bout de papier, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2002) — Spring/Summer 2002 // Printemps/Été 2002, p. 22
David Wilson and I joined the Department of External Affairs in1947. We first met that summer in the then Political III Division (later American and Far Eastern). Thus began a friendship that lasted for more than 50 years and came to an end only with his death on April 18.
With a degree in Commerce from the University of Toronto, he was on the economic side of the United States Desk in the Division, while I dealt with Latin America. Incidentally, we were six officers all told at the time, including the Head of Division, handling Canadian relations with more than half the world.
David had had a brilliant wartime career. When he left the Navy in 1946 at the age of 23, he was a Lt. Commander, perhaps the youngest officer of that rank at the time. He had been in motor torpedo boats patrolling the English Channel, a dangerous assignment if ever there was one.
He was one of the two truly fearless men I have known. The other one was also in motor torpedo boats!
He had been brought up in Brazil, where his father, a world-renowned authority on malaria, was a research doctor for the Rockefeller Foundation. David’s Portuguese was outstanding and it is not surprising that his first assignment abroad should be Rio de Janeiro. He was later posted to Lisbon, Paris (OECD and UNESCO), as well as Rome. In the Department, he served mostly in the economic and consular sectors.
His linguistic talents were built on a formidable memory. Apart from Portuguese, he spoke fluent French, decent Italian, and also some German. In fact, he was a walking encyclopedia and whenever I was in doubt about some fact, figure, theory, or event, I could always count on him for an accurate answer.
He had a passion for words. Indeed he was a wordsmith. He delighted in using in his drafts and correspondence the most esoteric words he could find but which, although rare, were at the same time entirely correct and pertinent.
The word “orrery” in one of the circular documents he drafted became legendary in his generation. Indeed a classic! It sent me to my dictionaries at the time and I am pretty certain that most readers of bout de papier will have to do likewise today.
And so, dear friend, may I wish you well in your new incarnation, where I trust — in terms of the word “orrery” — you will find yourself running “the apparatus that shows the relative positions and motions of bodies in the solar system by the rotation and revolution of balls moved by wheelwork.”
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2002) — Spring/Summer 2002 // Printemps/Été 2002, p. 22. Read the rest of this issue →
