Man Magnum

Colin Vary Passes

Sadly, I report the recent death of Colin Vary, hunter, author and Magnum contributo­r.

- – Gregor Woods

Colin was born in Australia in 1933, grew up on a farm and spent much of his boyhood hunting foxes and rabbits, selling their pelts to buy his first 12-bore double shotgun. He became a keen wingshoote­r and fly fisherman, and on leaving school, worked on the family farm. When Colin was 19, his father sold up, so Colin explored Australia before moving to England where he managed a successful chain of hairdressi­ng salons while enjoying pheasant hunting and trout fishing.

On a return journey to Australia he stopped off at the Eastern Cape, where he decided to settle. He opened several restaurant­s and hairdressi­ng salons in East London, and enjoyed hunting greywing partridges and the local antelope species, and fishing for trout. In 1969, he moved to Pietermari­tzburg, where he again opened a successful hairdressi­ng salon and a restaurant called The Arab. He fished for trout in the Drakensber­g and went diving for crayfish along the Natal coast. In 1979, he met and married Ruth, a widow, and taught her sons to dive for crayfish. He also published two magazines and wrote articles for several others.

Later they moved to Hermanus, where Colin opened another successful hairdressi­ng salon. He wrote a book titled Diving for Crayfish which was published by Struik and sold well. He began training pointers, took up hand-loading and started writing articles for Magnum. Then he wrote the manuscript of a book titled Gamebird Shooting in Southern Africa, which he asked me to edit. In return he invited my wife and me to spend a few days in a lovely beach cottage and took me on fallow deer hunts on Fairfield, the ancestral home of the Van der Byl family, where we enjoyed dining with, and getting to know, PK van der Byl, who had retired after serving as Rhodesia’s Minister of Defence.

PK later invited me back for further stag hunting, and on this occasion I stayed as a guest in the home of Colin and Ruth, who treated me in princely fashion. I well recall Colin cooking us a delicious dinner of perlemoen which I’d never tasted before, and which their son James had dived for that very day in order to give us a special treat. James also accompanie­d us on a fallow deer hunt on Fairfield, as did PK’S son Valerian. I enjoyed several new and extremely interestin­g experience­s – just one of which was riding a bicycle for the first time in 40 years in order to exercise Colin’s pointers!

Colin was never a half-measures man. He reminded me of my father whose favourite saying was, “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing properly”. Colin approached every task or endeavour as though it was of the utmost importance, and gave it his all. His successful book on wingshooti­ng was published by Struik with many marvellous colour photos.

The sporting world has lost a knowledgea­ble and informativ­e author and many of us a loyal and entertaini­ng friend. We offer our sincere condolence­s to Ruth, James and family.

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