|
|
|
|
Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
Freeport, The Bahamas - A Memorial Service was held for Sir Jack A. Hayward,
Kt., OBE on February 23, 2015 at the Pro-Cathedral of Christ of
the King, East Atlantic Drive, Freeport, Grand Bahama Island:
The following is a tribute by Sarah St George
Good Afternoon Everyone,
This is a bittersweet day; because today as we mourn Sir Jack and pay tribute to him, he’d want us to celebrate his lifelong work and the remarkable creation of this Magic City we call our home – and all in a mere 60 years.
The word bittersweet is a contradiction and Jack was in fact a man of many contrasts; magnanimous and frugal; intractable and Impressionable; theatrical and understated; hard-working and playful. friendly and frightening – As Jez Moxey of the Wolves said: A man with big ideas interested in the smallest details.
As we know, back in 1955 (the year I was born) his father Sir Charles Hayward, Wallace Groves and the Allens first conceived the concept of a city called Freeport with the Government of the day and signed into reality in “The Hawksbill Creek Agreement”.
Jack arrived in 1956 at Pine Ridge in a Grummond Goose flying boat operated by Bahamas Airways. I’m told back in those days planes only had a compass, and a fuel gauge and these charter flights were apparently flown by one of two pilots. According to Jack you wanted Tubby Welch and the saying went: “If you love your hubby fly with Tubby, or if your soul is ready fly with Eddie…”
Jack lived in a Nissen hut, working by gaslight and driving on Timber Trails. Wallace had actually been here from the 1940s. Marina Gottlieb writes about her parents arrival in her book
Sand in my Shoes, “In the 1940s Pine Ridge was truly a pioneer settlement…I am awed by the courage and tenacity it must have taken to live in a place so isolated from civilization. I try to imagine what my parents must have felt when they flew over the FLAT, DESOLATE island of Grand Bahama. They were foreigners in a strange land brought here by the hand of fate and a wealthy American businessman called Wallace Groves. Living conditions were primitive. Life was devoid of comfort. Grocery stores were non-existent. Food was scraped from cans till they could grow their own vegetables and learn how to fish.” Jack said, there were “no amenities, no schools, no medical facilities” apart from Dr Gottlieb’s clinic which was a Chicken Coop. There was a cluster of Bahamian families, - Forgive me if I can’t mention every one - like Hayward Cooper who in those days drove the only taxi; The Wilchcombes and Grants in the West and Pinders in the East. And a figure from my childhood, Albert Lechevin, of whom it was said that he was ‘papillon’ a real-life escapee from Devil’s Island.
Only a handful of people are left, who can remember those early days and actually witnessed Freeport grow one day at a time from Pine Ridge producing pit props and pulpwood to a Metropolitan Garden City and Port. Doug Silvera is one. He once had to fish Jack’s Mercury Station Wagon out of a Blue Hole – How it got there who knows? Maybe Jack was trying out one of his famous shortcuts…
The driving force behind Freeport in the next decades was the trio Sir Jack, my father Edward St George and of course Sir Albert Miller – The 3 Musketeers sporting Safari Suits and 60s sideburns; Hardy, hard-working, resourceful and always with a sense of humour, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with families alongside them. Rick, Sue and Jonathan would remember those days. Jack never lost that optimism, enthusiasm and steadfastness which as the Prime Minister and Former Prime Minister said, stayed the course through good times and bad.
They didn’t just build the Infrastructure of the Day they built the infrastructure of the Future. You’ve heard that famous World War 1 Epitaph: ‘They gave their Today for our Tomorrow’. Well, they did - just look at the Canal System and the Dual Carriageways. As we know, The Port was dredged, Hotels and Homes were built,
Multinational Businesses came, Local Enterprises were born, Tourism prospered.
Jack, my father and Sir Albert believed in Long-Term Equity Investment and that’s why you see so much of it - worth some $11 billion today at the last count. We are emerging from a world recession, we’re on track for more Economic Growth; the IDB has said so – So let’s get everyone here a job!
Sir Jack loved nature too - hence ‘Garden City’ – part of Jack’s dream was that Freeport should always be self-sustaining both economically and environmentally. Natural capital and man-made capital hand in hand: Trees bring clouds, clouds bring rain, rain replenishes the water table, water is a key part of industrial activity. You know the saying: ‘If you want a rainbow you’ve got to put up with the rain!’ Jack was obsessed with his rain gauge and actually spent an hour or so in Florida in his 90s pottering up and down the aisles of a superstore looking for one for me as a present. He loved that dredging a deep water port was twinned with the mining of limestone for export. How many other places have depleted their Natural Resources in the quest for progress?
What was he like to work with? When I first approached Jack’s office I was greeted with a ceramic sign hanging on the door. “I can only please one person a day. Today is not your day; tomorrow doesn’t look good either”. After that it was like a ritual. I’d ask,“Is today my day?” and he’d always reply, “No! It isn't”.
Jack, as you know was an exceptionally generous benefactor and philanthropist. But never presume – This was a man who would still stop to pick up paperclips from the floor because he said he hated ‘waste”. I remember that Patti Bloom’s brother Dick sent Jack and me a large expensive and heavy box of chocolate brittle – a Denver delicacy. A few days later Donna appeared clutching a small bill and in her soft-spoken voice said: “Sir Jack says, that as you’ve eaten half the box with your brother Henry, and your friend Fatima, you should pay for half the customs duty!”
In his office, romantic tales of Derring-Do still adorn his bookshelves: I spotted a lovely one the other day: “Cockleshell Canoes - a book on WW11 British Military Canoes. And for years, there was a wooden propeller from a Tiger Moth on his wall with the inscription: To FL/LT JA Hayward R.A.F – for deeds performed in India and Burma beyond the realms of sanity”.
The Minister of Grand Bahama said to IDB governors last week; ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’. And no-one could ever accuse Jack of being dull. Jack’s work here was his life like my father and so their work day never stopped at 5 o’clock or weekends or even holidays – as both Jack’s and daddy’s families well know. Perhaps that’s why Jack and my father were so at home here in The Bahamas, because of that ability to appreciate every day, to laugh, to find time to chat not just make a business appointment, to meet rather than have a meeting – that’s the essence of life here – and, of course, as surely as they were in the process of shaping Freeport, they themselves were shaped by Freeport. Jack didn’t know the word ‘overtime’ – When he saw employees leaving at 5:30 his Shakespearean stage voice would boom out congenially: “Mind you don’t get caught up in the stampede!”
When presented with a proposal, Jack and my father always felt it should be put on no more than two pages or better yet on one. And never try to ‘blind him with science’ or pie charts or Capex – because if you did, he was apt to quote from St Paul’s address to the Philippians. He’d listen to the presentation and then pronounce solemnly…”Well, THAT was like the peace of God – It passeth all understanding!”
He admitted he wasn’t a number-cruncher and he didn’t need to be. We have Arthur Jones who’s a structural engineer, Ian Rolle and Deann Seymour have accountancy backgrounds; so did my father, Ian Barry and Don dela Rue before that and all the way back to Wallace the Wizard.
Jack was a field man at heart. He’d often say, “I take a different road to the office every day – to avoid assassination!” But of course as Willie Moss recalls he was always on the look-out for potholes, missing signs and cats eyes. In budget meetings, Jack would simply turn to the page, “Freeport Maintenance and Road Repairs”. They all roared with laughter one meeting when he exclaimed, “Lunar Boulevard! – Albert isn’t that the street to your house? Well we’re not re-doing that this year!”
If you got on his bad side before a board meeting, you were likely to get a revised agenda from Jack with a new 1st item on it headed: “Early retirement of the following persons!”
Jack was obsessed with the English language and heads rolled if there was a misplaced ‘r’ or misplaced anything actually– as the PR department and Ginger remembers. And of course the spelling had to be non-American like this service sheet “HonoUr” with a “U” ; Harbour with a “U”; Programme Double M-E and of course LicenCee with a C not an S. He even tried to correct the spelling of “Lincoln Center” –to Centre with an “re” till he was reminded that THAT was its official name.
Imagine poor Andre Cartwright who commissioned 100s of company pens – we still have them by the way... These were elegant, burgundy & gold and handsomely packaged. Everyone oohed and aahed and THEN Jack’s eagle eye spotted the inscription: “The Grand Bahama Pot Authority”. I have one here with me—
Jack would tell people,“You can say what you like about me but just spell my name right! ” Well, today, we can only say Thank You. Thank you for building this home we all share, Thank you for the vision we all believe in – and which we pledge to continue.
Jack was terminally ill for some time but he never let on – Last Christmas he was given a month to live but didn’t say. He worked till his last day here –And he was determined to go on his annual Christmas Cruise which thanks to Patti, Amy and Mike he did - carried aboard in a wheelchair. Sadly it was to be cut short and I’ll always be grateful we had a chance to say our last silent farewells to him in hospital in Florida.
Here today at Christ the King, as we reflect on Jack’s Herculean achievements, we honour his virtues, we forgive his flaws and treasure these fond memories. I’m sure all of you have a story about him. How do you define someone who simply didn’t have it in him to give up or to give in? Someone who loved life right up to his last breath – The poet Dylan Thomas (whom my father knew) wrote:
‘Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Thank you
© Copyright 2015 by thebahamasweekly.com
Top of Page
|
|
|
|
