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An affinity for Fiji etched in their hearts: Hopkins

June 18, 2020 4:15 pm

British High Commissioner to Fiji, Melanie Hopkins

British High Commissioner to Fiji, Melanie Hopkins says her family have so much affinity and life-long memories having lived here for four years.

The outgoing Commissioner says her two girls who arrived in the country at the age of six and nine in 2016 have thoroughly involved themselves in Fiji’s culture and community, so much so that they took the national anthem to heart.

“And I leave in 2020 with two Ocean Warriors, that last year for the Queen’s Birthday party, about an hour before we started, I said to them. Can you just show me that you can sing the national anthem and they said to me, ‘Mummy, of course we can sing the national anthem’! For Fiji, ever Fiji and I had to point out to them that I didn’t mean the Fiji national anthem, I meant God Save the Queen.”

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Hopkins rounds up her tenure in Fiji as the British Government’s first female Head of Mission and leaves an impressive list of achievements from an expanded UK presence, significant funding support for climate action as well as the high profile 2018 visit of then Duke and Duchess of Sussex to the Pacific.