Sparkling life of royal diamond finder Jimmy
A former Kent Messenger employee who found the pink diamond that was to become part of Princess Elizabeth’s floral brooch worn at her wedding to Prince Phillip has died.
Jamnadas Virji Sudra was born to a Hindu family in Tanzania, but his eventful life saw him convert to Christianity, move to Burham in Kent where he brought up his own family, run a post office in Chislehurst, before moving to Ireland where he died.
Mr Sudra, universally known as Jimmy, was born in 1937. His father worked at the Williamson Diamond Mine in Tanzania, where geologist Dr John Thorburn Williamson had discovered a 361-acre volcanic pipe pushing diamonds to the surface.
As a young boy playing in the diamond field, Mr Sudra noticed a bit of “pink glass” under a baobab tree, which he took to show the mineowner.
It turned out to be a 23.6 carat pink diamond, which was eventually cut by Cartier and presented to Princess Elizabeth in 1947.
Admiring the boy’s honesty, Dr Williamson paid for Jimmy to have a private education and also gave him his first job – as a navigator on the diamond mine’s aircraft, a Douglas Dakota, which was used to make deliveries to Hong Kong, Singapore and South Africa.
This proved a mixed blessing as at one refuelling stop in Africa, a cigarette-smoking employee set fire to the aviation fuel and the aircraft exploded.
Mr Sudra subsequently spent several months in hospital recovering from burns to his legs and torso.
Once well, he decided on a change of direction and joined the police in the war against the Mau-Mau.
In 1962, he emigrated to England, arriving with no resources and no firm plans. He selected Dartford as his destination, where he was able to get a job with Morphy Richards as a store manager.
Invited to tea by his boss, Arthur Goldsack, he met the family’s daughter, Mary, who was to become his wife. The couple both then worked at Safeway in Maidstone, buying their first home in Burham, where their son Aaron was born in 1972, and daughter Elizabeth in 1974.
Mr Sudra then took a job as a payroll clerk with the Kent Messenger at Larkfield, where he stayed for 10 years.
Mrs Sudra died in 2015 and Mr Sudra moved to Ireland to be close to his daughter.
After developing dementia, he eventually moved into a nursing home where he died aged 80.
The funeral took place in Ireland on August 22.