluntarily as coordinator at his local gallery, Gallery One. Beyond that, he’ll “see what happens.”

Soon, there will be a formal presentation at Government House, a reception and post-nominal letters added to his name. He may join the Order of Australia Association. Things will look much the same as it always has - meals delivered, books returned and art hung carefully on high walls. Honours recognise service, but they don’t define it. They simply pause briefly to illuminate lives that have long been quietly holding things together.