Malcolm Clive Grant said being awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in the annual Queen’s Birthday honours list on Monday was more a “recognition for [his] wife and family” than for himself.
“They’ve been there to help me all my life, as the saying goes. Without them I would be nowhere,” Mr Grant said.
He said in his 52 years living in Gisborne, what he was most proud of achieving was obtaining an ambulance service in the town.
“The nearest ambulance we had was at Woodend, and if he wasn’t available, we went to Kyneton. After that, Bendigo,” Mr Grant explained.
“We had a bad incident with a young boy, he was just lying on the side of the road for an hour. From memory it was January or February, really red hot, all I could do was brush flies away from him because he had serious head injuries.”
This incident prompted him to galvanise a local ambulance committee, which eventually got them the ambulance they needed.
“It triggered an absolute need,” he said.
Mr Grant served as a peacekeeper in Cyprus in 1966, and as a member of the Victorian Police Force from 1957 to 1980. He was officer in charge at Gisborne police station in 1980.
The 84 year old has authored numerous motoring publications, and was the inaugural president of the Gisborne Vintage Machinery Society in the 1970s.
He helped to established local institutions like the Gisborne Olde Time Market and Gisborne Swap Day, was a former secretary of the Gisborne and Mount Macedon Districts Historical Society and was a researcher at the Victoria Police Museum.
