Bill Bergen, teacher & businessman, dies at 71

BY BILL WELBOURNE

I'VE JUST RECEIVED NEWS from Helen Bergen that her father Bill died this morning. Her text reads: “Dad just died at 11.20. It was truly peaceful. He did it so well.”

Bill and I were great mates and this is confusing to some of our 1962-63 ASOPA colleagues. We were different in many ways but this made our friendship all the more interesting.

I was the athlete and  Bill loved his music. He had a strong Roman Catholic faith and I was Anglican.  Bill met his wife Joan when they sang in the church choir, prior to ASOPA. My late wife Pam and his wife Joan became firm friends after we married while at college. My wedding was in December 1962 and his was September 1963.

At college we often dined together, played Canasta and sometimes saw a movie. We convinced our wives to enroll for the 6 month E Course for teachers to commence in Rabaul in February 1964. Our wives actually arrived in Rabaul a day ahead of Bill and me in November 1963.

They were met by Father Franke and the were temporarily accommodated in Wanlis flats. We were then posted... Nodup T School for me and I think Rabarua for Bill. The following February our wives started the E Course but they could not cope as they were both pregnant.

Bill and I had to confront Frank Boisen, the District Education Officer, to tell him the news. Frank mumbled as strode off hitching up his pants, “'That's the trouble with Wanlis...There's  not enough room to bend over or swing a cat.!'”

In May my son Tony was born and around the same as Joan gave birth to Helen. 

We often dined together in Rabaul. At home one evening in 1966 we were enjoying a fondue and listening to some grand music on Bill's huge state-of-the-art tape deck. The newly constructed terrace houses were built close together and were known as the European Compound.  Some were rented privately.

A German group was carousing noisily and even played their national anthem. Bill was fed up with this and taped it and played it back at twice the volume. There was some muttering, then silence followed. Later on Bill was posted to Bougainville and I went over to the Lands Department in Port Moresby. But we always kept in touch. 

We left PNG after after Independence in 1975. Bill and Joan decided to live at Bathurst even though parents lived in Sydney. They wanted to settle in an area with four seasons and one that had good cultural and education facilities.

Bill taught in the convent schools for a while and then became a businessman. He had a electrical shop selling lights and he ran a laundromat. He sold these after he built his rental units in Durham Street, Bathurst.

I would visit them and we would have eggs Florentine for breakfast  at their son Chris's reaturant in central Bathurst. Bill and Joan were practicing musicians and, right up to his death, Bill was in charge of the Bathurst Orchestral Group.

He and Joan often travelled to music festivals in country NSW and New Zealand.  Their younger daughter Penny is a brilliant violinist who once was a member of  the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. She now works as a journalist in Alice Springs. She spent time in Holland where Bill was born 71 years ago. 

Bill was born in Rotterdam, Holland on 19 June 1940. During the war his father volunteered as a cook when he was captured by the Germans. He was a butcher by trade. The family lived together in an upstairs apartment while big pots of stew were cooked downstairs. So they survived the war.

His father joined the Dutch army and went to Indonesia after the war. Sukarno and the Moslems vied for control  and independence for Indonesia. Bill attended school and one day there was heavy shooting. His dad collected him and got his family to close the shutters and to stay inside. Moslem terrorists shot all the red coated police and army personnel they could... about 100.

The family returned to Holland and he went to school there. They returned to Indonesia in 1947 after things settled down and Bill had to have lessons in Indonesian after they got Independence. His father was a sausage maker and got a job in Borneo but he tossed it in as there was lots of violence there.

He didn't want to go back to Holland so where? South Africa, Argentina, Canada or Australia? And that's how Bill ended up in Australia. He attended primary and secondary schooling here and learnt the piano after school. Through his Roman Catholic connections he got a job at a garage and then studied science/ industrial chemistry for first year university.

Bill then worked for a paint maker who offered more money once Bill was approved for ASOPA. Bill was to join the 1961-62 ASOPA intake but he had a cut on his face from a close shaver which needed to be checked out by a specialist for a possible skin problem. He was automatically included in the 1962-63 intake.

Bill's love of music which stayed with him to the end. He was in pain from asbestosis and was heavily drugged when admitted into Bathurst Hospital a week ago.  On Christmas night at 3 am Helen sang Silent Night and her father struggled up and managed to sing a few lines with her.

Bill is survived by his wife Joan, his two daughters Helen and Penelope and his sons Christopher and Timothy.

His funeral is set down for 11.30am on Friday 6 January at St Michael and St Johns Cathedral, Bathurst.

Comments

[Helen Bergen]

William (Bill) Francis Bergen [Willem Franciscus Hendricus Bergen]
19 June 1940 - 30 December 2011
______________

Dear Family and Friends

Our much loved Bill died Friday morning, 30 December, after a short struggle with mesothelioma, finally diagnosed just over a month ago.

You are invited to a celebration of his life:

Friday 6th January at 11.30am
St Michael & St John's Cathedral
William Street, Bathurst NSW

and then to his wake: Rahamin, St Joseph's Mount 34 Busby Street, Bathurst NSW

Maps, travel and accommodation details follow:

Accommodation

Please let us know if you need accommodation - we have spare beds with friends and family. Accommodation is also available at Rahamin: see www.rahamin.org.au or 02
6332 9950

Travel

The Outback Dubbo XPT Countrylink Rail service leaves Sydney Central daily at 7.10am, arriving at Bathurst Railway Station at 10.43am.
http://www.countrylink.info/timetables/western/sydney_to_bathurst

The Bathurst Railway Station is 3 blocks directly down the street from the Cathedral, with Helen living half a block from the station at 26 Keppel St.

Reverse journeys:
http://www.countrylink.info/timetables/western/bathurst_to_sydney

Regional Express (RexAir) has an airplane flight leaving Sydney Airport at 7.20am arriving Bathurst 8.10am. Contact Helen (0423 405 993) or Tim (0434 027 636) if you need a lift into town from the airport.
https://secure.rex.com.au/rexobe/RexOnlineBooking.aspx

Music

Be ready to sing loudly at Dad's life celebration and to make music at Bill's wake please.

Maps

Googlemaps directions:
http://maps.google.com.au/maps/myplaces?vpsrc=6&ctz=-660&abauth=ea2b9375:u2f
owipuOgeeiDtmkDErpZXuInE&vps=1&ei=9MT-Tpq4NsrylAXHstWABQ&num=10

[Richard Jones]

This is very, very sad news indeed and thanks, Billy Welbourne, for informing the PNG Attitude wider community - and the specific 1962-63 ASOPA group.

Like the two Bills I, too, was a member of the group who landed in Rabaul in November 1963. In fact, we were all there on some Rabaul teaching and accommodation campus when President Kennedy was assassinated.

I agree completely with Keith's summation. Bill Bergen was as solid and as reliable a man as you could encounter.

Reflections on this New Year's Eve are well in order. Our ranks are thinning, folks.

So to those remaining: a happy and healthy 2012 after a suitably boisterous end to 2011!

What a pity Bill Bergen could not have enjoyed seeing in the New Year.

[Ian McLean]

I'll never forget the day at ASOPA when Bill spotted a group of Indonesian military officers who were receiving training from our Middle Head neighbours, the Australian Army intelligence folks (not such an "intelligent" thing to do back then).

Bill winked and said, "Watch this," and proceeded to yell at the top of his voice "Indonesia merdeka! Merdeka!" This certainly got a reaction.

The Indonesians were quickly shepherded into the nearest quonset hut to escape the wrath of the wild white man calling for "Freedom" in their homeland.

Well, you've found your freedom now, old friend.

[Diane Bohlen]

Our sympathy goes out to Bill's family. I remember him as being a quiet, caring boy.

[Colin Huggins]

Indeed sad news of the passing of Bill Bergen.

My sincere condolences to Joan, Helen, Penelope, Christopher and Timothy.

I really never knew Bill at ASOPA and I had no idea of his life story. You, BW, have in this beautiful eulogy done your mate a great honour.

Many thanks Bill for passing on this very sad message.

[Keith Jackson]

This is a day of great sadness. Bill Bergen was as solid and reliable a man as you could encounter; bearing an air of competence and authority, the perfect person for his times.

Nearly 10 years ago, in anticipation of the first reunion of the ASOPA Class of 1962-63, I asked my erstwhile cadet education officer colleagues to provide some notes on how they came to go to PNG and some thoughts on the career they had there.

Here are some extracts from what Bill wrote in 2002:
________

It was the promise of ‘study on full pay’ that caught my eye as I was walking down a cold corridor of UNSW. It was midwinter and after 9 pm.

My course load was supposed to be lectures for 5 nights a week. In fact I did not attend on Monday nights as I was in a choir which practised that night and I’d spotted an Alto there (the same Joan I married in 1963)

The ASOPA interview went remarkably well, with one of the interviewers greeting me by name as I entered -wonders never cease. The other interviewer I later knew as DI Bob Brownlee. Having read the three books about PNG in our local library I felt prepared

1963 – Joan and I travelled to Rabaul. I’d taken the precaution of finding accommodation before we arrived

1964 – Began with a short stint at Pilapila, later moving to Kalamangunan

1966 – I got my own school at Malakuna (beyond Kokopo) where I remained until a transfer to Tavui

1970 – I was at Nodup until I went as curriculum adviser into the Rabaul office while awaiting accommodation in Bougainville

Our first Bougainville station was Sohano, a beautiful but difficult place especially for Joan. Helen, our eldest, travelled by ferry to school at Buka.

The ferry was licensed for 15 but I saw 68 get off it one auspicious afternoon. On another day Helen actually fell off as she was negotiating between other boats tied up at the wharf. She was swept away by the tide in Buka Passage. It was only a quick-thinking high school boy who jumped in that saved her that day.

Arawa was a magnificent posting with all mod cons thanks to Bougainville Copper. I made it my business to travel to as many schools as possible and was startled by the contrast of the bush schools to the ones in town.

The Admin had only a few schools with most run by the Catholics and a lesser number by the Methodist mission. They were all in great need of materials and pastoral care and it was a great satisfaction to implement some of the curriculum.

I can't say we made a great hash of the mathematics syllabus but science, health and reading and just rationalising appropriate teachers and available equipment seemed to have been the main areas of improvement. It is sad to learn the place is now only a shadow of its former self.

Some of my most memorable PNG memories:

Melancholy - The father who wrote to me in pencil asking why his child had not been selected for high school. He had supported his child at school and noted in detail how many shillings he had contributed to education. As he could see no future at Torakina he did not think it fair that his child did not have a chance.

Surprise - Visiting a school on the remote Bougainville west coast and becoming aware of something near my neck whilst sitting at the back of the classroom. On turning around I came face to face with the skeletal mouth of a huge pukpuk. It was explained to me that this beast had eaten 2 children.

Embarrassment - Holding an in-service day at an island west of Buka we were welcomed with singing, speeches and a prepared meal. Not being too hungry we did our best urged by people especially chosen for their task of encouraging us to eat up.

At lunch we were all called to yet another meal. This one had been prepared by another village who were determined not to lose face and employed even more severe haranguing.

The afternoon ended a most satisfying learning day but, before we could escape, the third and only remaining village insisted their honour had to be satisfied by us yet again tucking into a meal. I actually lost count of how many varied ways there was to present fish. We had it with green vegetables, yellow vegetables, curry, coconut, smoked, dried, boiled steamed, roasted....