David Nichols
Entrepreneur, aviator, publisher, publicist, propagandist, playwright, songwriter, motorist, land developer, dreamer: for five brief years it seemed like there was nothing Clement John DeGaris couldn’t do. He’d inveigle your life savings out of you with a promise of doubling them in a year and then, when he lost them, he’d promise to reimburse you and you’d lend him some more to make it easier. He was dashing, patriotic, handsome, fearless and funny: men and women alike adored him. He’d put a second storey on Mildura, he said, with his marketing skills and tenacious work in the fruit, irrigation and landindustries; he was going to build a new home afresh at Kendenup, Western Australia. Along the way, he wrote and sold books and plays, songs, suburbs and a host of other equally remarkable schemes. There seemed to be little that C. J. DeGaris couldn’t achieve: he was a new kind of Australian man, modern, quick-witted, unflappable.
