Vale David Smith

1 August 1941 - 26 April 2024

On 26 April 2023, our dear friend David Smith died. David was a long term member of AFOPA, former Executive Committee member and Treasurer. He is deeply missed by his partner, Felicity Morgan, also a long term AFOPA member, and his children and grand children. David was was an extraordinary individual who offered friendship, wise counsel, brilliant analytical and writing skills and great commitment and support to AFOPA and the Palestinian cause. David was farewelled at a private funeral on 10 May. Below is the text of the moving eulogy given at the funeral by David’s close friend and AFOPA member, Dr Chris Juttner, reproduced here with permission.

Eulogy for David Smith

Dear Felicity, Amanda, Justine, Tess, Ashley, Callum, Brooke, Kalinda, and Geoff and Greg. And his sister Kay and Eric back in Eastwood. And dear friends of David.

I am so honoured that David asked me to speak at his funeral. And I am so very sad that he is no longer with us.  But I do feel somewhat redundant after the fantastic words by Felicity, Amanda, Justine and David himself.

Although Jane and I only met David and Felicity in the early 2000’s they loom large amongst our dearest and greatest friends. And they have introduced us to many of their fabulous and fascinating friends!

David is the centre of today’s sadness and celebration. Sadness because his great spirit is no longer with us.  Celebration because his life is totally a cause for celebration. By any measure it has been a huge success. By any measure his contributions have been far-reaching and important, in his International Development work and contributions, in his passionate devotion to the cause of Palestine, in his defence of China,  and in his ongoing commitment to the political and economic education of unsophisticated people like me. But especially in his relationships and friendships.

David was emphatically NOT born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Rather as Justine has said he was born in the coal-mining town of Eastwood in Nottinghamshire, to father Bill who worked in the mines driving the coal trains, and mother Muriel who was really the driving force behind David getting a higher education and who wanted more for him than a life in Eastwood. David was very close to her.  She was always a great reader and kept the years at bay with ball room dancing. When she fell and broke her hip in her 90's the NHS had no record of her existence because she had not been to a doctor since before such records were computerised!

David initially worked for the Midland Coal Board too from the age of 15 but not at the coal face, rather as a cost accountant: very boring he said!  He used night school to complete his secondary education.

In his early 20s he won a scholarship to the London School of Economics where his lifelong love of learning and deep thought was directed and burnished. How impressive that a coal miner’s son from Eastwood could win entrance to the LSE, and thrive there.

While still in England David met and married Imelda, an Australian. Happily for all of us they emigrated to Australia as “Ten Pound Poms” in1969. And then Amanda and Justine were born.

The move led to a series of more and more interesting jobs over the next 40 years and all over the world. Amanda has described some. The work he did fitted so well with his tolerant, liberal, internationalist and deeply caring nature.

I am so impressed with enormous range of things he did and places he worked. This geographic range goes a long way to explain why he was such an interesting person. He worked in SE Asia, Pacific, South Asia, East Asia, Africa, Middle East, Europe, and in OECD Countries: Australia, New Zealand, UK, USA.

And as Justine has said, he read so very widely and thoroughly. And Felicity tells me there were 12 China related publications that came to his inbox every day. As Justine said, he always lamented his inability to read and absorb everything that he thought important.

So what were his other passions apart from his pursuit of knowledge?

He truly loved his daughters Amanda and Justine and their families. He and Felicity were a formidable and deeply loving couple. Felicity and his family are the people whose loss we all feel most keenly in this sad and difficult time.

Their friend Andrew told us recently that in David Felicity met her equal. Together they loved music, art,  theatre, cinema, documentaries and dramas. Felicity and David were great hosts. Felicity is a consummate cook and David was brilliant on the barbecue; we’ve all had many great meals and conversations in their company. 

David was a deeply intellectual man with a serious quest for knowledge, a great need to know and to understand the background to and the reasons for the issues and situations that were important to him and that he considered were of great importance to the world. He thought intensely about the long term future of the world.  When we first met him he was a strong believer in free markets, globalisation and capitalism. But as the world went through crisis after crisis he began to doubt those beliefs.

He cared deeply for Palestine and hated the illegal Zionist settlements and  destruction of the West Bank. He was a passionate supporter of AFOPA: the Australian Friends of Palestine Association. He worked long and hard for that organisation and that cause, researching, writing, lobbying, protesting. This most recent Gaza War was a cause of huge distress to David in his final months. David fully understood the background and implications of Jewish immigration to Palestine starting in the 1870s, the Balfour Declaration of 1915, the events of the Nakba in 1948, and the failed attempts at a Palestinian State and peace that eventually led to the HAMAS attack on October 7th 2023.

He really loved travel and exploration. Felicity told me of an interchange last Xmas with her daughter Rebecca where David and Rebecca competed over the number of countries they had each visited. Rebecca’s list was an impressive 47: David’s an amazing 87!

After his retirement he and Felicity explored Australia as Grey Nomads with a 4WD and a wind-up camper trailer. The journey in 2010 almost ended on day 1 with an unidentified (by them!) blowout. We met them near Orrorroo with an absolutely shredded tire and flattened camper trailer wheel. The farmer on whose property we camped loved using his fork-lift as a jack to change the wheel. How did they not realise? How lucky were they??

Jane and I had encouraged this trip: we wondered if we’d made a huge error. Should deeply aesthetic and totally impractical  intellectuals really be considering exploring the outback? 

But actually they succeeded in spending 7 wonderful months exploring central, Northern and Western Australia.  They only got bogged twice early on when fortunately expert help was near by, (Although characteristically David was not terribly willing to take that advice!) and other problems were solved by cheque book.

Undaunted they did 2 further Australian journeys, to outback QLD, the gulf country and Arnhem Land returning via the Ghan, and to Western QLD and the East Coast.

Then there were the adventures in Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Iran. And especially China, the last precipitated and facilitated by their amazing close friendship with the sensational Kiki. Kiki (and Fraser) are great treasures that Felicity and David have generously shared with their friends.

I’m not sure if it’s because of Kiki but China became an obsession for David. David was probably more far-sighted about China than the rest of us, than the media and most foreign affairs commentators. He may well be right. He did not excuse the human rights abuses, but he emphasised the huge achievements brought by economic liberalisation which brought millions out of poverty. 

And so we come to last September and the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer with widespread secondaries. An awful diagnosis. David’s approach to his situation was calm and was amazingly stoical. He said it would be interesting to go through the process of dying. How like David? He said he’d had a good life. He lamented that he would not be alive to see what unfolded in the world. I suspect he wanted to know whether his predictions turned out to be right!!   

As we visited him in the last weeks when he was unable to eat and slowly faded away I was so pleased he did not have the gnawing pain that so commonly accompanies pancreatic cancer. But the unrelenting vomiting was probably worse and harder to manage. And food, which David always enjoyed, became an impossibility.

His stoicism and dignity were extraordinary.

At our last visit, 36 hours before his death, I was worried that we were exhausting him and I asked if he was having too many visitors. As was his wont, David thought about the question and said: “No I am enjoying seeing people”.

And then he said something that really characterised his personality. “You know” he said “I really find it surprising that most people have said to me how much they have enjoyed knowing me and particularly how much they have enjoyed our conversations and our discussions of ideas”.

I found this deeply moving, but also a real description of the positive relationship that David had with all of us.  But it’s interesting that he found it surprising. It reflected his modesty. I thought the statements were lovely affirming gifts to David from his friends.

And it fitted with what I’d been saying to David since we knew his diagnosis and the inevitable ultimate prognosis: “David, I am going to miss you so much: our friendship, our discussions, our exchange of ideas, our arguments, our struggles to persuade each other.” We may often have disagreed but I don’t think we ever became angry with each other.

So David, I am sure I speak for everyone here: we are the richer for having known you, we will miss you, your warmth, your humour, your intellect, your company and the fun and companionship we have all had with you.  Your generosity was extraordinary.

Goodbye David.

Chris Juttner, 10th May 2024

David was a great lover of ties and his collection was on display during his funeral, along with his beloved keffiyehs!