Jack St Julian - 44

years with Union

Jack St Julian, one of the best-known figures in Fiji, has retired from daily business at the Union shipping offices in Fiji, but will retain his interest through a resident directorship.

Thus has ended a long business career in the islands, although the St Julian association with Fiji, which began well before Cession in 1874, will continue.

Jack St Julian’s great-great grandfather was chief justice of Fiji in Ratu Seru Cakobau’s government. His grandfather was the Suva postmaster and his father was Comptroller of Customs.

He has retired after 44 years with the Union Company and looks back on an era in which his firm’s ships provided the main cargo and passenger links with the islands before the advent of Jumbo jets and con tainer ships. ”Our cargo-passenger ships were very much a part of island life,” he said.

Born in Auckland, he arrived in Fiji at the age of two months and was raised in Suva. He joined the Suva branch of the Union Company when he was 17 and has been with it for 44 years.

The only substantial length of time he has been away from the Union Company was during the Second World War when he was given leave to serve with the Fiji Naval Reserve.

He was appointed manager in Lautoka in 1951, then re turned to Suva as accountant,

becoming subsequently chief

clerk, manager for Western Samoa and then manager for Fiji. He was appointed Pacific regional manager with re sponsibility for Fiji, Tonga and Samoa in 1979. ’’Actually I wanted to be come a purser,” Jack said, with a twinkle in his eye. ’’But when I got back from the naval stint they told me I was too old, so I continued as a land lubber.”

This of course was only dur

ing the week. At weekends he and his family are customarily seen on their big motor cruiser, Ai Tau, fishing, or just enjoying Fiji’s beautiful waterways, and on those trips he was not only purser, he was captain. Jack was for many years commod ore of the Royal Suva Yacht Club.

The 1950 s and 60s were the hey day of the Union Com pany’s South Seas services, with ships like the Matua and the Tofua carrying general, freezer and cooler cargoes to the islands on the outward trips from Auckland. Return voyages saw them heavy with bananas, water melons, taro and other produce collected in Suva, Apia, Vavau, and Nukualofa.

Water melons were lucrative, if difficult cargo. ’’They used to fetch such high prices, we thought of them as gold,” Jack said.

Suva wharf would be loaded with anything up to 5000 melons and 15,000 or so cases of bananas every time a Union ship called in. “But the trouble with the melons was that they took too long to unload. If they weren’t off the ship in double quick time and into the shops they turned to mush.”

Matua did her last island run in 1967 before being sold off to a tramp company and then hitting a reef in the Philippines.

Tofua had a slightly more eventful history. In 1952 she was caught by a hurricane in Suva harbor and driven up on to a sandbank, but she came off undamaged. ’’She was last seen, I believe, in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam war, but nobody seems to know what happened to her after that show ended,” Jack said.

In between conducting the Union Company’s affairs, Jack St Julian has maintained his family’s tradition of public service. He has been a leading Rotarian for many years, he was a member of the Fiji Visitors Bureau board for seve ral years and is currently a member of the Fiji Marine Board and the Fiji Employers’

Consultative Association ship ping committee. ”It’s been an interesting 44 years,” he said. ’’lnvolvement with people of all kinds was one of the most fascinating aspects of the life... from all types of captains, through passengers,

to ’naughty’ crewmen. ’’Containerisation is the big gest change I have seen in regional shipping. Nowadays the greatest percentage of cargo comes in containers or in bulks.

There is always something new happening in the shipping in dustry and one never stops learning. ”

Changes at

Sunflower

Sunflower Airlines of Nadi, Fiji, has announced two senior appointments. Ranjesh Shalendra Sen has joined as a cadet pilot while Danny Riet berg has taken up the position of senior licensed engineer. The airline’s managing director, Don Collingwood, said Ranjesh Sen’s appointment was in line with the company’s policy of training the future manpower of the industry in Fiji, and of localising as much as possible.

Ranjesh comes from Wai qele, Labasa, and was edu cated at Labasa College. He studied electrical engineering at the Fiji Institute of Technology, Suva, and then went to Motueka, New Zealand, in 1983, where he was accepted for a pilot’s course. He returned to Fiji with a commercial licence late in 1984. He joined Sunflower Airlines in January, 1985, and is flying as co-pilot.

Danny Rietberg has a wealth of experience in the airline industry. He received his formal engineering training in England where he worked for British Airways. Prior to coming to Fiji he worked with Solomon Island Airways. He was also employed by Air Pacific for three years as a flight and ground engineer on their BAC 1-11 aircraft.

Originally from Indonesia, but now an Australian citizen, Mr Rietberg has been travelling for 17 years. He has lived and worked in most of the Pacific Island countries. His task with Sunflower will be to train local staff during his three-year appointment.

Sunflower Airlines has five pilots and operates a 16passenger Heron and three nine-passenger Britten Norman Islander aircraft. They fly sche duled and charger passenger and freight services throughout Fiji and executive charters throughout the Pacific.

Jack St Julian