A big man with a big heart, he gave his all

Jeff Schucroft, who recently passed away, was a gentleman to his fingertips and touched my life at three different times. Firstly his father and my father were colleagues at the Colombo Port and our families lived in Modera (Colombo 15).

When I was a teenager and a member of “Milinda Caldera’s group” I used to see him at the Young Rangers Sports Club, which was run by a rough diamond

Serasinghe Podimahatthaya. As I am seriously into cars, Jeff arriving in his MGA Twin-cam is engraved into my memory. There were three lovely cars which used to be parked outside the club, Anderson Algama’s

Zephyr coupe, Ossie Corea’s Sunbeam Alpine and Jeff ’s MGA. Among these cars, my father’s Mercedes looked very ordinary.

At the age of 17 I left for the U.K. and lost touch with Jeff. However, I followed his sporting career in which he twice became Mr. Ceylon and Mr Asia runner-up amongst many other accolades. Later on he contributed to the sport via taking a leadership role in the SLBBFF.

After many years I met him at my Uncle Victor’s place and we became close friends. Jeff was not only big in physique, he was big in stature and big at heart. Even though he was a devout Catholic, his charity went far beyond the church. Recently I got a call from him on the way back from his wife’s village near Kandy. He went on to tell me that he got up at 4 a.m. to see the Buddhist monk in the village temple to donate money to construct some building or other. When I asked why didn’t he transfer the money, he replied that he wanted to do it properly. He wanted to worship him and hand over the cheque personally. That’s Jeff, he never did things by halves; from body building to charitable work, he gave his all. I miss you Jeff, but am comforted to know that you are now in the hands of your Maker.