David Lloyd McMillan, also known as Phrenzy, was someone with a brilliant mind and a generous heart.
Anyone who knew him knows that he was a man of strong beliefs. As a person who was almost dogmatically atheist, we today honour his memory not by talking to a ghost, which David himself would have said was ridiculous, but by sharing amongst his friends and family some of the stories that made David truly one of a kind.
As many of you would have experienced, it was in David’s nature to throw himself completely into something or not do it at all. He had an independent spirit and simply didn’t know how to be half-hearted about anything. Because of this he lived a life that was often punctuated by deep lows. The other side of the coin, however, meant that when he threw his energy into something he become an overnight expert. This led to him becoming a person whose intellect would constantly surprise and delight anyone who met him; and made him a character who will remain in the minds and hearts of everyone who ever crossed his path.
Born on the 4th of June 1987, David was always in a hurry. And he was in a hurry to achieve his own goals, not anyone else’s.
People wanted David to learn to read at the age of five. No, he was interested in arithmetic but not in reading, refusing to learn. During the summer school holidays when he was five and a half, David taught himself to read and by the time he turned six he was reading the newspaper. His first favourite author was Shakespeare, but at age nine he switched allegiance to Tolkien. At ten his bedtime reading was university textbooks in physics and chemistry, from which he established an ongoing correspondence with a physics professor at Adelaide Uni. As an adult, his favourite author was the historian and philosopher, Will Durant. Yet the book he was reading last week was Hypersonic and High-Temperature Gas Dynamics, to help with an open source intelligence article he was writing about secret developments in contemporary military aircraft.
David loved to drive. He first drove with his toddler cousin, Blake, as a passenger, in reverse down a driveway when he was two and a half. Thankfully the boys were fine, although he did manage to mortally wound his Aunty Christine’s letter box. By nine he would drive the manual family car by himself at every opportunity. The day he turned fifteen, he went to the local shopping mall and found himself a part time job to pay for flying lessons. On his sixteenth birthday, he got his learner’s permit for driving a car and from that point on, the roads were his. On first receiving his licence he was confined to driving Penelope’s Barina. David being David, the car’s tiny engine couldn’t slow him down. He treated the Barina like a rally car when he took off to Chain of Ponds and was regularly spotted pulling off perfectly timed handbrake turns into the family driveway. David owned a succession of luxury or sports cars and increasingly powerful motor bikes, culminating in his Skyline. Like many a Skyline driver, he drove way too fast whenever he thought he could get away with it.
David was very excited to have a little sister to care for. Having just turned two when Laura was born, he was of course ready to be her carer. When she cried, he picked her up and promptly dropped the wriggling bundle on the slate floor. When she was to be taken outdoors, he put sunscreen on her face: all over her face, including her eyes. When Laura started crawling and paused at the front door, David fetched a chair so that he could climb up and unlock the door for her, so that Laura could crawl out toward the street. This instinct continued throughout his life. When Laura learned to drive David was there to calm her nerves. When she wanted help understanding complex geopolitical or historical facts, David would sit with her in lengthy discussion. When Laura started dating, David was there to play the threateningly large and protective patriarch to any boy who crossed her. When she began doing all the typically idiotic things most teenagers do, it was David who was there with a guiding hand to let her explore her newly found freedom, while keeping her safe from harm. He taught her, by example, to be fearless, both physically and intellectually. He helped to broaden her horizons and shape her into a thoughtful and knowledgeable adult.
When David had just turned three, he travelled across the top of Australia with his parents, Michael and Penelope, and sister, Laura. Two years later, they travelled in North America, up the Rockies into the Canadian Arctic, then back down the west coast from Alaska to the Mexican border. When David was seven, the family went to Scotland with a group of young people from the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, followed by travel in the UK, Ireland and western Europe. Before heading to London, David looked at a map of where the family had been on their travels and were about to travel in Europe. Seven-year-old David noticed the gap between Ireland and America, declaring with great sadness, “I still won’t have been all the way around the world. AND I’ve never been to Africa!” David’s wanderlust continued throughout his life, spending time in Canada and the US last year, as well as taking road trips within Australia.
At the age of eight, David and his friend David wanted to establish an IT business. Parents being what they are, the boys were packed off to small business training to learn how to prepare a business plan, before being advanced any seed money for the business. By the year 2000, when David was thirteen, the boys had a thriving international trading business in Pokémon cards, with stock worth thousands of dollars. At the time of his death, David was working with his friend, Joe, on plans for an innovative internet business. David loved to wheel and deal, whether it was historical ephemera, cameras, or just something he thought he could resell at a profit. His IT savvy, combined with his rabid intellect, meant that within the space of weeks he could turn a new-found interest into cold hard cash.
From the age of nine David had been hanging around the Chess Club on the weekend. He decided he wanted to play school chess. So he found out all the requirements to enter a team; taught a pile of fellow students to play chess; and chose a team from mock tournaments he held at lunchtimes. With his Chess Club background, he was able to produce team mates who on one occasion defeated an opposing school within four minutes. They spent the rest of the competition night coaching the opposing team.
David had a very strong sense of history. He loved to trace the history of items he bought, which varied from ancient coins to a Soviet army dress jacket. Like many young men he felt an affinity with Hunter S Thompson’s Catcher in the Rye. David decided he wanted to read it in a format consistent with its time of publication and ended up owning a first edition.
A lifelong interest in the world around him led David, at the age of 25, to enrol at the University of Adelaide, studying history and politics. In typical fashion, David would either drop out of a subject completely or excel academically. Following his own timetable, no one else’s, David picked the subjects that were of interest to him, often skipping to advanced subjects with ease. He completed a parliamentary internship, which is designed for final semester and honours students, before he was even halfway through his degree. His research work for the internship was of such a high standard, that a professor from Flinders tried to poach him away from Adelaide Uni to undertake an Honours thesis at Flinders, little realising that David was years away from being eligible to do Honours.
If David’s mind was set on something, it was astounding what he could achieve. Whether it was something silly like being so attached to his pet rat that he would sneak it in his pocket to join him for the day at primary school, doing this so many times that eventually he convinced the staff to accept it, so that the school provided a cage for Ratty in the library; or something that takes drive and focus like working for his black belt in Shidoshi karate, while becoming a favoured and personal friend of his sensei; or skipping grades at school because his teachers couldn’t keep up with him, often taking on his own personal academic projects, ranging from advanced physics to trying to teach himself Latin at the age of ten. David had mixed feelings about performing, despite singing in a wide range which was supported by perfect pitch. He had an amazing ear for accents and voices which he could and would produce with Robin Williams-like rapid succession and humour. He recently undertook training and developed a demo tape for work in radio voice recording.
This tendency to go above and beyond when it mattered to him translated into his personal relationships as well. Whether it was a small gesture like researching and finding the most perfectly obscure and fitting gift to surprise someone with; or going out of his way to provide level headed and thoughtful help to friends in crisis. David was often turned to by his friends and partners to be the voice of reason and he happily obliged. With partners, David was forever trying to protect and care for them. He wanted nothing more in life than to try and keep people safe and make them smile. His generous heart was the only thing that could rival his intellect, as a hallmark of his true nature.
David’s unique character stuck in the minds of all who crossed his path. For anyone from the people in his favourite cafes or stores, to university lecturers or doctors, to make David’s acquaintance was to meet a man you would never forget.
David was always planning to travel into space. His friends are arranging for him to do just that. Some of David’s ashes will be placed on a Space X satellite and launched into orbit around the earth. Tracking information will be available for two years so that friends and family can search for him with a telescope in the night sky. After the satellite’s two year journey around the earth it will return and burn up in the atmosphere. In a fashion that truly epitomises the man, David will go down in a blaze of glory that those lucky enough to know him will never forget.