Animals & Us
Adrian Skeggs · 38 min
A boy who burned down a boat shed on a tiny island grew up to represent Australia on the international rugby stage — because a community refused to give up on him.
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Adrian Skeggs grew up on Lord Howe Island, a place of 450 people 700 kilometres off the coast. His mother was bedridden for 22 years and in constant pain. His father left when Adrian was born. As a boy without the attention and stability he needed at home, Adrian pushed every boundary he could find: shooting arrows at tourists, lighting fires, burning down a boat shed. He was seeking attention in the only ways available to him. When his mother died in his second year of boarding school, the void nearly consumed him. She had kept herself alive on 40 tablets a day just to see him grow up, and then chose to stop. Adrian realised she had been his lighthouse. Instead of following a destructive path, he chose to become strong on her behalf, to honour what she had endured.
A stranger named John Hipwell met Adrian at the airport and saw something in him: rugby potential. That single conversation changed everything. Rugby gave Adrian fraternity, belonging, and structure after years of chaos. He played for Queensland, represented Australia in Canada with his mother's photo in his pocket, and carried the island's legacy onto an international stage. But when professional sport ended, Adrian faced his hardest challenge: losing the identity he had built on the pedestal. He struggled to find his calling in a world that no longer defined him by his position or his wins.
Adrian returned to Lord Howe Island to raise his six-year-old son in the same place that saved him. He volunteers at the school, sits on the local council, and works to strengthen connections between young people and older residents. His life now measures success not in personal achievement but in community, legacy, and the word 'we' instead of 'me'. He is teaching his son that their future depends on understanding where they come from and what they can build together.
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