Father, grandfather, sheep shearer, pilot, sailor, scholar, linguist. Born June 5, 1946, in Surrey, England. Died Aug. 31, 2011, in Ottawa of a brain aneurysm, aged 65.
Dr. David Anido was an entertainer dressed in the garb of a professor. Had he not joined the foreign service, he might have run off with Second City as a comedian.
He loved to play the didgeridoo, the bugle and the taiko drums for his many guests and friends. And that was just as intermission to his stories of flying upside down and falling out of canoes in white water, or his tales from his family's extensive travels, which he dubbed "the voyages of the Magic Ship."
David and his brother, Phil, spent their formative years on Quebec's north shore, where their father, Rev. John Anido, with their mother Barbara, served as Anglican priest in Harrington Harbour and Mutton Bay. David completed an undergraduate degree at Bishop's University. He spent his summers in the famed Fort Henry Guard and was a guide at Expo 67.
The lure of the West attracted David to Simon Fraser University for a master's degree in theatre arts. But his life's course was set when he accepted a Commonwealth Scholarship to the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. While earning a doctorate in comparative literature, David met a beautiful TV broadcaster. David and Jane Stayt married in 1973 and set sail for Australia to begin their life together.
David's love for all things cultural was cemented when he managed theatre company tours across New South Wales and the Outback while earning his pilot's licence. The couple moved to Ottawa in 1974 and David joined the Canada Council. Soon after he was recruited to join Foreign Affairs as a cultural affairs attaché. Postings in Rome and Tokyo were career highlights second only to the birth of daughters Alexandra and Elizabeth.
David was a new breed of cultural swashbuckler. He relied on scholarship, languages and the power of the imagination to fight his battles. He had the instincts and visions of a builder, helping to expand the Canadian cultural export program, the Canadian Mediterranean Institute, the School of Dance and a new Canadian War Museum. But he considered his daughters his life's work; then came their husbands, Dan and Greg, and grandchildren Zara, Hanna and Jacob.
David's singular take on life saw humour and absurdity where you would least expect it. He was a storyteller with a booming voice, range of accents, animal noises and encyclopedic knowledge of literature and history. He had an obsession with all things nautical, treasuring his first-edition books of Captain Cook's voyages. He liked nothing better than to scramble up the tallest mast of the tallest sailing ship, at least in his mind, because there he could keep watch over his family, and observe all the high jinks going on in the world.
By Alan Gratias, David's long-time friend.