EIGHT AND EIGHTY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 September 1940, Page 9

EIGHT AND EIGHTY

GRAND OLD MAN OF SOUTH AFRICA.

One of the grand old men of South Africa kept the Durban post office telegraph messengers busy recently. Sir David Harris celebrated his 88th birthday there. It has long been his ambition to be able to say: “Ek is ag en tagentag.” A.s soldier, ‘ politician and mining magnate, he never spared himself, and even now his vitality is amazing. This is his secret of long life: “Sensible living and straight thinking. That’s all.”

As a boy of 19 he arrived in Durban, which was then a village with sandy streets and no harbour. He walked to Kimberley, “a poor optimist.” The diggers had reached the blue ground, and thought they had struck the bottom of the mining ground. Panic-stricken, they sold their claims for a song and iled. The “poor optimist" stayed. On the third day he dug up a 38-carat diamond. He never looked back from that day. For 40 years he was a director of De Beers. He resigned at the age of 80. Perhaps his only regret will be that Hitler has prevented him from taking his score with Father Neptune (times across the equator) to a record figure. For many years ne sailed to Europe to enjoy the English summer.