Life+ with Fiona Della-Sale: The life story of teacher, researcher, author & maritime historian Howard Gray

The tranquil haven of Howard Gray’s backyard and home in Geraldton is striking.

The gardens are cool, lush and tropical, multi-layered with a diversity of trees, exotic vines and palms. Bees are buzzing, birds singing. It’s the perfect replication of a much-loved tropical island on which Howard lived, worked and explored.

It’s also a scene that would have been welcomed by the desperate survivors of the Batavia shipwreck, thrust upon the rugged and barren shores of the Abrolhos Islands in 1629.

Manifested in his own home patch are Howard’s two life interests: ecology and maritime history. Many Geraldton locals will know him as a teacher, researcher, historian, author and community man. From the intricate life of a crayfish to the psychology of a mutineer, there’s little Howard has missed learning about and sharing with others.

Early beginnings of his interests sprung from childhood, growing up on the great Clarence River and estuary on the NSW north coast. A wide, meandering river flowing down from the Macpherson Ranges on the Queensland border into the sea, it provides fertile plains for farming and sugar cane growing. It was also the source of a natural childhood playground on the family farm near the town of Maclean.

“There was always something to explore,” Howard recollects. “Down at the river, swamp or sea.”

A young Howard helped with farming chores as there was a big dairy herd, cropping and pigs, then in his spare time, would immerse himself in the natural environment, just ensuring he was home in time for tea. The occasional cyclone and the flooding river brought a flush of new swamp life and birdlife. “There were black snakes, brolgas, every handful of water a microscopic universe of its own,” he said.

Perhaps, too, it was the source of a later maritime interest, as Howard’s great grandfather died when the passenger ship he was aboard in the 1860s came to grief as it left the river mouth for open sea.

During schooling, an inspirational biology teacher provided impetus for studying at university, which Howard worked hard to pursue, completing a degree in biological sciences, majoring in botany and microbiology.

Local cotton farms and sugar came processing mills were perfect places to earn cash during university holidays. Still being quite young on graduating and not realising a vast world of science careers, Howard undertook a Diploma of Education. But before launching into a decades-long teaching career, Howard spent a short stint in a “student village stay scheme” in Papua New Guinea in 1970, where on a remote island called New Britain he joined in with locals at “sing-sings, pig-hunts and fishing expeditions at all hours of the day and night.”

Far from remote, jungle islands, Howard then began teaching in Tamworth. He was adjusting to inland life when he became seriously unwell. With little in the way of tropical medical expertise west of the Great Dividing Range, it took a while and proved almost fatal before Howard was diagnosed and treated for malaria.

Recovered, he happily transferred to a teaching job on the south coast before delving into work as an assistant apiarist.

“I spent the year with a classic old bee-keeper wandering around the forests from the south coast to the mountain chasing blossoms and harvesting honey from the 1100 beehives,” he said.

The cold, wet and low pay lured Howard once again to the tropics and he landed a teaching job on Christmas Island the next year. The interviewer for the Commonwealth Teaching Service knew little about the island so Howard consulted a reference book, the Australian Yearbook where he found just one brief paragraph of information.

Little did he know but that meagre paragraph would be significantly expanded under the penmanship of Howard, his first of many published books. But first he had to teach, explore, research and fall in love on the island, and with the island. Which wasn’t hard.

The unspoilt and little-known beauty of this small wonder located in the Indian Ocean between Australia and Java was gold to a science teacher and naturalist. “I was in my element and having senior biology as one of my teaching subjects but no gear to teach it, took my four students out to different habitats each week over the year to study each one, eventually covering the whole island from tree-top to cave bottom,” he said.

From jungle trips, caving and night diving there was so much on offer to observe in the diverse flora and fauna, rare birds and red land crabs.

The mandatory expectation of having to leave the island during school holidays created the ideal launchpad for travelling through much of South East Asia, backpacking the hippy trails and more. With the job contract ending after two years and being offered postings in either ACT of Northern Territory, neither of which appealed, Howard seized the opportunity to collate his vastly expanded natural history knowledge of the island into a book, Christmas Island — Naturally, while also working in Perth teaching.

It was while adding finishing touches to the book, while back up on the island, that Howard met a lovely local lady Sapia, who became his wife. They married in 1978 and their first daughter was born later. The book was a success too, selling 3000 copies in the first few months and winning an Award of Special Merit in the Royal Zoological Society of NSW Whitley Medal Awards in 1982.

Fortunately, the southerly wind blew Howard north in 1980 as he took up a transfer to Geraldton Senior High School, which was seeking a geology teacher. “There’s fascinating geology and I had to learn it pretty quickly”, Howard recalls. But he need not have hurried, as what was to be a short, couple of years’ stint in Geraldton, evolved to be 40 years.

Life in Geraldton was good. His family of now three children grew and they had built a carefully designed solar passive house and established a garden.

Teaching broadened to include human biology, biology, geology and general science. His wife Sapia settled in well to life in Australia, made many friends and ran Malay cooking classes. Howard spent lots of time diving for crayfish and fondly recalls times “when we would somehow fit in a dive before school every day, often sneaking in the door after the first bell had gone.” Naturally, Howard gravitated to the Abrolhos Islands and more diving, still remarking now, that it really is the best in the world.

He traded a wetsuit for raincoat as his desire to explore and learn more, took the family to England for a year on a Commonwealth Exchange Teacher program. It was a shock arriving in the dark and cold of mid-winter and with a big job on his hands, but life soon warmed up in the making of many new friends, his young girls attending the local school and then buying a Volkswagen to roam through Europe in summer. It was at the end of their year there, their VW met with its demise, catching on fire and burning on the M1, but luckily with no one hurt.

Back in Geraldton, over the next 20 years Howard’s resume expanded to include teaching and leading science in eight schools, research project work on middle school years reform, lecturing at TAFE and more.

In the community and in his spare time, his fascination with crayfish propelled him into researching the natural history of the Western Rock Lobster and the work of the industry over the last century. The job was immense with visiting research laboratories, CSIRO, universities and many interviews conducted of older fishers, all on top of his day job.

His work was published in the first or two volumes and sits on the bookshelf of many a Geraldton home and beyond. It was also recognised with winning the national Whitley Medal in 1983 for the best natural history book of Australian animals.

With extensive knowledge of the lobster industry under his belt, Howard enrolled in a Masters degree by thesis work. His 200,000-word draft was considered “too much” and was recommended for a doctorate instead, which was achieved in 1990.

A doctor title to his name brought no pretence to this man, it appeared to just add resolve in his commitment to the environment and science with much voluntary work in the community. He started a local environmental group, sat on Abrolhos Islands, HMAS Sydney, Batavia Coast Maritime Heritage committees amongst others, initiated a sustainable housing expo and continued writing books.

In recent years, his interest in maritime history has wound back centuries to early Dutch exploration of the WA coast, in particular, the Batavia voyage and shipwreck story.

From the Dutch East India Company and rich Spice Island trade history to the tragic story of female passenger Lucretia on the fateful voyage, Howard is a full bottle, evident in further publications, organising commemorative events, delivering a radio program and having a regular berth on board charter voyages to the Islands and north, as guest speaker.

He tells and lives “sea stories” now in retirement and refers to that as a “real treat”. With three adult children and seven grandchildren in town he feels very fulfilled, but his work isn’t over yet.

Within the next few years, the shipwrecks of the Zeewijk and Batavia will be commemorating 400 years. Howard is keen to see these internationally significant events celebrated, and with great tourism potential, he’s hoping the city will support it.