Character From Fiji

Death Of Gerry Adam Removes A Colourful Character From Fiji

Fiji identity Clarence Angelsc

(“Gerry”) Adams, who died

Lautoka on May 10, was colourful figure who will long 1 remembered in the Colony. I

was a pharmacist by professit

and a former Mayor of Lautok but his interests were everywher (See Deaths of Islands Peop] p. 145.) A year or so ago, Gerry Adai was campaigning for the improveme of the main road through Sigatol township.

He didn’t just write letters to ti Public Works Department, He p a big notice outside his shop, dra 1 ing attention to the number of yea since Cession and suggested th nothing much had been done to tl road since then.

He did not just complain of i action. In December, he had an a vertisement printed in the Fiji Tinu wishing the Director of Public Wor and all responsible for the road “s indifferent Christmas”.

He did not just describe the roi in terms of ruts and pot-holes. I turned on a fire hydrant, flooded long depression in the road, floah some toy ducks on the water, ai photographed a group of childn standing on the edge, fishing happi in the main highway.

The late Mr. C. A. Adams

lat was Gerry’s way. s had a gift for the striking se, the off-beat act that amused stimulated—and stuck in the I —and he hated, and fought with stating effectiveness, the dilatory, bound ways of the narrow, ob tive breed of bureaucrat. : was always stimulating, always :o talk to, always entertaining to ith. iere was nothing commonplace t him. Hamlet’s description of :k fitted him precisely, “A fellow nfinite jest, of most excellent r ”. t Gerry could be extremely js in purpose, as he was in his s to clean up the prostitution t at Nadi. public office, or when he set and to any community job, he ed hard and tenaciously. To as much as any man, must go credit for the transformed ap nce, and much improved civic ities, of Lautoka in the post-war Mayor of Lautoka, he received }ueen and the Duke of Edin i with a grave dignity that im :d and pleased his fellow citizens, ring the war, and later, when c air services were in their in , his hospitality and the imagina entertainment he arranged for lian Pacific Airlines passengers idi Airport and at his Lautoka left many hundreds of visitors i with a warm feeling of appre q, and, incidentally, made for a host of personal friends, his day, there were few better and cricketers in Fiji, and his was well above average, was a successful pharmacist, i other business enterprises he and to miss out consistently, ore the war, he had a garage :ar agency and ran both of ka’s picture theatres. sold them just before Pearl •ur brought a flood of US troops i, and made fortunes for those ablished businesses, en the manganese boom de id, he became obsessed with the >f making a quick fortune, but ; time he had acquired and ex mining areas the buying period assed and the not at the end of inbow was very, very empty. became a boxing promoter while, but the losses and litiga resulting from that venture ed him up to a week or two death. hing. however, really daunted md he was always ready with new scheme, perennial one was a beach

resort for the overseas millionaire— the tired business man who, as Gerry said, would leave the resort much tireder, but happy.

Gerry was nothing if not resource ful. There was, for instance, the time in the United States when he ad dressed a Rotary Club, and was asked to say a few words in Fijian.

He did, with impressive oratorial earnestness.

What his audience did not know (except one man, who sportingly con cealed the fact that he had been in Fiji during the war) was that the words were all names of the better known Fijian towns.

On that same American tour, Gerry seldom sent the conventional letter of thanks to his hosts.

A series of spaced, unsigned tele grams such as “Awaiting reply ours of 25th”, “Smith much concerned delayed reply”, “Position now urgent my previous request”, drew more attention.

As Gerry said, few things could cause more chaos in a well-ordered office, or, when the name and purpose of the author was made known, do more to impress his memory firmly in the recipient’s mind.

These are only some of the in numerable stories that can be told of Gerry Adams, He was a man of many-sided character, but none of them was dull. There are too few of his kind in this harassed world, and Gerry will

be greatly missed.

L. G. Usher.