My father, John Simon de Freitas, a committed Guyanese patriot, was born on 24 September, 1940, the eldest of three children in Georgetown, then British Guiana, into a thoroughly Portuguese commercial background. All four of his grandparents were born in Madeira. I once worked out from family anecdotes that if both his parents had been born either five years earlier or five years later, they would both have been born in Madeira. As it was, both were born in Georgetown.
He was also born into a thoroughly religiously observant and active Roman Catholic family. His father was a staunch supporter of the St Vincent de Paul society as was John Simon in adulthood. His religion gave a sense of duty and devotion to other people. A naturally extremely sociable and sympathetic boy – he had friends from all walks of life.
He attended St Agnes Primary School and St Stanislaus College, before being sent at the age of ten to a Jesuit school, Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, England. This was a wonderful formative experience. He formed close and lifelong friendships and excelled in English Literature, History, French and fencing. This happy period ended with a sudden shock – the unexpected death of his father. Aged just sixteen, his touchstone, his moral compass and his security was gone. Immediately, he left school to do a business course in London.
Two years later, he returned to the then colony to work at the family business, the Central Garage. Formed in 1919, the company sold Chevrolet, Buick, Vauxhall cars and, most significantly, Bedford trucks, which contributed to the development of motor transport in the country. It also supplied various accessories and spare parts.
He entered work in difficult times. His mother had battled to fill the void left by his father. With help and, through her intelligence, persistence and diplomatic skill Zelia de Freitas was able to save the business and leave it as a prosperous company for her children.
My father became Managing Director in his early twenties and served in the position until retirement in 2001, his tenure broken only during 1977 to 1979, when he moved to Madeira.
He was most proud of the sacrifice of his own father, Celestino, who would sell trucks to East Indians from the Corentyne for $1 down. At this time, banks were difficult for the ordinary man from the countryside to access. These accounts were kept in the top left hand drawer of the desk, passed from father to son. Over time, he learned that rice farmers from the countryside were people of honour and integrity
The racial troubles in BG of 1962-4 greatly influenced him. His duty was to guard the Central Garage nightly. Details of the violence he suffered directly were hard to prise out of him. The Abraham family, who were close family friends and neighbours in Hadfield Street, were massacred. Eight members of the family were murdered in what was an apparently racial and political attack. My dad, who drove the three survivors to hospital, often said that if a race war ever started he would leave Guyana. These experiences haunted him and left him always on the lookout for how trouble could start.
He married Dianne in 1965 in Brickdam Cathedral and five children followed. Our house was opposite the church, so we had no excuse for being late. We grew up with a sense of duty, the importance of honesty and gentleness. He was a wonderful family man. We saw him every day. He was gentle giant, a lively storyteller, with a wonderful sense of humour and endless curiosity about people and their worlds. Every Sunday he took us swimming, giving my mother a nice break.
We watched my dad struggle through the climate of increasing corruption and authoritarianism of the Burnham years. We watched as most people we knew emigrated. My father’s best friend and next door neighbour Paul de Freitas died at age 35 of cancer, another grief my dad never recovered from. By the mid-1970s a sense of the best being past had turned to desperation. We left to live in Madeira, his younger brother my uncle Philip, would run the family firm. I blabbed that we were leaving the country and was told off by my headmistress, Mrs Stephens. It was a time when people secretly ran out.
By late 1979 we had returned. Most people we had known were gone and the country’s mood had dived. The racial divide continued. The increasing poverty continued to menace. My dad, always generous, gave money to many victims of poverty.
He also often defended the woman who was being abused in the house behind us. Women being abused in the street would often receive his support.
My dad’s support of the Roman Catholic Church extended to the St Joseph Mercy Hospital, the Nazareth Home, the St Vincent de Paul society and the Catholic Standard. He was on the boards of all these organisations. Over decades, he gave both time and money.
The Catholic Standard was particularly important to him. He supported Father Morrison and David de Caires, both great friends of his, as they attempted to publish a free speech newspaper. It was a weekly battle as Mr Burnham sought to shut them up and shut them down. My father also used his influence to get Father Morrison an influential journalistic award and the fame he gathered from it may have saved the priest’s life.
In 1986, my father collaborated with David and Doreen de Caires, Martin Carter, Miles Fitzpatrick, Vic Insanally, Ken Gordon of the Trinidad Express and Oliver Clarke of The Gleaner newspaper of Jamaica, to produce a free national newspaper, the Stabroek News.
He was a convinced Catholic and capitalist. He despised godless communism. He had many other roles in business. He acted as chairman of JP Santos, a director of Banks DIH, chair of the Chamber of Commerce and was head of the Private Sector Commission when the fight against taxes of 200% for goods and services was on.
In the 1980s the taxes on new vehicles were greatly increased and as a result very few persons could afford to buy them. The ensuing smuggling of second-hand vehicles from Japan became the norm and this unfair competition severely affected Central Garage. Around the same time an expansion of the company was planned in which the service and spare parts departments would have been moved to a new location and the showroom would remain at the High Street location. To this end the Central Garage purchased land at the Ruimveldt Industrial Site, Georgetown; however, the land was conscripted without compensation by President Burnham. During this time, my father continued to pay the property taxes. In the mid-1980s, the next president, Hugh Desmond Hoyte, compensated the de Freitas’ for the Ruimveldt land. My father’s gratitude to Desmond Hoyte for this justice never dimmed.
Whilst Cheddi Jagan was someone both he and his father were personally fond of, Cheddi’s communist ideology utterly alienated him. In an attempt to make business conditions more favourable for the family firm, which was now struggling and to foster a greater capitalist injection into the country, in 1992 my father aligned himself with the PNC under Hoyte in whom he saw the country’s first real chance of success.
In 1997, he became an elected member of the Guyana Parliament, where he served until 2001, when he migrated to Madeira. Despite this parliamentary post, he noted that he never joined the PNC, but was a part of what later came to be formally termed the Reform arm of the PNC, now the PNCR.
His recreational interests included playing volleyball and watching cricket. He was a member of the GCC and most all enjoyed playing bridge. He learned to play at school In England. In Guyana he served as both the President and Secretary of the Guyana Bridge League and represented the country at Bridge tournaments in Trinidad, Barbados, French Guiana, and Suriname.
A fluent Portuguese speaker, John Simon was appointed as Honorary Portuguese Consul to Guyana in 1992. He held the position until 2001. In this he followed in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather, SS de Freitas, who also served in this post in 1928. John Simon’s duties included legalising documents and assisting Guyanese of Portuguese heritage with their investments in Madeira. He also lobbied within the Caribbean with Ambassador Julio Mascarenhas to acquire a seat for Portugal on the United Nations Security Council. He assisted in the promotion of the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition. At the end of his tenure, he was awarded the Order of Merit by the then President of Portugal Jorge Sampaio for his distinguished service.
His connection with Madeira was lifelong. He often remarked that his three aunts, all of whom had lived there at one time or another, brought him up. There were childhood visits, early adulthood visits and in adulthood he maintained a house and a flat there. We spent most holidays there.
He died on Saturday 26 February, 2022 in Madeira, after a short battle with cancer. He is survived by his wife and four of his children.
