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Character Profiles > David Bishop Kevin Harrington

David Bishop 1988, 2003-2005
Lived: 22, 24 Ramsay Street
Parents: Harold and Mavis Bishop
Marital Status: Liljana
Siblings: Kerry
Children: Serena
Family Tree: Bishop
Occupation: Accountant, Legal Assistant, Councillor
Died: 2005

Fussy and conservative, David Bishop inherited every bit of his father Harold's traits and mannerisms. Like Harold, David is very narrow in his outlook, suffers from allergies and tends to take the high moral ground on all issues. David was totally different to his younger sister Kerry, who rebelled against Harold as a teenager and left home to live in India as a hippy. David, meanwhile, was the apple of his father's eye and made Harold a proud man by moving to Adelaide and settling down after completing his studies.

David's mother Mavis had died when he was young, so David was pleased for his father when Harold was reunited with his childhood flame Madge Ramsay in Erinsborough and they became engaged. David arrived in Erinsborough for the wedding full of energy and enthusiasm for the role of best man, and he was delighted at the prospect of gaining a new step-brother and sister in the form of Madge's children, Henry and Charlene. However, the feeling wasn't entirely mutual - particularly from Henry, whose carefree, laid back attitude to everything differed greatly from David's way of life. It wasn't until the day of the wedding that David got to meet Madge for the first time - and his first impression of her wasn't an overly keen one. The look upon his face as Madge made her way up the aisle spoke a thousand words, and David appeared to strongly disapprove of his father's choice of bride. However, by the end of the day, David seemed happy to welcome Madge to the family, and even called her 'mother'.

After Madge and Harold set off on their honeymoon, David opted to stay around a bit longer, and immediately wound Henry up by waking him at 7am the morning after the wedding to clean the house up. But Henry eventually warmed to David, and even tried to give him a new look in an attempt at impressing the ladies. There was only one lady David was interested in, however, and he fell helplessly for her as soon as he met her. Jane Harris was the granddaughter of Mrs. Mangel, with whom Harold had been lodging before the wedding, and when David was introduced to Jane by his father, he was besotted. Upon realising Jane was already seeing Mike Young, David told Mike in no uncertain terms that he was going to win her from him. However, Jane wasn't interested in a relationship with David, and after breaking the news to him, David soon turned his attentions to Prue Watkins, the receptionist from Lassiter's. But Prue rejected David after one date, and David decided to return to Adelaide. He later moved to Perth, with new wife Liljana and they had a daughter, Serena.

David was devastated when Harold went missing in 1991, having been swept out to sea while on a tour of Australia with Madge. Harold was presumed dead, and David flew down to be with Madge as they tried to come to terms with their grief. It was five years before it was discovered that Harold was, in fact, alive and well, but suffering from amnesia and calling himself ‘Ted’. Madge had moved to Brisbane in the intervening years, but hurried back to Erinsborough upon hearing the startling news. Harold eventually recovered his memory, but his relationship with David suffered in the years that followed, with neither father or son spending much time together and contact descending to just exchanging Christmas and birthday cards.

But that all changed in 2003 when David was offered a partnership in a financial consultancy with Thomas Morgan, an old friend and sometime nemesis from his school days. The business was to be based in the plush Eden Hills, a neighbouring suburb to Erinsborough, and while the Bishops waited on their dream home to be built there, they decided to stay with Harold. Although Harold was delighted to welcome his family to Erinsborough, he was overwhelmed with how busy the house had suddenly become. Although Madge had died from cancer two years previous, Harold had recently been joined by his rebellious granddaughter Sky - Kerry's daughter - and having her, plus David, Liljana and Serena around, was initially too much for him to handle. But at the root of the problem was the fact that the relationship between David and Harold was considerably strained. Although alike, they clashed on various things - Harold was embarrassed by David’s extravagance and penchant for money, while David looked down on Harold’s Coffee Shop and plans to start a foster home. Liljana urged David to work on healing the rift that existed between him and his father, but David seemed unable to really talk to his father, and any attempt at doing so, usually resulted in both David and Harold ignoring the substantive issue and talking about trivial matters instead.

The tension between the two men eventually came to a head when Harold called down to see David at his new suite of offices and was virtually ignored by David for the whole time he was there. David was busy making important phone calls, and Harold eventually gave up and returned home. When David arrived home that night and suggested Harold make an appointment with him next time so as to avoid a similar occurrence, Harold finally let his feelings on David’s attitude be known. David - and Liljana and Serena - were shocked as Harold revealed he was appalled by David’s flash behaviour, Liljana taking over the kitchen at No.24 and the way Serena was spoilt rotten. David retorted by telling Harold he felt left out after several years of Harold excluding him from every major event in his life, pointing out he had only called to tell him Madge had died after the funeral had taken place. With the relationship between father and son near breaking point, David moved the family into Lassiters Hotel until the house in Eden Hills was ready.

After a few days - and some prompting from Liljana, Harold apologised for the way he had behaved, and David, too, admitted that he had overreacted. When Harold invited the family to move back into No.24, David accepted - much to the delight of Liljana and Serena. David, however, was preoccupied with other matters by this stage. He had discovered his plush suite of offices were locked up and being leased out, and repeated calls to his business partner were unanswered. He gradually began to realise that something wasn’t quite right about Morgan and Bishop Financial, but pride meant David refused to tell his family about the apparent financial mess they looked set to find themselves in. David was offered a glimmer of hope when he consulted solicitor Tim Collins about his predicament, and Tim hinted there may be a way out of the mess. Feeling more positive about his future, David pressed ahead with spending a small fortune on sending Serena to the posh Eden Hills Grammar - an act which set him at odds with Harold again, who figured Serena would get just as good an education at Erinsborough High.

However, David’s world collapsed around him when Tim’s associate Toadie Rebecchi broke the news to him that Thomas Morgan had lied to him about going into any form of partnership together and had apparently absconded with the money David had invested in the consultancy. A devastated David broke down in tears, as the realisation that he had been left penniless by Morgan sunk in. He also had to face the task of telling his family about his failings as a businessman. Unable to face it, David vowed to get a new job immediately and press ahead with the plans for the house in Eden Hills, the flash car and the posh school for Serena. But David found finding employment extremely difficult, and his pride took a further dent when his BMW was reclaimed. He lied to Liljana about the car, telling her it was being worked on in the garage, and when Liljana told David she had invested the shares he had given her for her last birthday - the family’s only remaining piece of financial security - in buying a horse with Lou Carpenter, David still put a brave face on and pretended everything was okay. David was thrown a small lifeline when Toadie, who felt sorry for him, offered him a job as PA at the law firm, and although it was a real blow to David’s pride to reduce himself to such a job, he had no alternative but to accept.

When Liljana finally realised something was amiss after seeing a ‘for lease’ sign at David’s offices, she confronted David and was shocked when he broke down and revealed the extent of their financial problems. What hurt Liljana most, however, was the way in which David had deceived her and failed to tell her from the start how bad things were. It took a long time for Liljana to forgive David, but she eventually rolled up her sleeves and abandoned the plans she had to enrol at university and got a job as Karl Kennedy’s receptionist instead. When Tim and Toadie moved their practice to the same offices as Karl, David and Liljana benefited from working together as it helped Liljana rediscover her trust in David – as well as her sexual attraction to him, which became evident to all around the offices as the couple engaged in flirtatious behaviour at all opportunities. David was faced with an awkward dilemma, however, when Toadie offered him the chance of some lucrative legal work in Sydney for a few weeks – the catch being it would involve him being away over Christmas. Although Liljana was upset that David wouldn’t be around for their first Christmas together in Erinsborough, they both knew how badly they needed the money and David went to Sydney. But he managed to get a head start on his work and got home on Christmas Eve to surprise the family, complete with a Santa Claus suit. The Bishop’s first Christmas together on Ramsay Street was cruelly shattered, however, when Harold suffered a stroke. Luckily, he made a full recovery, although his personality changed slightly as a result.

A visit from Liljana’s interfering mother Svetlanka ensured the year got off to a traumatic start for David. The tension between David and Svetlanka was clear for all to see, and evidenced in the fact that Svetlanka had put a curse on David on his wedding day if he ever hurt her daughter. David and Liljana initially tried to conceal the fact that they had lost all their money from Svetlanka, but her suspicions were aroused as soon as she realised the family didn’t seem to have any intentions of moving out of Harold’s house anytime soon. The visit also coincided with the revelation that Serena had been posing for racy bikini shots with a ‘photographer’ Chris Cousens for several weeks and had become romantically involved with him, despite the fact that he was about ten years older than her. It transpired that Chris was using Serena purely so he could get as many raunchy pictures of her as possible, and when David discovered that Chris was putting the pictures up on the internet, he went berserk. He smashed up Chris’s studio, handed the hard drive from his pc to the police and burnt all the photos of Serena that Chris had taken. The incident led to Svetlanka accusing the couple of being unable to control their daughter, with the finger of blame being pointed at David in particular. And when Serena let slip to her grandmother that the family were in dire financial straits, Svetlanka decreed that David was no good for Liljana and tried to persuade Lil to take Serena back to Perth with her.

When Liljana refused to entertain the notion of leaving David, Svetlanka demonstrated a ruthless streak by telling David that Lil had only married him because she was pregnant and needed a father for her child. David was stunned and confused by the accusation, while Liljana was horrified at how low her mother was prepared to stoop. She banished her from the house, before explaining to David that she had been pregnant when she met him, by a worker from the family’s vineyard who had since fled town. Liljana had given birth to a stillborn son, and it was only after this that she fell in love with David, married him and gave birth to Serena. Although David was shocked by the revelation, he was quickly on hand to comfort his wife, understanding how horrible it must have been for her to lose a child as well as having her mother use it against her. The whole episode only served to strengthen the bond between the couple, and Svetlanka was forced to return to Perth without making her peace with Liljana.

When Sky came face to face with the duck hunter who had shot and killed Kerry, David was the only member of the family who shared his niece’s determination to follow him down to the wetlands where he was apparently still shooting. Against Harold and Lil’s wishes, David and Sky made the journey to the lake where Kerry had been shot, but it seemed they were too late as there was no sign of any duck hunters. But David took the opportunity to pour his heart out to Sky about how guilty he had felt about not keeping in touch with Kerry in their adult years, lamenting over how he had had a silly argument with her when they were teenagers and she was just about to travel the world.

More problems cropped up for David when he wrongly suspected Liljana of having an affair with her self defence instructor Allan Steiger. Liljana then in turn mistakenly thought David was having an affair when he started arriving home from work late and she witnessed him acting strange in a car park with a young blonde. A furious Liljana raced home and threw all of David’s clothes off the balcony at the Bishop house, incidentally just as the street was being judged in the ‘Best Streets’ competition which David had worked hard to win. However, it turned out that David had hired a personal trainer to get into shape himself, and Liljana felt terrible about the way she had behaved.

When the anniversary of his mother’s death occurred, David was delighted when Serena showed an interest in marking the occasion for the first time. Every year since Mavis’ death, David made a point of having a champagne picnic and doing some bird watching since they were his mother’s favourite pastimes. But Serena was uncomfortable when David asked Sky to come along too this year and celebrate her late grandmother’s life and yet, he omitted Harold from the celebrations. When Harold was told of the plans by Serena, he was confused by David’s behaviour and confronted him about it just before David and the girls were due to leave for the picnic. David initially tried to avoid tackling the issue with his father, but he eventually told Harold that he never felt he had loved Mavis as much as he had loved Madge. Harold was taken aback by David’s revelation, and assured him that he loved his mother very much, and pointed out that without her, he never would have had David or Kerry, not to mention Sky and Serena. David felt a lot better about things after that, and invited Harold along for the picnic, where he toasted his late mother and also the Bishop family as a whole.

David saw a way out of the family's financial troubles when Svetlanka returned to town and offered the family $100, 000 as a gesture of how sorry she was for the trouble she had caused on her last visit. While still appalled by the behaviour of his mother-in-law, David was keen on accepting the money and when Svetlanka went ahead and lodged the money in their bank account, he used some of it to pay off his credit card bill. Liljana was furious, but a more worrying development took the Bishop family's mind off money when Lil's recent tiredness culminated in her being hospitalised with liver failure. As all Liljana's blood relatives were ruled out as donors due to her rare blood type, David also took a test in the hope that he could help his wife. But with all possibilities exhausted, Karl was forced to break the news to David that Liljana was fading rapidly and was going to die.

As an inconsolable David kept a bedside vigil, he refused to listen to Liljana's pleas that he try to find someone else when she had gone and instead, desperately willed her to get better. In the nick of time, Svetlanka recalled that her godson, Luka Dokich, who had recently turned up in Erinsborough and was dating Serena, had a rare blood type himself. But with time running out and Luka having just left town, any hope of tracking him down seemed futile. However, the ever-determined Sky was not prepared to stand by and see her aunt die and went looking for Luka, eventually tracking him down and getting him back to the hospital in time to test positively. Luka and Liljana were rushed in for emergency surgery and there was relief all round when Liljana recovered.

But in the weeks after the operation, it was revealed that Luka was a lot more than Svetlanka's godson. He was, in fact, her grandson – and Liljana's son. It transpired that the baby Lil had given birth to out of wedlock hadn’t been born stillborn at all, but had been adopted out by Svetlanka to friends of the family – the Dokich's. The Bishop family were tested to the limits by the revelation, especially given the fact that Serena and Luka – who were half-brother and sister – had been dating and almost consummated the relationship. Matters were strained further as Lil and Luka started to bond as mother and son, and David began to feel jealous, especially when Lil spoke lovingly of her old flame – and Luka's father – Ivan. But Lil reassured David by explaining to him that she was building the now-deceased Ivan up to be a lot nicer than he was for Luka's sake. All the same, David felt a lot more comfortable about things when Luka returned to his family in Perth, especially since Luka had torched David's briefcase in a rage on one occasion.

When David decided to run for local council, he was thrilled when the recently returned Paul Robinson pledged his support. Paul had once practically owned Erinsborough and wielded an enormous amount of power and influence in the community. But what David didn't realise was that instead of supporting an old family friend in his quest for a seat on the town council, Paul was actually grooming David to be his own personal puppet for local political matters. And indeed, when David stuffed up his campaign on the final day of canvassing by posing for a supposedly stately image of himself draped in the Australian flag, it was Paul who actually secured David's place as councillor by calling in a favour at the eleventh hour. But far from being a puppet, David frustrated Paul very early on by voting against a planning development that Paul was involved in.

David's position as councillor also restored his faith in himself. After the humiliating days of answering phone calls for Toadie and Tim, David could know stand tall with his head held high in the community again. Unfortunately, this new found confidence was to have a serious effect on his marriage to Lil.

When Liljana accepted a job as manager of The Helen Daniels Foundation, a philanthropic organisation Paul had set up in memory of his late grandmother, she and Paul began to spend more and more time together and gradually, Lil found herself drawn to Paul. David, meanwhile, put all his attention into his new career as a councillor and Liljana grew concerned when he expressed an interest in trying get his foot back into big business when Paul encouraged him to invest in a high-risk business venture. Liljana was also horrified when David reacted violently upon discovering Serena in bed with her boyfriend Stingray Timmins, and broke the young lad's arm whilst throwing him out of the house. David, meanwhile, was oblivious to Lil's growing concern with his behaviour and had no idea that she was relying on and confiding in Paul. David's eyes were only opened to Paul's manipulation when Paul had him framed for defrauding The Helen Daniels Foundation, whose accounts David had worked on. David wasted no time in accusing Paul of framing him, but things worked out in Paul's favour when Liljana actually started to believe that David was guilty. The case was thrown out of court on a technicality, but the damage had been done to the Bishops' marriage by that stage and Lil left David. It wasn't long before Paul professed his love for Liljana and they began seeing each other, initially in secret in order to spare the feelings of David and Serena.

However, David and Serena discovered the truth when Sky took some pictures of Paul to try and prove he was up to no good. Having captured some shots of him in an embrace with Liljana, Sky tried to keep her uncle and cousin from seeing them. But Serena unwittingly borrowed Sky's camera before Sky had had a chance to erase the photos and David was horrified when he and Serena saw in full colour Liljana kissing Paul. David was furious and, also, publicly humiliated but while he remained deeply in love with Liljana throughout this mortifying period in his life, he came to detest Paul Robinson and everything he had done since his return. In a moment of madness, David even tried to run Paul over in the Lassiter's car park one afternoon.

Liljana's love affair with Paul ended when she realised how crooked he really was, and Paul paid the ultimate price for his dirty deeds when he was chased by some heavies through the bush and fell off a cliff, losing a leg. David found himself coming face to face with Paul in the hospital in the weeks after the fall, as part of David's initiation as a member of the Salvation Army. Forced to bring Paul out in his wheelchair for some fresh air, David was taunted by Paul about how much Lil loved him and how passionate their relationship had been. But Paul was actually hoping that David would lose his temper and push himself to the edge just at the right moment. Once they reached the top of a steep hill, Paul told David he now had the chance to erase him out of the Bishop family's lives forever by simply letting go of the wheelchair. David had been so enraged by the comments Paul had made that he let go and Paul went hurtling down the hill headed straight for a busy freeway. Paul realised at the last second that he actually wanted to live and managed to jump to safety, while the event had a significant effect on David. He had finally reached a point where he could exorcise Paul from his mind, and he resolved to win back Lil once and for all. Luckily, Liljana felt that their marriage deserved a second chance, and agreed to move back home. While she initially slept in the spare room, it wasn't long before she was ready to commit herself fully to David once again and they started sleeping together once more.

Their domestic bliss was shattered, however, when Paul moved in next door at No.22, and he took great pleasure in rubbing the Bishop family, particularly David, up the wrong way at every opportunity. But David and Harold fought back by practising the tuba on the balcony of No.24 at ungodly hours of the morning. A greater cause for concern for David and Liljana, though, was Serena's growing closeness to Connor O'Neill and her decision to drop her plans to go to university in order to invest in Connor's bikini shop. Things got so tense between Serena and her parents that she moved across to No.30 with Connor, but David orchestrated a reconciliation after recognising that they faced losing their only daughter if they didn't respect her wishes and let her live her own life.

As the Bishop family were finally finding contentment after the upheaval the previous six months had wrought upon them, David was stunned to check his lottery ticket and discover that he had won $250,000. After briefly toying with the idea of buying a flash new car and returning to his former ways of being consumed by money, David shocked his family and friends by donating his entire winnings to the Salvation Army. Although Lil was a little surprised by the act at first, she quickly realised that David was right – it seemed all they needed in life was each other.

Tragically, their new found happiness was cut short. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the opening of Lassiter's Hotel, Paul had arranged for a special 1940s themed joy flight to Tasmania for the people who had contributed to the hotel's success through the years. Harold opted out of the trip and gave the tickets to David and Lil instead, and despite the fact that Paul would be present on the flight, they jumped at the chance to have a bit of fun and a holiday to Tasmania too. With Serena, Sky and a host of other Ramsay Street residents also on the passenger list, David and Lil excitedly set off after an emotional morning with Harold at No.24 where Harold told David how very proud he was of him. The joy flight got off to a great start as the passengers were wined and dined on the way to Tasmania, but little did they realise that a bomb had been planted on board the plane. It detonated just as the plane was coming in over the Bass Straits and with one of the engines blown apart, the plane tried to keep going on one until the fuel ran out and it became clear that it was going to crash. In their final minutes together, David, Liljana and Serena told each other how much they loved each other and David and Lil clung to each other as the plane went down. But they were not to survive the crash, and David's body was recovered from the Tasman Sea a few days later.

Trivia Notes
• David Bishop was allergic to dust

Tenure
723-734, 4344-4837

Magic Moments:
Episode 4344: The Bishops' Arrival
Episode 4836: The Plane Crash: Part One
Episode 4837: The Plane Crash: Part Two
Episode 4838: The Plane Crash: Part Three
Episode 4854: The Bishops' Memorial

Biography by Moe

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