There was standing room only at Igreja do Sao Laurenco on Monday 28 January; the streets outside were crowded with hundreds of friends and admirers of the late Michael Apolonia Johannes Bastiaanse. And there was not a dry eye anywhere as well-wishers queued to pay their respects and bid Michael a final farewell.
Jok came to the Algarve in the late 1980s, soon followed by his partner Trudy.
He soon started teaching at the International School in Porches. Jok's spare time did not last long as it soon was filled with requests from friends to tutor their children at home.
The death of Almargem’s founder, Professor João Santos, has saddened deeply those who worked with him at the Algarve’s pre-eminent environmental association but the echo of his legacy is a healthy and well organised voice in stalwart defence of the region.
Born in Gouveia, in Guarda, João Santos studied as a biologist and moved to the Algarve in 1979, where he lived in Loulé, working as a secondary school teacher. João Santos founded Almargem, with others, in 1988 and served on the association's various bodies including as President of the Board at which point he became the very public face of Almargems’s many environmental struggles over the three decades of its existence.
Charles Every, who was born into an English aristocratic family and spent most of his life as an expatriate, including the last 48 years in the Algarve, has died at the age of 102, writes Len Port.
The youngest son of the 11th Baronet Sir Edward Oswald Every, Charles Henry Sherard Every was born in Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire in January 1916.
It was with deep sadness and regret that the Almargem Association became aware of the death of Colonel José Manuel Rosa Pinto. He was a widely respected authority on the flora and vegetation of the Algarve, to which he dedicated much of his life.
Throughout the years, he won the recognition of the scientific and academic community, with which he collaborated with several national and international experts, in the scope of scientific publications, research projects and various activities and events of dissemination.
Donald F Rees (14th June 1918 to 18 April 2010)
A rare span of years indeed. From the end of World War I through World War II, moving from the glory of the British Empire to its steady, grinding dismemberment, moving from social stratification to a collecting house of its colonial components.
Britain had enjoyed industrial leadership with its abundance of fuel and cheap labour and its steady flow of innovative genius. To a high measure, its mastery of the seas had protected its markets. As the sun set on those halcyon days, the sun shone on my simple life.
Américo Amorim has died. The businessman was the richest man in Portugal with a fortune of over €4 billion. He passed away on Thursday, July 13th after a long period of ill health and was known to have had several heart operations.
Amorim would have celebrated his 83rd birthday on July 21st but his dearth is said to have been no surprise to his family due to his increasingly poor condition.
‘If you want to keep it, give it away’ - Dermot Staveacre, who helped countless addicts in Portugal conquer their dependence on alcohol or drugs, has died peacefully in his home in the Algarve, on 9th June, at the age of 76.
The old adage about life beginning at 40 was not far off the mark for Dermot Staveacre. For years he had been an alcoholic on a steeply downward spiral, drinking a bottle of whisky a day. By the age of 41 he was a down-and-out. He had lost his home, his savings, his job and his friends. On the edge of the abyss, he finally sought help in an English treatment centre.
That was 35 years ago and that is how long he remained a non-drinker. For most of those years he continued helping other alcoholics and drug addicts make the same life-saving adjustment he made.
