From army life to life insurance - a big gun leaves the industry

Graeme Lindsay

Lindsay is in the final stages of wrapping up his 54-year career as an adviser but his original career of choice was a long way removed from insurance when he joined the army as a cadet back in 1965.

Soon after joining up he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease and went through a course of radiotherapy.

"I was lucky because they identified it early and I was able to be treated...unfortunately the army didn't want to know me at that point and I was medically discharged."

The next step was enrolling at university where he studied applied mathematics and chemistry but failed his exams due to ongoing hospital treatment.