A privileged meeting
It is one of the privileges of the life of a reporter that someone pays you to meet interesting people, ask them about their lives and write about them.
So it was that at the end of July, I was driving out of St. John’s, Nfld. to meet Eric Williams, a local icon in the drive to introduce dairy supply management to Newfoundland.
From his farm in Goulds, on the outskirts of the provincial capital, he led the fight for dairy pricing and marketing power in Newfoundland.
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He also won friends nationally as a dairy farmer advocate and a willing player in government efforts to export Canadian dairy expertise to Russia. He had been there several times already and expected to go back within a year.
But this day, Eric Williams was a farmer filled with stories, pride and dreams.
I knew I was going to have a good time. I arrived on the last Saturday in July when he and a local butcher friend were having an early Saturday afternoon snort of rum and talking about their trip to Ireland this fall – a pub crawl in the making.
I worried that this early afternoon indulgence would ruin my interview.
Silly me. I could not believe when the afternoon was over. There was so much more I wanted to hear.
Eric, 59, was filled with wonderful stories. He had fought to introduce dairy supply management, he promoted agriculture, he dealt with agriculture ministers too dull to come in out of the rain, he played the Newfoundland accordion in Russia.
He was filled with pride. This was a 400 acre farm he had created out of a wilderness. This was land he had been offered a million dollars plus for and turned down.
He was filled with dreams. He would go to Ireland this fall, he would go back to Russia, he would clear 100 more acres to pass on to his sons and nephews.
The story of this proud, enthusiastic man appeared in the Sept. 2 issue of The Western Producer.
A week later, I received a message from Art Olson, a former head of research for Agriculture Canada.
“(A friend) advised that Eric had a fatal heart attack on Monday (Sept. 6) … Eric was one of the special people.”
Indeed.
I’m privileged to have met him, the privilege of a reporter.
