Some people are often quick to dismiss expatriates who come to Bermuda as fly-by- nighters who take what they can from the Island and then move on, or alternatively, as people who come to the Island and take it over, displacing Bermudians and never leaving.

Neither example is very fair, although there will always be examples available of both sorts; thus providing the anecdotal evidence that all too often takes the place of empirical evidence in Bermuda decision-making.

Fortunately, there are people like the late Dennis Sherwin whose lives bely these simplistic and xenophobic views of the world.

Mr. Sherwin, who died last week, would disagree heartily with the following statement, but the truth is that he gave much more to Bermuda than he ever got out of it.

Mr. Sherwin moved to Bermuda from the US in the 1970s, having fallen in love with the Island as a frequent visitor when he was working in Washington, DC.

A man of independent means, he truly adopted Bermuda, and while he threw himself into Bermuda life, he did not impose himself on it.

Nonetheless, his enthusiasm and energy meant that he came to take leading roles in three organisations whose success and importance are testaments to his efforts.

One was the Bermuda Festival, of which he was an early supporter, drawing on his experiences at the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts. A lover of all kinds of arts, he was also one of the primary movers behind the Bermuda National Gallery.

But he may have reserved his greatest efforts for the Bermuda National Trust, which he served as a long time Council member and as president.

His legacy lives on there in many ways, but none more than at Warwick Pond, which he bought for the Trust, and for the lasting enjoyment of the Bermuda people.

Mr. Sherwin was also president of the Trust when it took on Government over plans for the Tynes Bay Incinerator and led a lengthy and expensive fight to ensure that the plant would have adequate emissions controls. Without the efforts of the Trust and Mr. Sherwin and its then environmental officer Angie Hayward (now Gentleman) in particular, Bermuda's air would be a good deal less pristine today.

Few people then or now would have had the stomach for this kind of fight, but as it worked out, the approval process was a model of its kind as the Development Applications Board laid down stringent requirements which led to much stronger air quality laws in Bermudan than was the case previously.

In these days, when special development orders seem to fill the air like confetti, that process looks like a different age, and there must have been times recently when Mr. Sherwin wanted to weep.

Mr. Sherwin came to Bermuda, liked what he saw and gave much of his life to preserving it and improving on it.

When people complain about "expats" and "foreigners", Dennis Sherwin's life serves as a rebuttal. He was a true friend to Bermuda.