C. J. De Garis
He worked in the dried fruits industry in the Sunraysia area around Mildura Victoria, in the early 20th century, and was noted for his vibrant personality and colourful marketing style.
He returned to school for his secondary education at his father's urging, boarding at Wesley College, Melbourne from 1899 to 1901, where he rose to become dux of his class.
He excelled in school cricket and football, in which, despite his size, being only 150 cm (4 ft 11 in) tall and weighing only 43 kg (95 lb), he confounded opposition players and coaches.
[2] The estate was moderately successful as a farm produce settlement, but in 1921 it was broken up and sold to fund De Garis's Kendenup venture.
Realising his ability to market, the Australian Dried Fruits Association funded De Garis to undertake an Australia-wide publicity campaign to increase domestic consumption.
[6] As part of his dried-fruits marketing De Garis travelled to Western Australia where, in 1920, he purchased the 47,000-acre (19,000 ha) property of the Hassell family at Kendenup, for the purpose of building a new settlement to grow apples, potatoes and farm produce.
De Garis wrote a four-act military drama Ambition Run Mad, which was published both as a booklet and in serial form, in the Murray Pioneer newspaper in 1915.
[9] As part of his publicity campaign for the Australian Dried Fruits Association, De Garis engaged the services of popular composer Reginald Stoneham to put tunes to promotional lyrics he had written.
[10] He and Stoneham then worked on an ambitious "mystery" musical comedy F.F.F., which had a short but successful season for Hugh D. McIntosh's Tivoli theatres in Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne in late 1920.
De Garis also wrote songs, he co wrote The Murray Moon [1], recorded by Slim Dusty and Anne Kirkpatrick De Garis described himself as an aviator, and he owned several aeroplanes, but the reality was that he employed pilots to ferry him between Australian cities for business purposes as well as to advocate for flying as a new means of travel.
Nevertheless, in an era of pioneer aviation, his intense involvement was considered dangerous, and at one stage he was asked by investors to refrain from use of aeroplanes for transport.
De Garis's first major interstate flight was in the DH.4 from Melbourne to Perth, the first time Australia had been crossed by air from east to west, a distance of 2,169 miles (3,491 km).
Then, on 16 January, they set off on a one-day flight from Brisbane to Melbourne, leaving at 6:15 am and reaching their destination at 7:20 pm, a flying time of 10½ hours.
