James Fairfax and Helen Garner.([begin strikethrough]Dis[end strikethrough]Agreeable Portraits)(Biography)

JAMES OSWALD FAIRFAX owns many habitations. He has a country property at Bowral (Retford Park), a city house in Woollahra, a beach house at Bilgola, country estate in Dorset: and he hires a chateau in France and a meditation hut in Japan. In addition, he owns one of the greatest collections of art in the world. His income each five minutes exceeds the total of my income in the last seventy years. He is like ten Biblical Dives. He fills me with envy.

But, unlike many rich people, he has no trace of unpleasantness about him. He is not vulgar, like Kerry Packer; he is not violent, like Lady Docker; he is not coarse, like John Laws; he is not ignorant, like the Ingham brothers. He is not bad-mannered, like Dr Edelsten. He is not stupid, like his stepmother Mary Fairfax. He may be Dives, but he is not nasty to Lazarus.

Instead, he is quiet, well-bred, softly spoken, gracious and gentlemanly. His father was Sir Warwick Fairfax, who was a writer, a philosopher, and a patron of the arts, as well as a newspaper tycoon. His charming mother was Betty Wilson, Sir Warwick's first wife; and she was the daughter of David Wilson QC, a well-known practitioner at the Sydney Equity Bar. His education included a stint at Oxford.

His cultured personality, therefore, fits with both his heredity and his education. It explains his learning and his intelligence. It also explains why he is widely read. But, in addition, by nature he is shy, reticent, quiet, discreet, tolerant, amicable and trusting.

Also, unlike other rich people, he is extremely generous, a fountain of ineffable munificence. Half the paintings in the art galleries of Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne are donations by him. In addition, he has given Sydney a small piazza and a bush walk on North Head.

As one would expect from someone so amusing and lovable, he is very companionable and has a large number of friends--both male and female (though, perhaps, more of the former than the latter). Together he entertains them, and introduces them to his friend Bacchus. Sometimes on the green fields of Bowral one may see them all capering like mountain chamois in the mating season.

His other friends are animals, for whom his love knows no bounds: he has a large aviary, a healthy pack of donkeys, and some beautiful ridgeback dogs.