-Contributed Errol Baird with wife Dasslin and daughter Elizabeth.
IT'S a long way from New Zealand to Jamaica! Look on the map to the South East of Australia and you will find two long islands in the Pacific Ocean, North and South. The Southern tip of the North Island is the location of the capital, Wellington. To the North of the island lies Auckland, usually the visitor's port of entry.
For a few years in the nineteenth century, Auckland was the capital. The Auckland region now has the largest concentration of people in the country, around 900,000 or a quarter of the total population of three and a half million.
New Zealand straddles the "Ring of Fire", the group of active volcanoes around the Pacific. It is the same size as the British Isles or the state of Colorado, a long way from just about everywhere, two and a half hours by air from Australia.
Errol J. Baird has been making the trip regularly since he first came to Jamaica in the 1970's to combine work for Alcan in Mandeville with aid to the Brethren Assemblies in Manchester and St. Elizabeth . After four years he returned home but maintained contact with various church groups and sent regular supplies of clothing and school needs.
In the early nineties, Errol came back for a stint with Crown Eagle then decided after deaths of family members to settle here and start business on his own.
After shipping 200 kilos of samples of Jamaican products to New Zealand he realised that, though there was much interested in the supermarkets, he would need to be there to promote the products such as sauces and spices as people did not know how to use them. A return was not in his plan. While on that trip he mentioned to his brother, an electrical engineer, that he had bought a "deportee" car in Kingston and could not get the local FM stations on the radio. His brother advised Errol to try a band expander. It worked and Errol began his first import venture supplying the bands to car sales firms. He now exports to other Caribbean islands.
Errol's latest venture reflects the produce of New Zealand and its culture. He offers to the discerning gourmet New Zealand cheese and wine. Errol believes that it is important that people have choices and that products of quality be made available.
His wines and cheeses are for the discriminating palate!
At present Errol finds it easy to convince overseas residents of the quality but finds that Jamaicans are very interested and responsive once they have sampled the products.
The cheeses are the Kapiti brands and include peppered bries, goats cheese, blues herbs, soft centred, hard, mature and, best selling items, aged whisky cheddar.
The wines are the Marlborough, award winning vintages. This area of New Zealand is said to produce wine closest to the best French champagne.
Until recently New Zealand was known overseas for rugby racing and beer but according to Errol that has altered considerably. Migration to the country has brought about a change in habits as has travel out and the influence of the media.
The early Dutch migrants brought cheesemaking skills, the Mediterranean peoples and the wine knowledge. At first wine making and drinking were limited to these communities but suddenly exploded. Now New Zealand is one of the largest wine producers in the world. Errol believes that the Southern Hemisphere will outstrip Europe in wine production before very long.
In comparing New Zealand with Jamaica, which Errol enjoys, he says that although both countries are members of the Commonwealth, their histories are very different. New Zealand is a multi-cultural society whose settlement was carefully planned. The indigenous population, the Maori, a Polynesian people from further north, had great navigational skills. They had their own highly developed social order when the white settlers arrived. These settlers encouraged other Europeans to come according to the trades needed to develop their communities. This orderly development has left its stamp on the modern society. The country was based on pioneering stock, there were no servants, egalitarianism is the norm.
New Zealanders are great "do it yourselfers", everyone has a garage full of tools in a society known for discipline and order.
Errol enjoys most of the challenges of Jamaica though he believes that lack of discipline is the greatest problem. Convinced that a disciplined society is a free society, he bemoans the need to live behind burglar bars and feels that responsibility is needed at all levels. Accountability, responsibility and discipline are sorely lacking.
Errol lives in Kingston with his second wife Dasslin and daughter Elizabeth.
