David's love & losses MY FAMILY WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

The TV host who brings whānau together has had a tragic loss of his own - but a touching reunion was awaiting him in Fiji

- Fleur Guthrie

The human locator beacon that is Kiwi investigative journalist David Lomas regularly travels the globe in search of answers to unsolved family mysteries.

But off screen, it's not widely known there's one country that's significant in David's life for his own family reasons - Fiji.

It was where he called home for eight of his first 16 years, when David's father worked as an air traffic controller at Nadi Airport. And it's where his older brother and mentor, Peter, is buried after sadly dying from Covid complications, aged 74, last year.

Peter, also a veteran journalist, was the publisher and editor of the Fiji Sun, ensuring the paper was relevant to all Fijians rather than just the educated and the expatriates.

Along with his late wife Venina, he was a key member of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), which helped with the training of almost every journalist in the region for many years.

Receiving the news in mid-2021 that his older brother had been admitted to the Covid ward in Suva's Colonial War Memorial Hospital was terrible, David tells the Weekly.

"We were worried. After initially being in the Covid ward, he was in a coma in ICU and just never recovered. He passed away in March 2022," explains the TV presenter, who had to view his brother's funeral online due to lockdown restrictions in Fiji.

"Thankfully in February 2020, just as Covid ell trip' started to appear in the world, I had some time off, so went to visit him. We went on a fun five-day road trip together it was his decision - where we took the office car and I travelled with him around Fiji as he visited his paper's branch offices.

"We went over to Labasa and Savusavu, and then we came back across to Rakiraki. Of course, I didn't realise it at the time, but it turned out to be our farewell trip."