The founder of a family paint company applied his skills and resources for community projects such as helping restore historic naval crests on the walls of Dockyard.

John Swift was an accomplished golfer and an official with the Bermuda National Trust. He launched the Pembroke Paint company in 1987 with his late wife, Susan.

The independent family operation flourished into one of the biggest paint suppliers on the island.

Originally from Britain, Mr Swift came to Bermuda in 1961 and joined the police after serving in the Royal Air Force.

Former police colleague Andrew Bermingham recalled him as “a very steady character, an independent thinker who didn’t run with the crowd — a popular officer, very methodical, who went on to become a very successful businessman”.

According to the Bermuda Ex-Police Association, Mr Swift served in various roles before stepping down in September 1968. Posts included the Western Division, administration in the police headquarters, traffic policing and the Special Branch.

The association said he and Susan married in June 1965. They had two children: David, born in 1966, and Margaret, born in 1968.

Mr Swift worked in other businesses before turning his attention to the Pembroke Paint Company. It was an innovative supplier and the first to employ a spectrometer for the mixing and matching of colours.

Mr Swift and his staff embraced IT as a game-changer, such as the company’s acquisition in 2000 of a computerised paint mixer able to faithfully match any colour.

Pembroke Paint started out keeping customer records on index cards. The company, as the local supplier for ICI (Glidden) Paints, evolved along with its products.

As it celebrated going electronic with its paint-ordering and dispensing system in 2002, Mr Swift told The Royal Gazette: “I couldn’t go back and I don’t want to.”

It was also a community-minded business. In September 2003, after the devastation of Hurricane Fabian, the company offered excess paint free to help with damage recovery.

Mr Swift pitched in with donations to projects such as the restoration of historic old boats and enjoyed passing on the skills of the craft to young people.

In the mid-1990s, when Sessions House underwent a restoration, his business was the main supplier of paint.

Mr Swift was a keen stamp collector who served on the Stamp Design Advisory Committee.

He was also an avid golfer and a captain of the Bermuda Senior Golfers Society. He became an honorary life member in 2013.

His love of the game and fascination with Bermuda and its past shone through in 2005, when Mr Swift took a party of members from Riddell’s Bay Golf Club on a golfing holiday in North Carolina.

The group found a trove of vintage Bermuda tourism brochures, which allowed Mr Swift to reflect on a quieter, more sedate era.

“Even then, it was quiet and blissful,” he said of the Bermuda he encountered in the early 1960s. “Looking at these brochures made me remember the niceness of it.”

Mr Swift described himself as a tourism ambassador for the island who enjoyed hearing visitors speak of their experiences.

“That is always encouraging,” he said. “I always try to sing the praises of the island when I travel.”

Alfred John Swift, a former policeman who founded the Pembroke Paint Company, was born on April 9, 1939. He died in September 2026, aged 87