Thomas Russell Former Governor

By Tad Stoner
tad@caymannetnews.com

Former Governor Thomas Russell was in George Town for New Year’s Eve, and on Saturday relaunched his 2003 memoirs at a signing ceremony at Hobbies & Books.

The 88-year-old lifetime colonial official offered a firm handshake, a bright smile and a strong sense of presence as he sat down for a chat with Cayman Net News.

“I came out for Sir Vassel’s (Johnson) funeral,” the long-serving Governor said, “and was able to attend Warren Connolly’s as well,” referring to the late October to early November deaths of the two Cayman social and political leaders.

“While I was here, [Hobbies & Books owner] Billy Adam persuaded me to relaunch the book, so I returned home and then came back,” he said.

The 242-page memoir, “I Have the Honour to be”, opens with his 1920 Melrose, Scotland, birth, and moves through his service with a Scottish parachute battalion in World War II. He was captured in Italy and spent 15 months in a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany.

After the war, Mr Russell joined the colonial service and spent many years in the Solomon Islands, ultimately serving as Financial Secretary and Chief Secretary, helping to usher the Pacific islands to independence.

In 1974, he arrived in the Cayman Islands for the first of two terms as governor, serving until 1982.

His biggest challenge, he said, was establishing an identity for the Cayman Islands separate from its previous Jamaican Government.

“The biggest were probably the civil service and the financial laws,” he says. “The financial service were just setting up in Cayman and tourism was starting.”

After finishing his Cayman tour, he founded the Government’s London office, and has retained an affection for the islands.

The biggest change, he says, is the “scale of development”. Only 13,000 people lived in the Cayman Islands when he arrived, rising to 18,000 when he left.

“Walking through Camana Bay, it’s a huge development,” he says, warning of potential dangers. “No island can go on forever; it’s not just population, but everything that means. You need more hospital beds, more schools, everything.”

The population rise, he fears, “may bring in an imbalance between Caymanians and others”.

Still living in Melrose, Mr Russell said he has largely retired, but remains active on a handful of committees concerned with former officials of the old colonial service.