Friends and family farewelled Tenambit resident and world-renowned volcanologist Malcolm Buck this week after he succumbed to a three-year battle with motor neurone disease.
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With his wife Debbie Nichols, Dr Buck moved to Tenambit in 2005 when he took up work with the Coal Compensation board.
Up until the move he was a lecturer with the University of NSW and before that Macquarie University.
Lower Hunter radio listeners might remember Dr Buck from numerous interviews he gave to ABC local radio on volcanic activity.
When Dr Buck was diagnosed with motor neurone disease he became an advocate to find a cure.
Dr Buck shared his story with the region’s media to help raise awareness of the group of diseases which attack the nerve cell connectors (neurones).
The voluntary muscles progressively stop working.
“The whole issue of self-euthanasia is very much on my mind,” he told the Mercury in 2013.
“The end point is that you lose the ability to swallow and breathe. It’s a terrible disease.”
After a lifetime climbing volcanoes Dr Buck was relegated to wheelchair in August 2014 and started to lose the power of speech.
He still took part in the MND Ice Bucket Challenge last year and challenged others to help raise money for a cure.
Dr Buck died on February 25, age 62.
“Malcolm fought valiantly against the disease, for over three years, and died peacefully with his family holding his hands,” Ms Nichols said.
“I will remember Malcolm as a loving and supportive husband, an intrepid traveller and educator.”
About 40 people attended the funeral service at the Fry Brothers crematorium, East Maitland on Wednesday.
Steve Matchett, his best friend of 30 years, delivered the eulogy.
Dr Buck was born in Waiuku, New Zealand in 1952, the second son of Colin and Jean Buck.
He was brother of Stephen, Lynne, Katherine, and Rodney.
He was father to Richard and Christopher from his first marriage and grandfather to Jacinta and Leonardo.