These are no more than sparks snatched from the fire of their lives – encounters with men who were most memorable in my life.
I was in my early twenties, recently from University and starting work with Bookers in British Guiana, when as part of my induction into the sugar industry I went to meet Dr George Giglioli at the offices of the Sugar Producers Association in Camp Street. He rose white-haired and slightly stooped from behind his desk to greet me and shake my hand, this great old man courteously and kindly putting at ease a nervous stripling. I was right to be nervous. By then George Giglioli was a legendary figure. Here was true greatness in a man – genius put to practical use for the benefit of his fellow man. He was the first to have the idea and then the imagination and the drive to apply DDT on a large scale to eradicate malaria – thereby saving countless Guyanese and, by the example set, countless millions further afield. It was one of the great medical achievements of the 20th century.
At that first meeting, and subsequently when we got to know each other better, he did not want to talk about that so much. He told me about his daily work in improving the health of sugar workers. I remember to this day something he said to me at that first meeting, leaning intently toward me across his desk: “If you had the blood count of the average cane cutter not so long ago, Mr. McDonald, you wouldn’t have been able to walk up the stairs to my office! But they worked in the fields for hours cutting cane!” I never met him without marveling at his modesty, the sweetness of his nature, his complete dedication.
I see him now as I write. I remember how he used to go to his bank of cabinets and take out files to give me examples of the sugar workers whose conditions he was trying to alleviate. In those cabinets, hundreds of files, thousands of lives he comforted and was trying to improve.
