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Remembered as "the only officer who was as round as he was tall",
the barrel-chested Adami served in Germany, Kenya, Oman and Borneo...
...
As adjutant of the Kenya Regiment, Adami encountered the young
Idi Amin, later to become dictator of Uganda. He was impressed by Amin's
optimism and recommended him as a man to promote - not least because he was good
at rugby and muscular in the ring. Adami would in later years say: "Idi was a
big, strong boy, but it's a pity he didn't stick to boxing".
...
He built a restaurant on Ibiza... Major events in the life of the House of Windsor, such as royal
weddings, were marked with fiestas and loyal telegrams to Buckingham Palace. God
Save the Queen would be sung, and the self-styled "queen" of London's Soho,
gap-toothed Eileen Fox, would strip to do an exceedingly fat belly-dance. By day
Adami could be found relaxing on the island's beaches, clothed in little more
than a wraith of cigar smoke.
...
In later years he could be seen being wheeled through the streets of Santa Eulalia by his faithful
Ecuadorean manservant. On his daily promenades he liked to sing In An English
Country Garden in a wobbly tenor. If he saw female friends across the street he
would shout out, for all to hear: "Thank you for last night, darling!"
Although long pursued romantically by Eileen Fox, Adami
successfully defended his confirmed bachelor status.

Major 'Cuth' Adami
(Filed: 25/03/2006)

Major "Cuth" Adami, who has died aged 72, was an unconventional
Army officer responsible for inadvertently encouraging the career of the young
Idi Amin; later he became one of the first British restaurateurs in hippie-era
Ibiza.

Remembered as "the only officer who was as round as he was tall",
the barrel-chested Adami served in Germany, Kenya, Oman and Borneo, causing
surprise when he applied for a second tour of duty in Libya. North Africa was
regarded by most officers as a posting from hell, but Adami loved it, partly for
the goat stews and the exotic flowers he could grow, partly because it was
sufficiently remote from the stuffed-shirts back home.

After leaving the Army in 1967 Adami moved to the Balearics,
where Ibiza had barely opened to tourism. He sank his savings into an untouched
hillside overlooking a sandy bay and built a restaurant called The Wild
Asparagus. The bay would become the busy resort of Cala Llonga, and to this day
the Asparagus remains one of the most successful restaurants on the island.

Christopher John Adami was born on August 17 1933 at Marylebone
to a half-Irish mother and a Canadian father, a colonel in the sappers who
distinguished himself at D-Day, when he landed with a case of Champagne and a
Sealyham terrier; he remained a mercurial and infrequent presence in his son's
childhood. In 1939 Colonel Adami dispatched his family to Canada, a safety ploy
which nearly had disastrous results when the ship caught the edge of a
hurricane.

Young Christopher was prey to asthma, and doctors suggested
various climes as a remedy. He traipsed off to Quebec, Mexico and California
before his neglected education was resumed briefly at Appleby College, Ontario.
In 1944 the family went by boat to Lisbon, then flew to Croydon, where the
colonel greeted his wife and children with a stiff salute.

Christopher was sent to Wells House prep school, Malvern, where
he fell off a quarry cliff while trying to gather birds' eggs on VE Day. He
broke numerous bones and was lucky to survive. Eton followed, although a
near-fatal bout of polio (which stopped him growing any taller) made him late
for his first term. This led to speculation among other boys as to his Christian
name. They decided the C must be for Cuthbert and the nickname "Cuth" stuck.

Aged 16 Adami attracted the attention of the press by rescuing a
younger Etonian from drowning in an ice-bound pond. The incident was caught by a
Daily Graphic photographer, and the newspaper told how the 13-stone Adami "threw
off his tailcoat, smashed into the pond, and, using his arms as ice-breakers,
cut a channel" to where Malcolm Shennan, 13, was floundering. Next day Adami
received a letter from Shennan's father offering to pay his laundry costs - and
a less friendly note from the prefects demanding to know how his name had come
to appear in the cheap prints.

Turned down by the Royal Navy on health grounds, Adami did
National Service in the Army. He then rejoined the King's Royal Rifle Corps as a
regular officer.

He soon marked himself out as an unorthodox figure, spending some
leave in the East End of London, which supplied most of the KRRC's conscripts,
because he felt it would give him greater rapport with his men.

In 1954 he toured the boxing clubs of the East End recruiting
fighters. Within a year the KRRC was unbeatable at boxing. Adami had a gift for
building morale. In Munster, Germany, he came to an arrangement with a local
brewery to print limited edition beer bottle labels to celebrate riflemen's
birthdays. In Derna, Libya, where he was signals officer and organised an
expedition to Kufra Oasis in 1957 with the future field marshal Dwin Bramall, he
formed an underwater fishing club. This got the men interested in diving and
kept them out of trouble at weekends.

Adami was a gastronome, and impressed local elders with his
readiness to eat the most disgusting-looking delicacies, of which sheeps' eyes
were by no means the most offensive.

As adjutant of the Kenya Regiment, Adami encountered the young
Idi Amin, later to become dictator of Uganda. He was impressed by Amin's
optimism and recommended him as a man to promote - not least because he was good
at rugby and muscular in the ring. Adami would in later years say: "Idi was a
big, strong boy, but it's a pity he didn't stick to boxing".

After a final posting as an intelligence officer with the Trucial
Oman Scouts, Adami, by now struggling with his weight, left the Army. He built a
restaurant on Ibiza but did not know what to call it until one of his partners'
wives sat on the ground and yelped. She had been pricked by the sharp leaves of
an asparagus plant.

Adami ran The Wild Asparagus like a military outfit, frequently
ordering licks of paint, decorating the bar with regimental emblems, and
installing a tradition of a Sunday lunch curry. The Spanish waiters were dressed
in cummerbunds and were expected to conduct themselves with the crisp discretion
of mess orderlies. The clientele included the actors Terry-Thomas and Denholm
Elliott as well as holidaying British Army generals.

Major events in the life of the House of Windsor, such as royal
weddings, were marked with fiestas and loyal telegrams to Buckingham Palace. God
Save the Queen would be sung, and the self-styled "queen" of London's Soho,
gap-toothed Eileen Fox, would strip to do an exceedingly fat belly-dance. By day
Adami could be found relaxing on the island's beaches, clothed in little more
than a wraith of cigar smoke.

Adami's menus were a mixture of mess dinner (potted shrimps,
Stilton cheese, plum duff) and more exotic cuisine (spinach Catalan, suckling
pig, sole véronique). By keeping prices low and encouraging tourists to be less
conservative with their choices, Adami and his backers soon had a hit.

The hillside above Cala Llonga was developed into an
authentic-looking pueblo of apartments, with Adami supervising the planting of
glorious gardens. Yet he never quite made the fortune he should have done. He
had a knack of falling out with associates. He also learned that he was
seriously diabetic, something the Army doctors had failed to notice.

Although he lived on Ibiza for more than 40 years, Adami never
acquired more than a parade-ground grasp of Spanish. In later years he could be
seen being wheeled through the streets of Santa Eulalia by his faithful
Ecuadorean manservant. On his daily promenades he liked to sing In An English
Country Garden in a wobbly tenor. If he saw female friends across the street he
would shout out, for all to hear: "Thank you for last night, darling!"

Although long pursued romantically by Eileen Fox, Adami
successfully defended his confirmed bachelor status.

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