Douglas Cook
Over the years he served as a farmhand, but also as an assistant plantsman, chauffeur, drinking companion and, above all, as the right-hand man of Douglas Cook. Douglas Cook was blinded in the right eye in World War I and could not drive a car. So he was dependent on Bill Crooks for driving the car they shared between them.
Douglas Cook was not an easy employer at all. He was not a patient man and known to his neighbours and friends for his outbursts of ill temper. Apart from that there were always financial problems, with Cook exceeding his budget buying trees.
William Douglas Cook “employed a series of farm managers who came and went, labour relations not being his strong point. There was an explosive relationship between him and his assistent Bill Crooks. They had the most frightful rows, but unlike Cook's own family, Bill Crooks stayed for nearly 50 years”.
Read more about this topic: Bill Crooks
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