Deaths

Sir John Maynard Hedstrom In Suva in November, aged 75.

The father of Sir John May nard Hedstrom whose three names he inherited was one of the founders of the Morris Hed strom Ltd chain of stores in the South Pacific.

Bom in Levuka, and educated at Geelong Grammar School and the University of Melbourne (where he took a law degree), Sir John joined the family company as a junior clerk in 1934. He retired as general manager in 1958.

He was until recently chair man of W.R. Carpenter (South Pacific) Ltd. which had taken over the Hedstrom group.

Shortly before his death he was appointed a director of Grif fin East, an Australian company which in its turn had taken over W.R. Carpenter (South Pacific) Ltd.

Sir John sat on a number of

public committees, including the

Fiji Coconut Pests and Diseases Board, and the Board of Trustees of the Fiji Museum.

Robert Hunter In Tacoma, Seattle, USA, in October, aged 49.

Mr Hunter, an American, went to Fiji in the early 19605, and became involved in many land dealings there. Among the most important was the acquisi tion of Wakaya Island by his family company. South Sea Lands Ltd.

He was among the founders of the domestic airline, Fiji Air.

His widow is the former An nette Lepper of Savusavu, Vanua Levu.

Robert August Howlett In Sydney on May 28, 1983,

aged 72.

New Zealand-born, Robert Hewlett went to London in 1930 to train as a journalist on The

Evening Standard.

In 1937 he went to Fiji to work as advertising manager for Mor ris Hedstrom Ltd, beginning a long and creative association with that country.

At the outbreak of war in 1939 he joined the Fiji First Battalion.

Attached to the US Army, the battalion saw intensive action at Guadalcanal and Bougainville, among other places.

At the end of the war, he

stayed on to compile The Official

History of the Fiji Military

Forces 1939-45, and then joined the Fiji Government’s public re

lations department, hosting visit

ing dignitaries on their visits to

Fiji.

He was instrumental in the establishment of the Fiji Visitors Bureau, formed to develop the

country’s tourist industry.

In 1958 he left Fiji to take up the post of director of tourism for the Singapore Government.

In 1959 he settled with his family in Sydney and worked as a travel writer for The Australian Women s Weekly.

In the early 1960s he formed the travel public relations com pany, Hewlett, Keeling & Associates, and began publishing the popular travel industry news letters, Travel Talk, and Boomerangs from Bob Howlett.

In the early 1970s, he col laborated with the noted photo grapher, the late Bruce Adams, on the book Battleground — South Pacific, a look at the after math of World War II in the

region.

In 1976, at the Pacific Area Travel Association convention in Hawaii, he was awarded the ac colade “Pioneer of the Pacific”, in recognition of his contribution to regional tourism.

Never really retiring, he spent his last years on the shores of the Pacific at Manly in New South Wales, where he died leaving a legion of friends and associates who remember him primarily for his conviviality and humor — a man who enjoyed life to the full at a time of development and in a social climate we are unlikely to

see again.

Janferie M.

Howlett.