David Booker 1976 to 1983

David Booker arrived at St Mary’s in 1976 from St Bartholomew’s in Swanley a school that supplied, among others, the Bensley brothers (Paul and Sean, 1974 and 1978 respectively) and the Moran brothers (Naoise and Enda, 1972 and 1974). Like these lads, David was an excellent sportsman, in fact probably the best all-rounder in his year and was a mainstay of both the rugby and cricket teams.

After leaving St Mary’s in 1983, David decided not to go to university or polytechnic and started at CT Bowring Insurance Brokers in Sidcup in July of that year.

“I then worked for a number of other Lloyds Insurance Brokers in London and was linked with the Piper Alpha disaster in the North Sea in 1986 when our Business Insured a lot of the Divers and other engineering teams in the North Sea.”

In 1989, David moved into the Life Assurance Industry and worked for both MGM assurance and Scottish Amicable before becoming Branch manager at Alliance & Leicester in Lewisham.

In 1996, David moved to Sydney with his first wife and the couple had three daughters.

“I then worked for AMP for the next 12 years in a variety of lending and financial planning roles. I was a mobile banker on the road for the first three plus years which allowed me to explore all of Sydney.

Having separated from his first wife in late 2006, David then met his current wife when her younger daughter and his middle daughter both secured lead roles as the character “Debbie” in Billy Elliot the Musical which ran for over a year in Sydney.

The pair tied the knot in March.

For the last 11 years, David has been at Nab Private running a team of Private bankers looking after High Net Worth individuals and their families.

David is still sports mad, continued to play football and is connected to a side called Pagewood in the Eastern Suburbs where he both played and coached (mostly junior girls and ladies). He was still playing until late 2016 when he had a second ACL reconstruction!!

David says: “I have really fond memories of St Mary’s and it’s amazing that I am still in contact with a lot of old school friends. I always recall the strict discipline in the early years and the coach travel to rugby on a Saturday around Kent. Oh, and the Black Horse of course where a few sherbets were drank each Saturday after the game.”

One final thing. David is an avid Charlton fan, which scores him extra Brownie points.