Army major Graeme Davidson accused of his first wife's murder in kayak 'drowning'

[Big Boy]

Last week's news, but I loved the "Hua Hin bar Cheers, which is a magnet for balding, middle aged British and Australian men."

I must admit, I was not aware we all carried the LBH (Losers Back Home) tag, but I guess, if the hat fits......

Grim reality of the White Lotus LBH 'Losers' who flock to the Hua Hin Thai bolthole of army major Graeme Davidson accused of his first wife's murder in kayak 'drowning'

Retired army major Graeme Davidson joined a long line of travellers when he sought refuge in Thailand's coastal resort of Hua Hin after his wife drowned while kayaking in Australia.

The Thai royal family has been coming here since the 1920s when they began building palaces to escape Bangkok's brutal humidity and enjoy summer retreats.

Australian rocker Jimmy Barnes has a bolthole in Hua Hin which he and his Thai-born wife Jane call their second home and visit twice a year.

In the past decade, Hua Hin has also become a retirement mecca for Westerners - many of them from Britain and Australia - attracted to the laidback lifestyle and low cost of living.

Scottish-born Davidson, who spent 22 years in the British Army before moving to Australia and serving 11 more years in uniform for his adopted country, arrived in Hua Hin as a widower in April 2021.

On Sunday, the 55-year-old was arrested after returning to Brisbane for what has been described as a family matter and charged with murdering his wife of 26 years, Jacqueline, in November 2020.

Police allege Davidson drowned the 54-year-old beautician while the couple was kayaking at Lake Samsonvale, a popular recreation spot 40km north of the Queensland capital.

Jacqueline's death was initially considered to have been an accident but after further investigation Davidson was accused of killing her and then seeking to access more than $1million in life insurance.

Davidson is charged with fraud and attempted fraud offences related to those insurance claims, as well as murdering the mother of his three children.

The dual-citizen's arrest has made Davidson the subject of international headlines and a hot topic of conversation among the many other expats in Hua Hin, where he had lived quietly for the past four years.

In that time, he bought a four-level beachside home worth about $660,000 - having advertised for a gardener and maid before the purchase - and married a young local woman.

Davidson had moved to Hua Hin, 200km south of Bangkok in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, five months after his wife died, and about a year into the Covid pandemic.

Hua Hin refers to both a district and a city which sits between the Tanwasri Mountain Range and the Gulf of Thailand. To Davidson, it must have seemed a tropical idyll.

The region, famous for its beaches, temples and night markets, is promoted by tourism authorities as the Thai Riviera and has become a popular holiday destination for Bangkok's middle class.

A foreign national living in Hua Hin and accused of committing a serious crime in Brisbane creates barely a ripple in Thailand but why it took police so long to accuse Davidson of murder is big news in Australia and Britain.

That Davidson has remarried and one of his children, son Hamish, has come down from Bangkok to stay with his stepmother following his father's arrest, only adds to the interest.

Leigh Higgins hosts a morning program on Hua Hin's Surf Radio and interviewed Davidson - who she had never previously met - ahead of Armistice Day in November last year.

Higgins did not recall if Davidson discussed his personal life in the parts of their conversation which did not go to air but said word of his arrest had spread through Hua Hin's expat community.

She described Hua Hin as like 'a small country town' but with a growing population of about 80,000 which might swell by 10,000 to 15,000 around Christmas.

Higgins divided the estimated 5,000 expats - known in Thai as 'farang' - into foreign males with Thai partners such as Davidson and his second wife, single foreign males and foreign couples.

'Everybody's got a story of why they're here,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

The LBH tag covers Western men aged from their 40s to 60s who go to countries such as Thailand seeking young Asian women and bluntly stands for 'Losers Back Home'.

The term was made famous in season three of the hit HBO series The White Lotus when a young white woman who had moved to Thailand with her much older partner used it to describe the phenomenon.

'You'll notice a lot of bald, white guys in Thailand,' Chloe, played by Charlotte Le Bon, told Aimee Lou Wood's character Chelsea.

'The locals call them LBHs. Losers Back Home.'

Davidson was well-known in some of the Hua Hin drinking spots where older expats congregate but according to friends, he had been more interested in playing pickleball with his wife than bar-hopping.

One of the places Davidson drank was Cheers Restaurant and Bar, a popular destination for expats in one of Hua Hin's busy entertainment sectors, where happy hour runs from 9am to 6pm.

It was at Cheers that Davidson helped organise Anzac Day and Armistice Day services and met up with other members of the Hua Hin Veterans Group.

When Daily Mail Australia visited on Wednesday night there was AFL, golf and snooker playing on three televisions, and ice-cold bottles of Singah beer being served in stubbie holders for 80 baht ($3.80).

Traditional Thai food was on offer but twice as many menu items were listed as 'European'. Among the fare were fish fingers and chips as well as sausages with chips, eggs and peas or baked beans.

In nearby streets, skimpily-dressed bar girls working from seedy clubs touted for sex from doorways and pool tables but they were not welcome at Cheers and the customers clearly didn't want them there.

No one at Cheers wanted to give their name when speaking about Davidson but that was apparently more out of shock and confusion over his arrest than trying to distance themselves from the alleged murderer.

'He was upset when he came over here,' one fellow British expat said of Davidson's arrival in Hua Hin. 'He used to talk about his ex-wife. He was upset about his wife.

'He moved into a long-term relationship. He wasn't running around bars. He wasn't out gallivanting. He was playing pickleball regularly, twice a week.

'He was a good member of the community. He was settled down, just living a normal life.'

The same expat described Hua Hin as a 'family place', unlike some of the fleshpots in Thailand.

'Here it's couples and families,' he said. 'That's why it's one of the top destinations for people to retire. It's not Phuket and it's not Pattaya.'

'Some are good and some are not so good.'

Davidson appears to have enjoyed his new life in Hua Hin but did not quite fit the stereotypical image of older white males in Thailand, supposedly dubbed LBHs by locals.

Not because he is an ex-soldier – there are plenty of them - and not because he found a beautiful young Thai bride in Pick Pattraporn.

Davidson stood out from many other similar male expats who have chosen to see out their days in Hua Hin because he is not fat, grey-haired, bald, or even balding.

The expat said none of Davidson's mates in Thailand could possibly know what had happened five years ago in Brisbane when his wife died.

'He's innocent until proven guilty,' he said. 'There's always two sides of the story.

'I'm not into rumour-mongering. I don't know enough about the case to comment at this stage. Nobody does really.

'I think it's a bit of a shock to everybody. Everyone's surprised.'

One of Davidson's other old haunts, Father Ted's Irish Pub and Steakhouse, is hugely popular with retired British citizens who come for live music seven nights a week and the Sunday afternoon roast.

On Wednesday evening, a mix of older white men with younger Thai women and white couples sang along cheerily as the Bangkok Beatles belted out Yellow Submarine and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.

As at Cheers, most of the clientele had heard about Davidson's arrest but no-one wanted to be quoted by name when discussing him or what might have happened five years ago in Brisbane.

'He drank, he enjoyed himself and there was never any issue,' one Irish regular said. 'He never made a problem inside here.

'Innocent until proven guilty. I don't know his wife but he played pickleball with my mother.'

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