Misc. Notes
Born at "Nooralie" Private Hospital, in Ulupna Road, Ormond, Vic when parents were living at 1 Walsh St, Ormond.
131 Attended Glen Huntly State primary school and Caulfield Grammar school. Studied sciences. Dux of school in 1961 Studied physics BSc(Hons)1966 and Economics BA 1969 at Monash University. Worked as school teacher at Chadstone High School for 2 terms in 1966 and as a technician in Monash Geography Department for two years, where he worked on climate measurements. Left to go mountaineering in Peru in 1969.
Sid and Margery used to take their family on camping and fishing holidays at Xmas and Easter. Keith caught his first fish at Peterborough. Later holidays were at Boydtown, on Twofold Bay in NSW. Rock fishing was at Green Cape. Surplus fish were sometimes frozen at the Greenseas cannery in Eden and taken back to Melbourne at the end of the holiday.
Member of 11th Caulfield Boy Scouts from 1955 to ca 1961 Foundation member of Monash Bushwalking Club. Spent summers in Tasmania 1962 (hitch-hiking tour and walk through Cradle Mountain National Park) and 1963 (South-west). Member of Australian Section on New Zealand Alpine Club. Spent summers 1964-68 in NZ Southern Alps. Member of Australian Andean Expedition to the Cordillera Vilcabamba in Peru, 1969. Highest peak climbed was Mt Lasunayoc at ca 19960 ft.
After Peru, Keith & Lesley went to Canada as immigrants looking for work. Employment was difficult so Keith took job as a research assistant in the Soil Science Department, working with Dr T. A. (Andy) Black, then became a post graduate student and eventually finished a PhD in 1974 with a thesis on the energy balance of a Douglas-fir forest.
On graduation took a job with DSIR in New Zealand, first with Crop Research Division in Lincoln, then transferred to Plant Physiology Division in Palmerston North in 1975. Later reorganizations changed this to DSIR Fruit and Trees in 1989 and The Horticultural & Food Research Institute of New Zealand in 1992. In each of these positions Keith continued to work on micro-meteorology and evaporation from vegetation. Keith was Regional Editor of the journal "Agricultural and Forest Meteorology" from 1985 to 1991 and an editorial adviser for "Climate Research" from 1990.
Spent 9 months at CSIRO Division of Environmental Mechanics in 1980/81 Canberra and a year at the Meteorology Department of Wageningen Agricultural University in the Netherlands in 1992. This included an 8-week period in Niger working on the HAPEX-Sahel experiment as part of the Wageningen-Meteorology team.
Keith continued with mountaineering in NZ after his return in 1974. He climbed Mt Cook by the Zurbriggen route with Mike Feller and did a one-day traverse of Mts Hicks, Darwin, Vancouver and Malaspina from Empress to Plateau hut with Tony Crapper. Took up running again while at CSIRO in 1981 (having run middle distance for a year at Caulfield Grammar School) then joined the Palmerston North Harrier Club on his return to NZ, later to switch to the Kia Toa club. Ran the Hamilton Marathon in 1983 in 2h 57m 26s. Ran in numerous cross country and road events until a deteriorating hip joint forced him to desist, in 1988.
Keith and family lived in a rented house at 58 Hackthorne Road in Christchurch (1974/5) then bought house at 131 Cook Street, Palmerston North in October 1975. Lesley's parents moved in to a unit next door in 1982. In January 1996 they moved, with Lesley's mother, to Kerikeri in the far north of New Zealand. Together they bought a house at Skudders beach, 6km north east of Kerikeri. Keith continued working for Hort Research, with the transfer bringing him into closer contact with other scientists working on the same projects. At the time of the move Andrew stayed in Palmerston North. Eileen was working in S.E. Asia.
In June 1998 Keith was made redundant from HortReserach after Government funding for his work was cut back. In March 1999 joined the Biometeorology group at the Institute Nationale de la Récherche Agronomique in Bordeaux, France as a Chercher Etrangere, where he continued on with work on turbulece begun in New Zealand. Lesley joined him in April, and her mother Kathleen joined them both in May. In March 2000 they all moved on to Edinburgh where Keith had obtained a contract position working on a project with Prof. Paul Jarvis, who he had worked with previously in Palmerston North, New Zealand. They rented an appartment at 8 Jordan lane, Edinburgh EH10 4RB.