KEITH JACKSON'S PNG ATTITUDE

A joyful memoir that truly raises the spirits

Ex-kiap Laurie Meintjes’ book Pretzel Legs is billed succinctly as the reminiscences of an expatriate South African relating his youthful impressions of South Africa and his later experiences in New Guinea.

Of course, it is the latter period that will be of most relevance to PNG Attitude readers. But this does disservice to what is an insightful memoir with many sparkling gems between its covers.

In a sense, this is a coming-of-age book: a personal, thoughtful, well-told story of growing up in South Africa and maturing as a man in PNG.

Meintjes’ life is challenged and transformed by the cultural adaptation required of a young kiap, where significant professional, personal and moral choices have to be made.

For Meintjes, this challenge generated a zesty and embracing approach to life and his story is told joyfully, with good humour and with great anecdotes. This is a book that raises the spirits.

The ‘pretzel legs’ refer to the appearance of the gangly young Meintjes but also, I surmise, to the greenstick youth who is shaped by the life forces he encounters and who, making the right choices and with a bit of luck, matures into a substantial and accomplished human being.

The Meintjes mind is sharp, the pen acute and the writing faithful to reality. Passages such as this bring back rich memories:

Port Moresby’s Jackson Airfield in 1962 still showed signs that it had been a front-line airfield during the Pacific War. Marsden matting covered much of the runway; rows of 44-gallon drums hunkered down inside the earthen revetments that had protected the fighter planes; a trio of khaki Dakotas squatted tail-down by the Quonset hut terminal, their noses in the air as if they were sniffing around for another war; and a couple of Jeeps stood by into which officials hopped from time to time and scooted off to some distant part of the airfield. All that was missing was flight of Japanese Zeros snarling in from the Coral Sea.

When Laurie finished being a kiap he turned to teaching, from which he’s now retired to live in Cooranbong NSW where, amongst other pursuits, he writes poetry.

Pretzel Legs or Stepping Out of Africa by Lawrence Meintjes, Michael J Horn Blackwood, South Australia 2003, 238pp, 38 illus

PNG Attitude readers can copies from the author at the great discount price of $10 (includes postage). Email Laurie Meintjes at narana41@bigpond.com

Comrades in arms - US & NZ in the Pacific war

Bruce M Petty, writer and historian, was born in California in 1945, and enlisted in the US Naval Reserve in 1962 while at high school.

He later served for two years in Vietnam aboard USS Yorktown. After demobilization, he earned a degree in history from the University of California.

While working in Saipan from 1995-2000, Bruce wrote his first book, Saipan: Oral Histories of the Pacific War. Since then he’s written others on a similar theme: Voices From the Pacific War: Bluejackets Remember and At War in the Pacific: Personal Accounts of World War II Navy and Marine Corps Officers – all of them based on oral histories.

Bruce and his wife, a pediatrician, now live in New Zealand, where he’s produced a fourth book, New Zealand and the Pacific War, which is an unusual attempt to tell the story of New Zealand’s contribution to the Pacific war effort and relate how a strong relationship was forged with the US during this period.

This book was researched and written in New Zealand and published in the United States. The stories are written from oral histories that Bruce recorded with the protagonists.

Bruce got his inspiration from ‘Mac’ Gregory, a retired Australian naval officer who made him realise that most books written about the Pacific war tended to focus on the US and gave little credit to the Allied forces. “Certainly Gen Douglas MacArthur gave Australian forces little credit for what they did while under his command,” says Bruce.

The book is in four parts, which Bruce refers to as “voices of NZ veterans of the Pacific War, voices from the NZ home front, voices of Americans in NZ, and voices from the next generation.”

It includes many references to the Solomon Islands and Bougainville. And to give you a taste of the gritty stories Bruce uncovered, here’s a reminiscence from Kiwi Corsair pilot ET Lang from RNZAF No 16 Squadron, whose personal experiences score a chapter in the book:

I came home after my [Bougainville] tour and I didn’t weigh very much. That was from flying hard, not getting enough food and perspiration.

You were only expected to do three tours. Some were discharged but two of us from our squadron were posted to instructor school at Woodbourne to learn to be flight instructors. We didn’t think much of this idea at all, but we had no option.

We flew down together in a Harvard, a two-seater, one behind the other. We did a particular hairy landing one day, and I said to Butch, “Christ, butch, what the hell you doing? That was a hairy landing!”

He said, “I wasn’t flying the damn thing, you were!” I said, “I wasn’t flying it!”

‘New Zealand and the Pacific War: personal accounts of World War II’ by Bruce M Petty, McFarland & Co Inc, 2008, 233 pp. Visit Bruce’s website here for purchase information

PNG as seen through the brush of William Dobell

In 1949, at the invitation of Sir Edward Hallstrom, and again in 1950 sponsored by Qantas, the great Australian artist Sir William Dobell visited Papua New Guinea.

"It was fascinating. Oh, it was beautiful, like Switzerland without the snow," he said in an interview.

And, describing the indigenous people: "They are physically superb and with a sense of human dignity which sophisticated civilisation seems to have forgotten."

Painting: New Guinea Fishermen 1950s [oil on board, 25x30]

Source: Dobel Museum, Wangi Wangi, NSW

Hal’s Phoenix is about to rise resplendant

At the age of 87, HAL HOLMAN continues to win major commissions for his sculptures and paintings.

He’s also just written a book.

The memoir, The Phoenix Also Rises, tells the story of a life richly led,  including Hal's long association with PNG from his days as a World War II commando to the award of the Order of Logohu earlier this year.

The book is now being edited prior to publication.

Here’s the Preface.

_____________________________________________

This book, being somewhat of an autobiography, is written in the only style that is comfortable to me.

I make no rash claims of my importance. I have no role models. I do not copy others or force my views on anyone.

I have the greatest admiration for all who strive for worthwhile goals of their choice, and applaud their diligence, whether they succeed or fall short of their aspirations.

Just being a good person who lives an exemplary life is accomplishment enough. Being a loving Mum or Dad wins top marks as does being a forthright person without guile.

The motivation behind this selective account of my life started at the end of World War II when, after finally re-entering civilian life, I was faced with making a decision about what I wanted to be.

I had no real skills except those gained on a sheep station in Queensland. I could ride horses, milk cows and meet the other requirements of a jackaroo.

The Army Repatriation Department offered courses to help demobilised war veterans, merge back into society. I chose Art as my destiny and the Army picked up the tab. It worked!

A collation of an account of a life span as lengthy as mine is no task for a slouch. It requires a tenacity of purpose, bloodymindness, resolve and a mental flail to egg you on.

Truthfully, without my multitude of associates, family, and a considerable gang of friends, I doubt whether even a page of this document would interest a publisher.

I owe special thanks to my wife Jo Holman for her sub-editing and to my daughter Lisa who also tackled the manuscript. Others of great help were Clive and Harriet Troy, Mem Vickers, Thurza Greenwood, Keith Jackson, Dan Fitzhenry and Lorraine Westcott.

Max (Bulldog) Drummond, who was a member of my commando platoon, rekindled light in the black holes of my memories. My son David kept my computers working and saved the manuscript from crashes. And my daughter Suzanne contributed also.

Very special thanks go to my father-in-law, Professor Emeritus Albert Willis, who most generously provided Josephine with a splendid home in Thornleigh, where we could raise Lisa and David comfortably and with dignity.

During November 2006 I spoke to one of our company Sergeants, Bill Twohill, who was with us throughout the entire South Pacific campaign (particularly on the Kokoda Trail and in Bena Bena).

I suggested to him that I would drive all the way from Sydney to Parkes in the middle of NSW, and collect him to join Bulldog and me at the last commando reunion in Wagga Wagga.

“Frankly Hal, I can’t make it,” he said, “I am now one hundred years old.”

That leaves me little time, as one of his contemporaries, to get on with the book.

New Dawn FM wins international media award

New Dawn FM, the pioneering Bougainville community radio station, has won this year’s Communication and Social Change Award offered by the University of Queensland’s School of Journalism and Communication.

Head of School, Prof Michael Bromley, said 19 entries were received for the Award, which recognises and honours outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of communication and social change.

“On behalf of the Jury and all of us here at the university, I wish to congratulate New Dawn FM on winning this prestigious Award,” Prof Bromley told New Dawn chairman and manager, Aloysius Laukai.

The jury for the Award included ABC Foreign Editor Peter Cave, AusAID Deputy Director General Annmaree O'Keeffe and former Secretary-General of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Hugh Leonard. They were joined by chair Prof Ken Wiltshire AO and three senior Queensland University academics.

Award nominations came from 14 countries - Bangladesh, Burundi, Canada, Congo, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Fiji, India, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda and the USA as well as Papua New Guinea.

The Award constitutes a commemorative plaque and a cash prize of $2,500. Mr Laukai will be flown to Brisbane next month to receive the award at a special ceremony at Queensland University.

New Dawn FM was established with the assistance of a group of Australians who had worked in broadcasting in PNG, including Phil Charley OAM, Prof Martin Hadlow and me. Earlier this year I was delighted to be able to nominate the station for the Award.

Photo: Broadcast trainees at New Dawn FM

A rare opportunity to invest in a landmark film

Producer John Schindler reports that production of his and Bob Blasdall's documentary The Tragedy of the Montevideo Maru is progressing well and the series will be complete late October ready for screening on Foxtel.

This project has been the beneficiary of a great deal of John’s personal as well as professional commitment.

John mortgaged his home to achieve a budget to make a film that would live up to and be worthy of its epic subject matter.

“I had to invest $96,000 of my own money in the series; it just had to be done,” says John. “The story deserved to be told well and, to achieve this, our team needed to have a reasonable budget.”

John is now seeking two investors prepared to commit $48,000 each against future sales of the documentary.

“Even if we found just one it would take a big weight off my shoulders,” he says. Investors will share in proceeds from the series, except for the Foxtel license fee which has been invested back into the project.

Other revenue sources to be negotiated include:

- Australian and worldwide DVD sales

- sales of the series to the USA, UK, Norway, Japan and elsewhere

-  Australian sales two years after the series first goes to air on Foxtel

- a book

“Investors will also be contributing to the making of a landmark television series that will make many Australians aware of the Montevideo Maru tragedy and the events in Rabaul that led up to it,” says John.

“I will keep them personally informed of developments, they will be honoured guests at the Sydney and/or Brisbane premier, they will be invited on location for the filming of re-enactments and, of course, their names will feature in the credits.

If you are interested, or know someone who might be, get in touch with John Schindler at (07) 3267 0515, john@schindler.com.au or at PO Box 303, Northgate, Queensland 4013.

If potential investors wants to know more about legal and accounting aspects they are welcome to speak with the film’s lawyer Hendrik De Korte on (07) 3340 5193 and the film’s accountant Robert Edwards on (07) 3391 6300.

Gudi Moale, your magazine really hits the spot

Mari Ellingson

 Belated congratulations are due to Moale Rivu and his PNG Bisnis magazine!

It is a brilliant initiative. Moale hit the nail on the head by doing something about encouraging small business. It’s exactly what lies at the heart of the development agenda in PNG.

More and more people must be aware that their future prosperity is in their own hands. By developing small business they take a small leap for themselves and collectively a giant leap for PNG. By sustaining that effort they create prosperity for the nation.

The government has become the gravy train! It should be for basic services that are the state's core responsibility like health, education and other social services, a good and flexibly regulated environment, and reliable facilities and information accessible to the enterprising villager anywhere in PNG.

The government's assistance to small business development is part of the journey to prosperity - it is not a destination, which, to our own detriment, we have for so long mistaken it to be.

I wish Moale Rivu all the best in his efforts to encourage big business to 'think big' by encouraging the growth, mentoring and sustainability of small enterprise.

I believe the principles and good lessons learnt from the 'stret pasin stoa' experience should be brought to bear on this current thinking for the betterment and future sustainability of small business.

I hope Moale’s magazine will be a strong voice and advocate for small business and the enterprising Papua New Guinean who is bursting to come forth on to the business stage, regionally and internationally.

Tanikiu bada herea tadi. God blesses those who give generously of their spirit and of their hearts, which manifests itself in the richness they themselves experience channelled through noble deeds such as yours.

Without a doubt, PNG’s future is brighter with initiatives such as this.

You can visit Mari’s ‘My Magic Moments’ blog here.

http://islandmeri.wordpress.com

Famous Aussies who had relatives in WWII

Do you know – whether personally or by repute - a famous Australian who had a relative fight in the Pacific, including PNG, during World War II? 

A leading Australian television channel is looking to bring these stories of WWII in the Pacific to life through famous Australians telling the stories of their relatives’ experiences.

This is a factual project demonstrating Australia's deep involvement in WWII in the Pacific.

It will assist raise the awareness of Australians – especially younger Australians – of the important war-time connections Australia had with the Pacific that include and go beyond Kokoda.

If you can assist, email me here.

School books, PNG Attitude & Keith Jackson

Eric Johns

For the past nine years I have been quietly writing history books for PNG schools, enjoying my daily routine at the National Library in Canberra, but becoming increasingly frustrated by a lack of financial support.

It seems there is no PNG government money available to pay for bulk textbooks and, except for the charity work of some private individuals and organisations such as Rotary, their distribution to schools usually depends on funding from AusAID and sometimes from the European Union.

AusAID funds for classroom materials dried up the very year I began writing, so since 2001 students in most PNG schools have had to suffer a steadily diminishing store of books.

A friend of mine wrote from Bulolo that on a recent trip to Aseki in the Morobe Highlands she visited a school that had no books, a blackboard but no chalk, and whose students were writing with sharpened sticks on banana leaves.

Last week I received news that AusAID has made a complete turnaround and has started to accept textbook tenders for PNG schools. Publishers and authors have welcomed this sudden development, as no doubt will the students and teachers of PNG. The distribution of chalk, writing books and pencils is another matter.

I don’t know what caused this AusAID change of heart but I’d like to believe that Keith Jackson, by his advocacy in PNG Attitude and through other means, had something to do with it.

At the very least Keith has drawn me out of the solitude of the library, leading me to make contact with, or be contacted by, several people in PNG. These include journalists, some almost forgotten friends, an academic, Sir Paulius Matane and Post–Courier Lae Bureau Chief, Patrick ‘Big Pat’ Levo.

More will come from these contacts. I am posting this to thank Keith and his PNG Attitude for such generous support; for trying to get the purse holders to spend money where they should, and for making a great difference to the way I do things.

Keravat alumni group to form in Port Moresby

A Keravat Alumni Association is to be established at a meeting in Port Moresby on Sunday.

One of the first tasks of the group will be to coordinate sales throughout PNG of Barbara Short’s new book Tuum Est throughout PNG. The book is a history of Keravat National High School and its students from 1947 to 1986,

The book will be launched by Governor-General Sir Paulias Matane in the Gazelle Peninsula on 10 September and Barbara has announced that all profits from book sales in PNG will go to the school.

“This book tells the history of the school and from the history we can learn a lot,” says Barbara. “It may help the educational planners of today see what needs to happen to improve education throughout the country.”

Barbara says that she prays that the book, and the profits from its sale, will be a blessing for the school.

“We are all looking forward for a successful meeting on Sunday afternoon,” Sir Paulias says.

The meeting will be held at the Telikom Mambu site. “It has a Haus Win and trees all around to give us shade, benches, a BBQ place and enough parking spaces for our vehicles,” says organiser, Mannen Kuluwah.

Tuum Est will be available in August. You can contact Barbara Short about book orders  by emailing her at cbshort@bigpond.com

Keravat school history complete and at printers

Barbara Short’s book, Tuum Est, is now with the printer. Tuum Est recounts the early history of Keravat National High School between 1947 and 1986.

Orders are now being taken for the book, which comes in three editions. The standard edition is a softback with hand-stitched and pasted cover to withstand tropical conditions. There are 380 A4 pages and 227 black and white photographs.

This edition will sell for $30 in Australia. Keravat alumni will be selling the book in PNG and will work out a local price.

The hardcover edition will cost $55 and the deluxe edition (leather bound, some colour photos) will cost $80. All the books will be available by early August.

You can contact Barbara at cbshort@bigpond.com to order your copy.

Time to get behind the Montevideo Maru film

John Schindler

Most Australians have never heard of the Montevideo Maru.

When the ship was torpedoed and sank on 1 July 1942, it became Australia’s greatest maritime disaster - and a tragic loss of life on a large scale.

An estimated 1,053 Australian men and boys, military personnel and civilians, died, and sadly their bodies still lie deep at the bottom of the ocean. They were prisoners of war captured in Rabaul and locked in the hold of the Japanese prison ship Montevideo Maru.

I’ve been leading the production of a documentary film The Tragedy of the Montevideo Maru which honours the memories of the lives of these forgotten Australians and pays tribute to their ultimate sacrifice.

The film also gives overdue credit to the Australians who made a stand against the Japanese invasion of New Ireland and New Britain, where they were heavily outnumbered.

We’ve filmed numerous amazing interviews and collected important archival footage and photographs related to this untold story. Many people have given generously of their time, equipment, professional skills and advice to get this film made.

So far we’ve spent funds and received support worth in excess of $500,000. But, sadly, we have now run out of money - and the project is not finished.

To complete this project we aim to raise a further $1,000,000 which will enable us to shoot a significant number of re-enactments that will bring this compelling story to light. In this way, we will ensure that the bravery, sacrifice and tragedy are no longer overlooked.

The documentary is now scheduled to be released and screened on Remembrance Day, 11 November 2009.

I’m asking you to make a tax deductible donation to this historic project. Or, if you know of other people who might offer financial support, please let us know.

Call me if you have any questions or can help in some other way and please visit the web site here or email me here.  My phone number is (07) 3267 0515.

Montevideo Maru, the film, needs your help

JOHN SCHINDLER, executive producer of the documentary film, ‘The Tragedy of the Montevideo Maru’, talks to Keith Jackson

It all started two years ago. Mum died and my brother and sister and I were deciding what should be done with items very precious to her.

I was intrigued by a small photo on the piano. It was of a handsome lad Mum had known and his name was John Wilson Day. He was a friend of the family. My brother Tim suggested I should try to find out more about the photo and the circumstances surrounding John’s death.

It turned out that my Mum and her sister Molly had promised John and the three Turner brothers that they’d wave goodbye to their troopship, Zealandia, from the middle of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as it sailed in 1941. But the girls were late, and when they got to the bridge the ship had passed Pinchgut and was almost out of sight.

John Wilson Day and most of his company didn't come back from the war. Mum said it was a mystery. All she knew was they died on a ship called the Montevideo Maru.

My Mum and Aunty Molly never did find out what happened to John and the Turner brothers. This film is too late for them. They have died and many others have passed on without knowing.

In my films, I’m drawn to factual stories of human bravery and self sacrifice for the good of other human beings. In the case of the Montevideo Maru, the ultimate sacrifice was made by over 1,000 brave young Australian men. I think this story should be told for their sake, for the sake of their relatives, many of whom are still alive, and for the sake of the Australian people who enjoy a democratic society because of them.

The film includes interviews covering a wide spectrum of people who were drawn into these tragic events. The interviews are interspersed with colour and black and white archival film, still photos from the period and dramatic re-enactments.

I’ve been financing it mainly money from my own pocket plus resources from film industry colleagues who’ve donated their time, expertise and equipment. We’ve now reached a point where we need financial assistance to complete the project.

We hope the film will be released on 11 November this year. Overwhelmingly, I’m very saddened that so many young men lost their lives. I feel so sorry for the relatives and friends of those who died. They have not been able to find closure.

You can visit the website of 'The Tragedy of the Montevideo Maru here.

The Montevideo Maru Memorial Committee will publish its first newsletter this week. Become a Friend of Montevideo Maru (membership is free) to receive the newsletter each month. Email Keith Jackson here.

Writing a PNG history for PNG schools

Eric Johns

When I was lecturing at Port Moresby Teachers College 1969-72 I was appalled by the lack of history and social studies resources available to teachers. It seemed especially deplorable that there was almost no readily accessible information about the history of Papua New Guinea.

Before I left PNG at the end of 1972 I started to correct this by interviewing a few historically prominent Papua New Guineans, intending to write their stories. When I retired from teaching I resumed this work, which was eventually published by Pearson/Longman as 69 stories in two volumes, PNG History Through Stories Books 1 and 2.

The books are aimed at classes below Year 10, where there is no material available for teachers or their students about PNG history. Most of the details in my books do not exist in any other single book.

A major incentive for me in writing these books was the fact that students of Papua New Guinea remain without knowledge of important, ordinary, heroic and notorious Papua New Guineans who lived during the long period before Michael Somare came to prominence. Citizens of every nation should know about their own historic heroes and villains.

The major problem with teaching PNG history in schools is the dearth of suitable texts. The history of PNG is rich and much has been written in books and journal articles but, with the exception of John Waiko, no writer has attempted to bring information together in a form suitable for school students.

So, subsequently, Pearson/Longman asked me to write a history of PNG for senior students. I am two years into writing and have probably three to go.

Waiko’s book, Papua New Guinea: a history of our times, covers the events during the post independence period and the place therein of Papua New Guineans. In great contrast, the pre-independence part of his book, while useful in a general way, lacks detail. Hence there remains a mass of fascinating information from this period in published materials yet to be made accessible to school students.

Waiko also hardly gives credit to individual Papua New Guineans in their own history. Numerous PNG individuals, and something of their place in history, are known from about the 1850s.

There is still a crying need for a more detailed book covering the period from pre-history to 1975. Until this has been written, PNG school students, and therefore PNG people in general, will be largely ignorant of the main forces and motives that shaped their nation.

Tragedy poem still very much in mind

Award winning bush poet Jim Brown is still contemplating writing a poem on the Montevideo Maru tragedy. “I haven’t forgotten it,” he told PNG Attitude.

In 1990,as a TV reporter, Jim went to Gallipoli to cover the 75th anniversary of the Anzac landing. Fifteen years later, on the wall of an antique shop, he saw a photograph of a World War 1 light horseman. “For some reason I still can’t explain, I had to have it,” he said, “and I started writing a poem based on the question of who he was”

This became the much-loved Anzac on the Wall, written as performance poetry and winning first place at the 2005 Victorian Bush Poetry Championships. Last year, when we published it on PNG Attitude, it received a huge positive response from readers.

“I am humbled by the fact that so many people have been moved by the poem, especially around Anzac Day,” Jim says. “The suffering of those waiting at home has not been written about enough.”

It was with this thought in mind – the grief and pain of those left behind - that, a year ago, I asked Jim if he might consider writing a poem about the Montevideo Maru. I despatched plenty of material to him, including a list of names of the 1,053 men believed to have drowned. Jim was keen to write a poem, and I reminded him of this in a communication yesterday.

“I haven’t got around to the Montevideo Maru yet,” says Jim, “but I have not forgotten it. I was sidetracked by a poem called Fromelles I wrote after meeting Lambis Englezos, the man who found the missing Anzacs.”

So, with a bit of luck, in the near future, one of Australia’s premier bush poets will turn his attention to writing some compelling verse about a matter very dear to our hearts.

Perhaps it’ll include something like this:

I scanned the list in front of me; then thirty pages down
Was Ivan’s name, a bare fifteen, a clerk from Rabaul town
Captured with his dad, so sad, my emotions rose anew
One of a thousand Australian dead on the Montevideo Maru

No, Jim’ll do better than that.

The genesis of Reg Thomson's good book

Reg Thomson spent a quarter of a century in Papua New Guinea from 1949, after attending ASOPA, finishing this major part of his working life as Director of Child Welfare. His Looking for a Good Book was launched on the Gold Coast last week. Here Reg’s son DR MARK THOMSON writes of how the book was formed and took shape.

Dad started writing many years ago, during his retirement on Mt Tambourine. I was still at university when he put pen to paper. During quiet times he could be found diligently scribbling and adding to an ever-mounting pile of foolscap pages. I had no idea what he was writing.

Eventually Dad arranged for a brave woman to take on the marathon task of turning his longhand into typescript. It was roughly bound and sat largely unread for many years.

But, when I first delved into its pages, I was immediately delighted by the construct of a man’s journey around himself. It felt like Dad was having an enlightening chat to me about things I contemplate from time to time: why we do the things we do, how we cope, what we learn in the doing of them, and what we collect along the way to help make sense of it all.

My earliest memories of Dad are permeated by books. They were an integral part of the daily rhythms of his life. In New Guinea they were a central feature of our life. They were forever being stacked or rearranged in hall cupboards as protection against bugs and the wet season.

I realised, as I read Dad’s book, that he enriched my life with a love of yarns of faraway places and life’s mysteries. He left me stranded on the beaches of Troy, deep in caves with questing knights, on the edge of the shire with feckless hobbits.

Dad did not have the benefit of a bookish household when he was growing up. He had to discover the joys of reading in other places - neighbours, school, YMCA. His book made me understand what a blessing a love of books is and how much my life would have been greatly diminished without that passion.

In his memoir about being a book collector, Larry McMurtry talks about preferring to settle down with old favourites as he got older. He winds up with a plaintive note:

I think sometimes that I’m angry with my library because I know that I can’t reread it all. I would like to, but the time is not there. It is this, I think, that produces the slight sense of alienation that I feel when I’m together with my books now. They need to find other readers soon – ideally they will be my son and grandson, but if not them, other book lovers.

So, I would like to thank Dad for entrusting me with bringing his book to fruition, and for ensuring his good books would find other readers, especially his son and grandson. We are still looking for good books.

Find out more about this remarkable book here.

Kiap writers top pops in ABC project

The Making of Modern Australia is an ABC project where people share their stories of life in Australia from 1945 onwards. You can link to the website here. So far some 200 stories have been published – and three of these are about Papua New Guinea.

An interesting observation about this is that the PNG stories are performing extraordinarily well in terms of the number of people who are reading them.

Australia’s Forgotten Frontier (Chris Viner-Smith) is the most read story with 886 views. John Hocknell’s PNG Adventure – A Kiap is eleventh out of 200 and Paul Oates’ Annual Village Census Patrol is 23rd.

Stories submitted to The Making of Modern Australia will be reviewed by the producers of an upcoming ABC TV documentary series on the same theme and, while the ABC is making no promises, some may be included in the show.

Given the obvious popularity of the PNG stories (perhaps there’s something of a exotic quality about those far off days), you’d think it’d be a monty that the ABC would conclude that one or more of these Boys’ Own yarns would go down very well with viewers.

Places still available at book launch

There’s an open invitation for south-east Queenslanders to attend the launch of Reginald Thomson’s Looking for a Good Book next Tuesday. Reginald was in PNG from 1949-73, beginning as a teacher and finishing as Director of Child Welfare.

The book will be launched at Golden Age Retirement Village, 60 Ridgeway Avenue, Southport at 10 am and refreshments will be served. If you want to attend give CopyRight Publishing a call on 07 3229 6366.

Looking for a Good Book has been described as “a literary tour de force”. Reginald loved reading, collecting good books and learning from them. His lifetime of looking for a good book has left this remarkable legacy worthy of inclusion in any good collection.

Reginald’s time in PNG – preceded by study at ASOPA during its early years - is well recorded. After service in World War II, he attended ASOPA and this is one of the highlights of the memoir.

And then, in early August 1949, Reginald arrived in Port Moresby. Here’s an extract from the book:

I met the Director, Bill Groves, who ran his Department from a modest office in a long shed with paper walls. This was the HQ of the department. Bill was a short, cherubic man who went to New Guinea in 1922 as the first European teacher at Kokopo. He had served in the First World War and spent a long time as a POW in Germany. He majored in Anthropology at Melbourne University, from which he held an Honours Degree and a teaching Diploma.

His book [Native Education and Culture Contact in New Guinea – A Scientific Approach] was critical of any hint of elitism and advocated a system aimed at meeting the everyday needs of the villager. Unfortunately, in practice, this meant an exaggerated emphasis on ancillary processes to the detriment of basic educational skills.

His educational philosophy caused a great deal of anguish both within and outside the Department. He resisted all attempts to expand secondary and further education, bringing down the ire of the Minister, Paul Hasluck, an academic, journalist and politician who, despite his many achievements, was never at the coal face like Groves.

Paul Hasluck, whom I came to like and respect, had little patience with those who disagreed with his Olympian pronouncements on all subjects. He was noted for his attention to detail, including the perusal of unimportant files, such as those concerned with the recruitment of base-grade clerks.

Invitation to the launch of a good book

CopyRight Publishing has invited readers of PNG Attitude to the launch of Reginald Thomson’s Looking for a Good Book on Tuesday 14 April.

Councillor Susie Douglas will launch the book at Golden Age Retirement Village (Eric Franks Nursing Home), 60 Ridgeway Avenue, Southport at 10 am for 10.30 am. The MC will be John McRobert, managing director of CopyRight Publishing. Light refreshments will be served.

It would be great for former PNG people in south-east Queensland to arrange to attend this event. You need to RSVP to CopyRight Publishing by Thursday 9 April - phone 07 3229 6366, fax 07 3229 8782, email info@copyright.net.au

Looking for a Good Book has been described as “a literary tour de force”. Reginald loved reading, collecting good books and learning from them. His lifetime of looking for a good book has left this remarkable legacy, a unique potted history of Australia worthy of inclusion in any good collection.

Reginald’s time in PNG – preceded by study at ASOPA during its early years - is well recorded by a man who’s been called a “diligent bibliophile”.

Reginald lived in PNG from 1949-73, beginning his career as a teacher and ending it in the exacting post of Director of Child Welfare. The central characteristics of Looking for a Good Book is its sparkling prose and the extensive literary and life experience of the author.

Reginald was born near Bendigo in 1919, leaving school at 13 to work for the YMCA and enlisting in the Australian Army in 1941. The book describes his Army training and his initial war service in New Guinea and in Borneo.

After World War II, Reginald took a Diploma in Social Science, soon moving on to ASOPA. In the introduction to the book, his son Dr Mark Thomson writes: “The firsthand account of studying at ASOPA is a highlight of the memoir.” I agree. This is historic stuff and the book is worth reading for these reminiscences alone.

A book that tells how PNG really was

Trevor Shearston and Philip Fitzpatrick are about my age. They were in Papua New Guinea – Shearston as a teacher, Fitzpatrick as a kiap – when I was there. And they have both authored books about life around the time of national independence that I would dearly loved to have written myself.

Thirty years ago, in 1979, Shearston published Something in the Blood, a wonderful collection of short stories of which it was said “[they] were driven by a rejection of romantic and dishonest views of colonial Papua New Guinea and are widely regarded as accurate observations of the life and politics of that time”.

The same could be said of Phil Fitzpatrick’s novel, Bamahuta – Leaving Papua, which, if you'll forgive the paradox, is a relentlessly honest work of fiction - although, as you read it, you quickly realise it is strongly informed by fact. And, like Shearston’s stories, Bamahuta is thoroughly evocative of and true to the times it describes.

Bamahuta has been much mentioned in these Notes recently. It seems a favourable review, published after the first 2005 edition, was banned from the PNGAA website by some offended, anonymous, cloth-eared censor. Furthermore, Fitzpatrick was accused of unconscionably melding fact and fiction. But these are impertinent cavils. They are like old tannin stains in a chipped teacup - of slender passing interest even as the vessel is cast aside.

Phil Fitzpatrick has written a beautiful book and Diane Andrews is to be congratulating on republishing it. Fitzpatrick is not only a powerful storyteller with a keen eye for the kind of descriptive detail that makes you feel you're there, he also writes with a beguiling sense of humour and the ability to draw characters who are real (sometime because they are real) and who we can sympathise with, even when their personalities are less than appealing.

Bamahuta begins and ends with vignettes that take place in the year 2000, thirty years after the period in which the book is located. These markers show that the ambience of PNG has changed, and then, with powerful prose and through electric storytelling, Fitzpatrick returns to PNG as it was in the late sixties and early seventies. You can smell it and you can feel it; you are there.

And so are all the people you knew. They live again. The drunks and the lovers, the eccentrics and the confused, the blow-ins and the die-hards. It is in his characterisation that Fitzpatrick’s acute eye for detail excels. And the Papuans and the New Guineans who populate this book – and who are, in a sense, its real heroes – are at least as well drawn as the author’s countrymen. Here is a writer who saw and who understood what he was dealing with.

Bamahutais full of great moments. There is exploration, cannibalism, politics, sex, leeches, patrol reports, puripuri, boredom, drinking, pretentiousness and courage. The book can be read at a number of levels – from the easy stance of a rattling good yarn to the more complex angle of seeking to understand the unusual mix of grittiness, pragmatism and empathy required to be an effective midwife at the birth of a nation.

Australia and PNG do have a shared history. It is a rich history and it is a good history: Australian resourcefulness and Papua New Guinean shrewdness thrown together; all parties getting on with a job sometimes not fully understood but which, irrespective of where it might have been headed, always seemed worth doing.

Bamahuta makes you feel proud of this shared history. Amongst its many other attributes, Phil Fitzpatrick's book is the only reminder you should need of the centrality of the kiaps' role in PNG's development, and of Australia's role in that same process.

As Paul Toohey writes of Port Moresby in today's Australian: "The place would improve exponentially if Australians forced aside some of their justified scepticism and chose to revisit their old PNG friends or find new ones." The elemental concept here being that of friendship: a friendship that Phil Fitzpatrick understood so well and is able to write about so eloquently.

You must buy Bamahuta and read it.

‘Bamahuta – Leaving Papua’ by Philip Fitzpatrick, Diane Andrews Publishing, $35. Visit the publisher’s website here.

Unheralded Sisters helped build PNG

Dr Ann Prendergast

The November 2008 issue of the newsletter of the Golding Centre for Women’s History, Theology and Spirituality at the Australian Catholic University has reviews of two books that make significant contributions to the religious and social history of Papua New Guinea and Australia. The first book presents a wide and diversified national canvas, while the second give a more localised exploration.

In 1956 the Australian Mercy Sisters, from 17 independent congregations spread across Australia, responded to the post-war call for missionary service in PNG.

Sisters had necessarily to be volunteers for a field of service not covered in their constitutions, but their generous response lead to a remarkable investment over the years in both personnel and resources across a number of PNG dioceses.

The Sisters engaged in a wide variety of works, often under circumstances calling for courage, initiative and improvisation. They provided the local peoples first with primary but later secondary and tertiary education.

They also had a health and hospital ministry, with certificated training of nurses as well as providing pastoral care in its many forms. Individual Sisters became significant actors in implementing indigenous leadership in various fields of the Church’s ministry and also in the provision of university education for civic leadership roles.

In contrast to the mission of the Mercy Sisters, the mission of the Presentation Sisters was confined to the diocese of Aitape, although, later, individual Sisters worked in Port Moresby and Kavieng.

These Sisters, too, were all volunteers who came from the six independent congregations of the Presentation Order throughout Australia. Beginning with primary education and pastoral and health care for the local people, they later expanded into secondary education and nursing.

These women worked in isolated areas with limited resources but, as their work progressed over the years, they became key players in pastoral and educational developments in the Aitape diocese.

Teresa A Flaherty, ‘Crossings in Mercy: The Story of the Sisters of Mercy Papua New Guinea 1956-2006’, published by the Sisters of Mercy, Papua New Guinea Region, 2008

MR MacGinley, ‘Presentation Sisters in Papua New Guinea 1966-2006’, published by Triple D Books, Wagga, 2008

Reality is blurred when fact meets fiction

I’m still awaiting Nancy Johnston’s permission to use an edited extract from her appraisal of Philip Fitzpatrick’s ‘Bamahuta – Leaving Papua’, approval that perhaps will not be forthcoming. As I understand it, the essence of Nancy’s concern with ‘Bamahuta’ is that it doesn’t clearly identify itself as fiction – and, in Nancy’s view, it isn’t really fiction anyway, so much as distorted and misconstrued fact. In this analysis of the debate, PAUL OATES seeks to square the circle.

I suggest that any debate over written content is more germane to  writing that clearly intends to convey factual information, or opinion based on fact, rather than fiction. Where factual content is the goal, as say in a report, people who feel their integrity impugned can justifiably raise concerns if the facts presented are awry.

One aspect that appeals to me about Philip Fitzpatrick's novel is his ability to get away from a report-like tome to convey thoughtful observations that we could never do in our sterile Patrol Reports. Of course we never expected an American University to hawk our Reports around the globe as historical documents. I cringe at the thought of my limited report writing ability of these early years now being on show to the world.

Phil’s perspective about how a contract kiap was treated by some senior officers also fits my experience, but there were many other senior officers who were helpful and supportive. To me - a young, green 21-year old just arrived in TPNG - a certain amount of hazing was expected, given this was part of almost any organisation one joined in those days. You didn't have to like it, however, and I don't believe it helped me learn the ropes.

My belief is that the true value of novels like Phil’s is that they are able to convey a sense of what it was like for us in the 60's and 70's to people who will never experience these distant days. That to me is the pre-eminent issue, getting the story to those who will read it. The vast majority of people who buy a book like this want to be entertained as well as informed.

Sure, some people who were there at the time will feel that an entirely factual report should be presented to the public. To the vast majority of readers, however, while factual details are important, they shouldn't get in the way of a good story. Editors bear this in mind as they seek to sell the product to the widest possible audience.

I remember seeing a review of the making of the film Zulu where relatives of one of the 24th Foot Battalion's miscreants, Private Alfred Hook VC, objected to how he was portrayed. The answer from the producers was that they wanted to make a drama not a dry documentary.

So, if a novel is intended to entertain whereas a report is written to inform, I suggest the two perspectives can never be fully reconciled.

I can only say that I empathise entirely with the scenarios Phil presents, and reiterate that I liked the book when I first read it and thoroughly enjoyed reading it again last week. I recommend it to everyone.

Bamahuta controversy: now the debate

With Philip Fitzpatrick’s highly praised novel, Bamahuta – Leaving Papua, on the eve of its second printing (the only thing changed, the cover), Nancy Johnston has entered debate on the issue of who stopped John Kleinig’s favourable review of the book, originally published in Una Voce, from appearing on the PNGAA website. Censorship most foul!

“To me it became a closed subject,” Mrs Johnston says. “I had absolutely nothing to do with what went on the website.”

Nevertheless, when the book was first published, Nancy had seen fit to take Philip Fitzpatrick to task. She has sent me a 36-page document detailing her views on inaccuracies and errors of interpretation in the book. These Nancy raised in a polite exchange with Mr Fitzpatrick in 2005, when the book saw the light of day.

Here are a few colourful quotes from Nancy:

“Could it be wishful thinking on his [Fitzpatrick’s] part, after being told about the seconding of patrol officers to the Security Branch he has written this part of his story from make-believe or perhaps a bit of hearsay?”

“I got a vague feeling Mr Fitzpatrick had a chip on his shoulder and an aversion of senior officers, judging by some snide remarks.”

“I cannot recall the names of the junior patrol officers who were brought in for a three months stint [in Security Branch]. I remember one seconded patrol officer, attached to the Branch in 1970, had bad body odour and after lunch he frequently smelt of tinned fish. Not even the hints from patrol officer Tony Murray and the presentation of a cake of soap made a difference; he threw the soap into the waste bin! From memory he was sent back to field duties before his time was up. Also I know the reason why, but will not disclose it here.”

“One person reading my criticism [of Bamahuta] said it could be a lesson for you [Fitzpatrick] on how not to write a book like that again.”

For his part, Philip observes: “I’m afraid Nancy's comments have all become tedious and boring and a bit sad.” But, in 2005 and still today, the author is punctilious: “I appreciate Nancy's point of view and her right to hold it,” he says. “We had a lively correspondence for a while and she was always polite but insistent.”

Nancy comments: “As you can see by his letters [Philip] was decent how [sic] he accepted my criticism and that is the reason for me wanting to purchase the new edition - to see if he omitted some of the ridiculous rubbish.”

Nancy should save her money if this is the outcome she wants.

So we still don’t know who put the kybosh on the PNGAA book review. But, on the eve of the relaunch of Bamahuta – Leaving Papua, at least we’ve got a good discussion underway.

PNG ATTITUDE will be publishing more of Nancy’s colourful views together with an appraisal of the debate by Paul Oates. 'Bamahuta - Leaving Papua' is available from Diane Andrews Publishing, which you can link to here. When you read this book, which has received excellent reviews, we’d like to hear from you.

Bamahuta: gripping, wry, humorous read

Brian Darcey

People who lived and worked in Papua New Guinea prior to 1975, when independence was prematurely thrust on an ill-prepared and largely unwilling population by the Australian Government, are becoming thin on the ground as the years roll on.

Most former colonies including PNG have coped with their new status with varying degrees of success, and a recently republished book by former Kiap Philip Fitzpatrick would be a welcome addition to any collector of stories written by the men who brought youth, stamina and dedication to the task of preparing a stone age country for political independence.

Rescued from its out of print oblivion by niche publisher Diane Andrews of Cairns, Bamahuta. Leaving Papua reeks of authenticity and personal acquaintance with the people of Papua New Guinea by a writer who lived and worked with them as a Kiap in the final years of Australia's occupation of Papua from 1967-73, two years before independence.

Like others who returned to PNG after 1975, including the writer of this review, Philip returned from time to time after the departure of the Australian administration, and was appalled and saddened by the shambolic and lawless depths to which the country he knew and loved had descended.

The opening chapter of the book has a vivid account of an armed payroll hijack at a remote airstrip which Fitzpatrick survived after his driver was shot and badly injured. It makes gripping reading.

There is much humour and wry comment by this percipient and acute observer of mankind, both black and white, some of it racier and more personal than in books written by former kiaps like Ivan Champion, Jack Hides and JK McCarthy, but it deserves a place alongside these in the Papua New Guinea section on your bookshelf.

‘Bamahuta: Leaving Papua’ by Philip Fitzpatrick is now available from its new publisher, Diane Andrews Publishing.

Brian Darcey’s latest book, ‘Bougainville Blue’, another novel solidly based on real events in PNG is also available. For further information go to the publisher's website here.

The Security and Intelligence Branch

With the permission of author Philip Fitzpatrick, today’s Notes reproduce a short section from Bamahuta – Leaving Papua. The characters are fictional, although I presume, as with all novels, some are based loosely on real people, some are composites and others are entirely invented. Having eagerly consumed the chapter Philip emailed me yesterday, I’m anxious to get my hands on the entire book. Bamahuta looks like a compelling read.

This widely praised book, soon to be reprinted, has been preoccupying PNG ATTITUDE over the last few days as we sought to understand why a review published in the PNGAA journal Una Voce never made it to the Book Review section of the PNGAA website. There have been dark stories of censorship but let’s put those aside: much better to read the author’s words as he wrote them.

Port Moresby, Central District, 1970

The head of the Security and Intelligence Branch was an aloof, upper-class type, who had difficulty concealing his racism. He seemed to be suppressing other things too but I could only wonder at these because he deigned only to speak to his second-in-command. Any communications to the likes of me came down the line.

The second-in-command seemed to have stepped straight out of the pages of a Biggles novel and was very smart in an obscure sort of way. His esoteric interpretation of everything often left me bemused. He had the knack of making even the simplest proposition sound deep and profound. It was only after you worked out exactly what he was saying that you realised he was wanking. I think the Branch Head resented his second-in-command’s mind.

The Branch Number Three was a perfect counterfoil. He was portly and middle-aged, with the demeanour of a distant but enjoyable great uncle. He knew exactly what was going on all of the time, and was damned if it was going to interfere with his comfortable sinecure. He smoked a pipe, of course, as did the other two; but whereas they gripped theirs, mostly unlit, in their steely-jutted jaws, he used his to generate great clouds of aromatic smoke and to shed copious quantities of tobacco all over his desk and the surrounding floor. I was always shaking little shards of Blend 11 out of the paperwork he gave me.

The other permanent fixture in the office was a rumpled lady of indeterminate age who was addicted to gin. She could have been English or European; it was hard to tell. She was generally pissed by midday. She tried to keep awake when the Branch Head was abroad but was mostly seen dozing in a happy funk. When I caught her sober she turned out to be a witty and charming lady with a healthier than average cynicism. Her trick with the gin was to pretend it was water. Every morning she made a point of loudly noting Port Moresby’s oppressive heat while she filled a big tumbler of water from the fountain in the hallway. She plonked this tumbler in plain view on her desk and imbibed from it at regular intervals. The water level never seemed to drop, and she never seemed to revisit the fountain. I spotted the gin bottle in her bottom drawer on my second day there.

The other staff member was a fellow kiap. I’m not quite sure why he was there. I suspect he didn’t know either. He had been pulled out of a hot, swampy and depressing patrol post on the border with Irian Jaya. He had had a number of highly publicised run-ins with Indonesian troops pursuing border crossers. Most of these incidents turned out to be simple navigational errors. It is almost impossible to work out exactly where you are in the jungle, let alone which side of the border you are on. In most cases you can only work out where you are when you stumble on a known point like a major river or, in the case of Indonesian troops, an Australian Patrol Officer striding down an airstrip in a possessive sort of way. Anyone could be excused for firing off a few frustrated rounds in such circumstances. The media gave Sean a fleeting fame and I don’t think the Administration knew what to do with him after that so they stuck him in the Security and Intelligence Branch out of harm’s way.

Source: Extract from Chapter 7 of ‘Bamahuta – Leaving Papua’ by Philip Fitzpatrick

That missing Bamahuta book review

With more than a little help from author Philip Fitzpatrick, we offer readers the book review of Bamahuta – Leaving Papua banned from the PNGAA website by an unknown censor. The review, by John Kleinig, had appeared in the March 2005 issue of Una Voce. Bamahuta is currently being reprinted and will be available soon. Here’s the review someone didn’t want you to read…..

This is a book you will not be able to put down.

The adventures of Philip Fitzpatrick prior to independence are told with wit, humour and pathos. The style is refreshingly crisp and this makes for the telling of a compelling and intriguing series of stories.

There are some unforgettable moments.

Fitzpatrick reduced to his leopard skin jockettes leading a patrol in the oppressive heat of the Western District comes face to face with a group of nuns with their habits hitched up around their knees and wearing white rubber boots. One of the nuns, a French Canadian, who once worked as a dancer in a strip club, reacts in an unpredictable manner much to the consternation of the group.

The story of the contact with the border crossers on the West Irian border carrying the still conscious elder who has been disembowelled by Indonesian soldiers as an example to potential refugees, is heart rending and disturbingly real.

Seconded to the Security and Intelligence Branch in Moresby, Fitzpatrick is rostered for night surveillance duties around Government House during the visit of the Australian Prime Minister, John Gorton. What eventuates is a series of hilarious incidents.

Woven through these adventures is the question of the timing of independence. Fitzpatrick appears to avoid the temptation to overstate the obvious and instead skilfully canvasses the attitudes of others, although he could be forgiven for a little self-indulgence.

His relationship with Ihini, the young, attractive Papuan journalist on the Post Courier, is an integral part of the story.  Fitzpatrick generally resists telling us the detail and leaves the reader to fill in the gaps. Perhaps it might have been better not to tell us of Ihini’s fate.

This story will be irresistible to those who have lived, visited or heard of Papua New Guinea. To those who have friends who only borrow from libraries or from others, do everyone a favour and buy an extra copy.

Bamahuta – Leaving Papua, Philip Fitzpatrick, ISBN 1 74076 1367, Pandanus Books, Australian National University, Research School of Pacific & Asian Studies, Canberra. ACT 0200. www.pandanusbooks.com.au. Published 2005.

Mystery of the ‘Bamahuta’ book review

In the March 2005 issue of the PNGAA journal Una Voce there appeared a review of a book by ex kiap Philip Fitzpatrick entitled Bamahuta – Leaving Papua. The review was written by John Kleinig. One reader has observed that it was a “very sympathetic and enthusiastic review”. Bamahuta was also very well received by The Australian Book Review.

But, by the time details of the book had made the journey from Una Voce to the PNGAA website, something mysterious had happened. The positive review had disappeared, and has not reappeared to this day. It seemed someone on the PNGAA committee had objected to the review being written in such laudatory tones. And this person had decided an act of censorship was appropriate.

So it is that the reference to Bamahuta on the PNGAA website today is a truncated and emaciated: ISBN 1 74076 1367, Fiction. Soft cover 313pp. Cost: $29.95 (incl postage in Australia). Published by Pandanus Books c/- Australian National University, Research School of Pacific & Asian Studies, Canberra. ACT 0200. Orders also through their website www.pandanusbooks.com.au or Ph: 02-6125 3269. Published 2005.

I haven’t yet read Bamahuta, so I’m looking forward to its reprinting later this year. But I thought I’d offer you this reaction to the book, which was contributed to the Ex-Kiap’s website in 2005 by Paul Oates. This extract from Paul’s appraisal perhaps offers a clue as to why that mysterious PNGAA censor acted as she did.

I enjoyed Bamahuta and yes, it does bring back into focus what it was like. I thought the book was more interesting in the first part where the author captures the essence of what patrolling was all about.

The second part on the build up to Independence seemed to rush it a bit and concentrated on how the new PNG elite were taking over and being resisted by the 'old guard' of the B4's.

It may also have been that the book’s treatment of the farcical characters in the Security and Intelligence Branch met with disapproval. It seems if you don’t like history, or if it doesn’t fit, you can always try the airbrush.

Thankfully for the rest of us, Philip Fitzpatrick’s book, so praised by his kiap peers and literary reviewers, will soon be republished. Let’s hope that the many fine words that will written about Bamahuta will this time make it to the PNGAA website. Watch this space.

A tropical life permeated by books

Mark Thomson

My earliest memories of my father are permeated by books. They were an integral part of the daily rhythms of his life. Books arrived constantly in boxes or cardboard sleeves, by ship and by air to our tropical outpost [in Papua New Guinea]; they were forever being stacked or rearranged in hall cupboards as protection against the ubiquitous threats of pests and damp. During his waking hours he was happiest musing over book catalogues or perusing the literary gold within his latest acquisition. It was a highly infectious affliction that he willingly passed on to his son. [Looking for a Good Book] is his 'tale of a gentle madness', written by my father during his sixties and seventies, the story of a book collector thrown hither and thither by tumultuous events beyond his control.

To set the scene of a quest for the roots of 'madness' like no other, the author dwells on several dramatic episodes from history (the battles for Troy, Gallipoli and the Aztec empire) that cast light on the sometimes fickle nature of literary records of human folly, frailty and fragility. He ponders the vital role chroniclers of history and creative writers perform in enriching our appreciation and understanding of past events. We are taken on a whimsical exploration of the 'anatomy' of collecting, and asked to consider the pathology of this 'madness' through the lens of anthropologists, psychologists, logisticians and historical informants.

The author was born in Victoria in 1919. The memoir casts back over his childhood in Golden Square and Eaglehawk in the Bendigo region. He remembers key influences on his early development as a reader and on his lifelong passion for book collecting. He left school at thirteen to work in a series of jobs in rural Victoria, joined the YMCA, and enlisted in the Australian Army in 1941. I once asked him whether his parents collected books. He replied they had none but the family next door lent him books. This part of the tale provides a snapshot of growing up in a small rural Victorian township in the 1920s and 1930s. We are told of his apprenticeship as a butter maker, membership of the YMCA, and aspirations to become a journalist. His increasing interest in and knowledge of writers and books is woven into all aspects of retelling his story: 'The progress from a desire to read, to a similar urge for ownership, indicates the affliction is now gathering momentum'.

The author describes the years following his demobilisation, during which he gained admission to the University of Adelaide under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Scheme. On completion of a Diploma in Social Science he joined the colonial administration in Papua New Guinea as a junior education officer. In preparation for his colonial service in early 1949 he was admitted to the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA) located in Sydney. His association with the school lasted for 24 years, both as a student and later as a sometime lecturer. The first-hand account of studying at the ASOPA is a highlight of the memoir.

In late 1949 the author began his long career in Papua New Guinea, where he quickly climbed through the ranks to serve with distinction in a number of positions including Executive Officer for Social Development and Director of Child Welfare. He describes journeys into isolated areas, indigenous communities he visited, his appreciation of the work of colleagues and his own role in key actions of the Australian colonial government. Writers on PNG are canvassed, several of whom were personal acquaintances of the author. He retired from the PNG administration in 1973. In 2000 he received recognition for his contribution in a 25th Year of Independence award from the Government of Papua New Guinea.

My father survived wartime injury and illness and dangerous journeys in post-war PNG, and throughout his long and eventful life, books have remained a passion. In this book he tells us of his philosophy of book collecting, the methodology he applied in putting his collection together and historical antecedents to his 'madness'. The book finishes as he started, with my father musing on the nature of this affliction. He quotes Holbrook Jackson to advise fellow travellers about the joys of reading and collecting books. The rich and varied library he has collected is a fine testament to his continuing search for a good book.

You can contact Mark Thomson here to find out how to get your copy of ‘Looking for a Good Book’.

An epic account of a good life richly lived

In these Notes on New Year’s Eve, Colin Huggins mentioned meeting with Sue Hurrell, one of his former pupils at Wau Primary A School 40 years ago. The article mentioned in passing that Sue’s father is Lloyd Hurrell, as distinguished a PNG expatriate as they made them.

A few years ago, Lloyd, who's now 95, published an account of his PNG experiences in a book entitled Hurrell's Way. It's an entertaining and informative read by a former soldier, patrol officer, planter and politician.

Lloyd writes vividly of his experiences in war and in peace. He tells of his early adventures when he went to New Guinea in 1939 as a cadet patrol officer in the Rabaul, Salamaua and Morobe, which was followed by service in World War II, after being wounded, his subsequent return to New Guinea in 1945 and his years of ‘big bush’ patrolling.

Lloyd and his elder brother Les were members of the AIF’s first contingent who enlisted in New Guinea. They served with the elite 2/31 Infantry Battalion in the Middle East including Syria, and later in New Guinea in the Kokoda Track campaign, during which Lloyd won the Military Cross. Les was killed in this campaign. Lloyd fought in the Lae and Markham-Ramu campaigns before, on Bougainville, being accidentally wounded in the leg by a burst from a sub-machine gun. He spent a year recovering in an Australian hospital where one of his nurses was Margaret Crowther, who he later married.

After Lloyd's return to New Guinea, he conducted notable patrols in Bogia, Mumeng, Siassi and Finschhafen. His main feat was opening Menyamya station in 1950 in the then uncontrolled Kukukuku country.

Lloyd subsequently became a farmer and planter near Wau, entered national politics as a Member of the House of Assembly and served for many years as Chairman of the PNG Coffee Marketing Board, receiving a CMG and an OBE for his work.

Hurrell's Way by A Lloyd Hurrell. Edited by James Sinclair. 463 pages. Numerous photos and maps. $32.95 plus p&h $9.00 within Australia. Available from Crawford House Publishing, PO Box 50, Belair SA 5052 Tel 08 8370 3555 Fax 08 8370 3566 Email frontdesk@ crawfordhouse.com.au. ISBN 1863333169

A good book? You just found it here

Reginald Thomson has written a book about books or, to be more precise, about his love of books.

Coincidentally Looking for a Good Book (Copyright, Brisbane, 2008) comes from the same publisher who brought us Gail Burke’s Meeting the Challenge.

While, unlike Challenge, this is not a book solely about PNG, it contains much that offers fresh insights into life in PNG between World War II and Independence. Which is not easy given the body of expatriate literature, published and unpublished, about the then Australian territory.

Reginald lived in PNG from 1949-73, beginning his career as a teacher and ending it as a distinguished public servant in the exacting post of Director of Child Welfare.

The central characteristic of Looking for a Good Book is the quality of the prose and of the extensive literary and life experience of the author. This, in short, is a book to read in phases – first for the savouring and then retained on the shelf for the occasional foray.

Reginald Thomson was born near Bendigo in Victoria in 1919. He left school at 13 to work for the YMCA and enlisted in the Australian Army in 1941. The book describes his Army training and his initial war service in New Guinea and at Balikpapan on Borneo.

After World War II, Reginald took a Diploma in Social Science, soon moving on to ASOPA. In the introduction to the book, his son Dr Mark Thomson writes: “The firsthand account of studying at ASOPA is a highlight of the memoir.” I agree. This is historic stuff and the cost of the book (just $20 including postage) is worth these reminiscences alone.

If you’re looking for a good book, Looking for a Good Book is for you. It is a well written and acutely recalled memoir. And underpinning everything is the author’s obsession with books. Made all the more poignant, as many of us who found ourselves in far flung parts of PNG would understand, by the largely unacknowledged part that books, precious books, played in our lives.

‘Looking for a Good Book’ by Reginald Thomson. Order your copy [hardcover, 152 pp, $20 including postage] by contacting Mark Thomson here. Mark will tell you about payment details.

The greatest tragedy in the South Pacific

 I’ve just been listening to Brian Darcey talking with ABC Far North Queensland interviewer Fiona Sewell about his book Bougainville Blue, reviewed a month or so ago in these Notes [you can read the review here].

I wrote back then: “Wherever you go in this book - apart from the plot which is a fictional collage, although close enough to reality to be plausible - there is an authenticity of observation and an acute awareness of much of the tangible and latent stresses that characterised PNG at a time when many of us felt we knew the country very, very well.” In fact, Brian knew it much better than the rest of us – and he’s worth listening to on the subject [you can listen to the ABC interview here].

Brian explains how the Bougainville copper mine – at the time the biggest gold and copper mine in the world - effectively destroyed the island. “Bougainville was destroyed,” he says. “Still is. The greatest tragedy in the South Pacific since World War II. And it’s still not over.”

The novel Bougainville Blue started out as reminiscences for a family reunion, and just grew. “I was a late blooming writer,” Brian explains. “I won't see 80 again.” And he remains cagey about a sequel to what may be a late but is a splendidly readable book.

You can visit the Bougainville Blue website here, find out more about Brian and the book, and, yes, order yourself a copy.

Ceb Barnes, the man who said ‘nothing’

You can listen to Brian Darcey, author of Bougainville Blue, reviewed a few days ago on PNG ATTITUDE, talking about the book with Jeremy Rose of Radio New Zealand here. In the interview, Brian makes a number of interesting points including:

▪          That he believes the seeds of the disastrous Bougainville conflict were sown by then Territories Minister Charles ‘Ceb’ Barnes who, responding to a Bougainvillean who asked what locals could expect to gain from the opening of the Panguna copper mine, replied tersely, “Nothing”.

▪          How he wrote the book to provide a balanced account of the conflict – “no one ever has clean hands in a civil war” – and the book tries to describe events “as they happened not how they were painted in the press”.

▪          That the main reason the biggest copper mine in the world was destroyed with so much collateral devastation was that “neither Moresby not Canberra were listening to the Bougainvilleans”.

▪          Even though Brian says he’s “a late blooming author if ever there was one”, a sequel to Bougainville Blue may be on the way.

You can also visit Brian’s blog, and order the book, here.

B/ville Blue – more than a good yarn

Some months ago in these notes, I mentioned the publication of Bougainville Blue, a novel by Brian F Darcey that is more than loosely constructed around events on Bougainville in the couple of decades from the late 1960s.  When I noted its publication, I hadn’t read the book, but a current sojourn in Noosa has relieved me of other responsibilities and given me an opportunity to immerse myself in what has turned out to be far more than a rattling good yarn. In fact, Brian subtitles it ‘An Allegory’, which is a neat insight into what the reader can expect.

The novel is articulated through a rich cast of nicely drawn characters, the principal of whom is Josip Nugui, a bright and well educated young Bougainvillean who is inexorably and somewhat reluctantly drawn into the struggle of his people against the development of the copper mine and the massive consequent disruption to the culture and lifestyle of the village people.

The plot is well conceived and nicely structured, with enough tension and twists to satisfy even the most jaded armchair adventurer.  But Brian’s book is more than an absorbing novel. It is also a social and political commentary on attitudes of and towards Papua New Guineans around the time of national independence in the mid-seventies. And, beyond the politics of colonisation and change, it shows a depth of understanding about the nuances of PNG – the topography and ecology, the sights and smells, the eccentricities (e.g., the pretentiousness of 'Kieta International Airport'), the contesting values and wilful behaviours of the main players – whether kiaps, Australian politicians, entrepreneurs, planters, the media or the native people themselves.

Wherever you go in this book, apart from the plot which is a fictional collage, although close enough to reality to be plausible, there is an authenticity of observation and an acute awareness of much of the tangible and latent stresses that characterised PNG at a time when many of us felt we knew the country very, very well.

Brian Darcey has written a splendid book and Diane Andrews has done us the service of editing and publishing it. Find out more about the Bougainville Blue, and how you can obtain a copy, here.

Bad journalism 101: Burying the lead

 

 

Anna Bligh dons hard hat
in Cairns hospital car park

By Steven Wardill

CAIRNS may be a long way from home, but Anna Bligh has arrived there with her favourite piece of apparel in her luggage - a hard hat.

Blah, blah, blah.

Ms Bligh is in Cairns for this term's sitting of regional Parliament, along with her ministers and their armies of minders, backbenchers, the Opposition and a seemingly endless array of staff.

Much more blah, blah, blah for par after interminable par.

Papua New Guinean Prime Minister Michael Somare will address Parliament today.

Yep, it was the last par. Imagine Kevin Rudd addressing the Simbu Provincial Government - and getting one par at the end of a Kundiawa News story about the local Governor wearing a beanie.

And what a great headline. Really compels you to read more…..

TV special on East New Britain

Under friendly fire: New Guinea 1943

Hal Holman has written a memoir, ‘The Phoenix Rises Eternal’. We’ve published a couple of extracts previously from the many chapters that refer to Hal’s experiences in Papua New Guinea. Here’s another…..

They hedgehopped over the kunai and it wasn’t until they were almost level with us that the pilot of the leading aircraft banked sharply and flattened out, swooping directly at us. Simultaneously I noticed two smoke trails streak from the guns in both wings. We were being strafed!

“Air raid!” I screamed, doubling up and rolling into the creek bed. As the bursts tore through the camp our entire unit scrambled in behind me.

There were several strafing runs and what saved most of us was the shelter afforded by the natural trench. Had the Kittyhawks approached up the creek we would have been wiped out.

“What the bloody hell are the bastards doing?” Peter Danne called. “Don’t they recognise us.”

“I’m stuffed if I know! But don’t stick up your head to find out!”

I began frantically to scoop out river sand from under my belly to worm lower still.

Mulga Don, also lying prone, could only see the soles of my boots and my backside bucking up and down. “Are you hit Gidgee — or are you screwing some poor bastard?”

“I’m digging for victory, lame brain, and stop looking up my Khyber Pass.”

After one more savage burst of gunfire, the aircraft peeled off and disappeared.

Read the entire Chapter 22, ‘Return to the Fray’, of ‘The Phoenix Rises Eternal’ here.   Download Hal-WWII.pdf

The Holman Collection goes on sale

For the first time, the splendid art works of the man who designed the Papua New Guinea crest, Hal Holman OAM, have been made available in a limited series of four numbered prints featuring selected images of PNG subjects.

Haldane Sinclair Holman is famous in Papua New Guinea, having been a commando in World War II and returning after the war as senior artist for the PNG Government.

Many of his artworks and sculptures are to be found in Port Moresby, including busts of PNG's six Prime Ministers since Independence that grace the grounds of Parliament House and a bronze of Queen Elizabeth II at Government House in Konedobu.

Hal’s sculptures can also be seen in the Botanical Gardens and on the Supreme Court building. His largest work is the five metre high stainless steel Bird of Paradise that dominates Sir John Guise Drive in Waigani.

Hal Holman has been associated with PNG for nearly 70 years and still visits frequently (he has returned from his most recent trip just in the last few weeks).

In the course of his visits, he has produced hundreds of oil paintings, pastels and watercolours - landscapes, portraits, flora and fauna. His real passion is seen in his images of the Bird of Paradise and his impressions of the heroic features of the indigenous people of Papua New Guinea. Hal’s paintings and drawings are in private collections and in galleries throughout the world

For further works visit Hal's website here.

The price of each of the originals runs into thousands of dollars, but these quality prints, at $50 each, are indistinguishable from them. They’re A2 size and printed on 200gsm art board. They are supplied unframed and dispatched in mailing tubes.

You can order prints from Clive Troy at this email address, or phone him on 02 9868 2123 or write to PO Box 23, Thornleigh 2120, Australia.

Photos: Two of the outstanding prints from the Holman Collection - 'Central Highlander' and 'Red Bird of Paradise'

It all started from nothing, a PNG novel

Brian Darcey

It was a word delivered on the lawn of the District Commissioner's house at Kieta. It was a word that changed Bougainville’s history. The word was, ‘Nothing’. And it was delivered by Charles ‘CEB’ Barnes, the Australian Minister for Territories. The question that elicited the fateful word, asked by the leader of a delegation of tribal elders, was, ‘What's in it for us?’ ‘It’ was a potential mine in the mountains of central Bougainville, at a village called Panguna,  on land tilled and cultivated by its native owners.

My just-published novel Bougainville Blue has a description of this encounter. I was there when Minister Barnes answered a polite query from a dignified village elder. The Minister’s answer was technically accurate but insensitive; to the consternation of senior field officers present. ‘What’s in it for us?´ ‘Nothing’.

The mine, focal point of the conflict between Bougainvilleans and the governments of both Australia and Papua New Guinea, crystallised and gave form to an endemic resentment of outsiders, which had existed on this mountainous island since its first contact with the outside world. Germans, Japanese and Australians had been left in no doubt as to the wish of the people for them to simply go away, leaving the owners of the land to continue their lives unhindered. Control by these various colonial administrations had been tolerated, but never accepted.

Bougainville Blue is about a blue - a fight. It’s about the beauty of Bougainville, its flora and fauna, and about the destruction which became a by product of modernisation. It’s a novel but it’s also about the true happenings of the tragedy that followed the plugging in of the Panguna Mine, which was to be closed – and the whole island devastated - by a ragtag militia bent on reclaiming their land.

You can find out more about Bougainville Blue here.

Holman art available to wider market

Clive Troy

He’s been something of a reluctant debutante, but Hal Holman has responded to numerous requests made over many years for reproductions of his works by releasing a limited series of numbered prints of four selected images of Papua New Guinea subjects.

The price of each of the original artworks runs into thousands of dollars, well beyond the reach of the average person, but these quality prints are indistinguishable from the originals. They’re A2 size trimmed to 420mm x 594mm and printed on 200gsm Art Parilux Silk White. They are supplied unframed and dispatched in mailing tubes.

Haldane Sinclair Holman OAM is famous in Papua New Guinea, having been a commando in World War II and returning after the war as senior artist for the PNG Government. He had the honour of designing the PNG crest during his ten years as a designer in the Department of Information. Many of his large bronze sculptures are to be found in Port Moresby, including the busts of PNG's six Prime Ministers that grace the grounds of PNG Parliament House in Waigani, and a bronze bust of Queen Elizabeth II at Government House in Konedobu.

 Hal’s sculptural work can also be seen in the botanical gardens at the University of PNG and on the Supreme Court building. His largest sculpture is a five metre high stainless steel Bird of Paradise at the beginning of Sir John Guise Drive in Waigani.

Hal has been a frequent visitor to PNG over the years and has just returned from his most recent trip. He has produced hundreds of oil paintings, pastels and watercolours of landscapes, portraits, and flora and fauna - particularly the varied Bird of Paradise. His paintings and drawings are in private collections and in galleries throughout the world. For further works visit Hal's website here.

In 2004, Hal was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the community in designing and sculpture.

You can order the prints from Clive Troy at this email address or phone him on 02 9868 2123 or write to PO Box 23, Thornleigh 2120, Australia.

Photos: Two of the outstanding prints - 'Central Highlander' and 'Red Bird of Paradise'

Keravat book gets boost from readers

A couple of weeks ago, Barbara Short shared with readers a project she’s working on to write the history of Keravat High School. The story triggered a number of useful responses: a letter from an ex-student who’s now a lecturer in law at the University of the South Pacific campus in in Port Vila; contact from David Keating (“We have had a good time renewing our friendship,” writes Barbara); and Loch Blatchford is also sending Barbara information on the 1950s, which she says will be a great help.

Now the ask gets a little more difficult for readers. Barbara wants to know where she can find obituaries or biographies for Frank Boisen or Jack Doonar. You can contact her at this email address, by phone at 02 9876 1018 or by post at 27 Chesterfield Road, Epping NSW 2121, Australia.

Bush poet tells story behind Anzac poem

Jim Brown

When ASOPA PEOPLE published the poem ‘Anzac on the Wall’ on Anzac Day, we set off a chain reaction amongst readers, who are still accessing the poem on the website two weeks later. I’ve been in touch with the poet, Jim Brown, and here’s the story of how the poem came to be written - KJ.

The story behind the Anzac on the Wall is that I was a TV journalist and, in 1990, went to Gallipoli to cover the 90th anniversary of the Anzac landing.

Before I went, I visited the Military archives in Canberra looking for photos for a documentary film, and a lovely old man put a cardboard box in front of me which contained letters written to and from the war front. The letters could not be identified, and therefore could be returned to the families.

I made notes at the time and later in life became a bush poet. The trigger for the poem was the photograph of the Anzac on the Wall, which I have in my possession and carry it with me when I perform the poem. The photo led me to incorporate the information I had gleaned from the letters. The suffering of those waiting at home had not been written about enough, and time and again it seemed that those close to the land knew the very instant they had lost a loved one on the other side of the world. From those letters I wrote about the lightning storm, the horse bolting etc.

I am humbled by the fact that so many people have been moved by the poem, especially around Anzac Day.

I have recorded the poem on CD, with other Australian classic and original poems. The cost is $25 which includes postage etc.

You can contact Jim by emailing him here.

Experiences of a lifetime – a kiap’s story

Chris Viner-Smith’s book, Australia’s Forgotten Frontier, reminds us that, in addition to many other duties, the Kiap was also a commissioned officer of the Royal Papua & New Guinea Constabulary, with the rank of Sub Inspector; although with no uniform or badge of office. Viner-Smith was 19 years old in 1961 when he responded to an Adelaide newspaper advertisement for the position of ‘Cadet Patrol Officer, Territory of Papua and New Guinea – Training Provided’. His application was successful and his experiences in PNG until 1971 provide the basis of this book.

“[These experiences] could be described as the origins of international deployment of Australian Police to overseas countries,” writes reviewer Mick Barnes. In 1964, the PNG-West Irian border. Smith details his experiences of having to confront large groups of Indonesian troops who had crossed the border and attacks on his police patrol by local tribes.

Reviewer Nancy Johnston writes: “In the chapter ‘Seeking Recognition for all Kiaps’, the author tells how he challenged the Federal Government, without success, [to acknowledge] that Kiaps were different to the expatriate regular police and that they should be recognised for the rather amazing things they did in the early post war years including controlling the International border with the Indonesians and maintaining law and order in an Australian Territory under extreme conditions; thus assisting Papua New Guinea towards Self Government and ultimately Independence.”

Both reviewers agree that Viner-Smith has written an interesting book that makes enjoyable reading.

Australia's Forgotten Frontier by Chris Viner Smith, ISBN 978-0-646-47541-7. Price $14.95 incl p&p. Available from PO Box 394, Curtin, ACT 2605 or email chrisviner@netspeed.com.au

Sources: Nancy Johnston, ‘Una Voce’; Mick Barnes, ‘Queensland Police Union Journal'

Citizens must assert global rights: Kerr

Elect the Ambassador is a breath of fresh air and worth taking seriously. Duncan Kerr maintains a balance between critics opposed to the growing interconnectedness of nation states and those who argue for the benefits of globalisation without the need for any checks on the integration of national economies. The key assumption is that democracy is still alive and global institutions can be democratised and made responsible. “Cynicism about democracy is fashionable,” he says. “But a belief in the fundamental importance of democracy is the foundation of this book”.

Duncan Kerr claims human societies are increasingly interconnected and emphasises politics as the most important guiding factor. He argues that politics, guided by people, can control globalised markets and counter some of the negative social effects experienced by Australians and other people around the world. Further, politics can provide people with a stake in the globalisation process that is above and beyond any economic incentive.

Effective democratic participation in our world is now not possible unless we both think and act globally, he argues. Part of our energy and commitment as citizens, therefore, has to be devoted to asserting our rights as members of the global community. The very word ‘foreign’ is becoming obsolete.

Duncan Kerr is Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs.

Source: Duncan Kerr, ‘Elect The Ambassador! Building Democracy in a Globalised World’ (ISBN 1864031328), Sydney, Pluto Press, 2001, 194 pages, paperback, $32.95. Abstracted from a review by Robert Imre, University of Notre Dame.

‘Papa Bilong Chimbu’ is must-see TV

In 1936 a young German Catholic missionary, John Nilles (1905-1993), arrived in the PNG Highlands of. There he remained for 54 years, living with the Chimbu people, learning their way of life and language (he translated the Bible into Kuman), and introducing them to his God and Western culture.

Father Nilles’ work reached beyond his role as a missionary. A trained anthropologist, he envisioned a way to marry Chimbu beliefs with those of Christianity. As a linguist, author, politician and citizen of PNG he became a local leader and a true Chimbu. Late in his life, he unexpectedly left PNG for Germany and there he died. But the Chimbu people claim his body should be returned and buried amongst them.

Through Nilles’ extraordinary archive of photos, diaries and letters, as well as interviews with those who knew him, filmmaker Verena Thomas has compiled a portrait of this fascinating man. Her award-winning documentary will be screened on ABC-TV tomorrow night [see below].

John Nilles was well known to many readers of ASOPA PEOPLE. Leo Carroll, who gave me the heads up about the TV program, mentioned that Nilles’ had baptised his daughter Lisa at the Anugl Mission church. For many of us, Papa Bilong Chimbu is a must-see television event.

‘Papa Bilong Chimbu’, Compass, ABC 1, Sunday 16 March, 10.15 pm

The Governor-General's collection

Sir Paulias Matane, born on the Gazelle Peninsula in 1931, has been Governor-General of PNG since 2004. He has been a teacher, school inspector, member of the Public Service Board, Secretary for Business Development and Ambassador to the US, UN and Mexico and High Commissioner to Canada. By any measure this has been a very distinguished career.

One of Sir Paulias' passions is writing (he's published 44 books and is easily PNG's most prolific author). A related pursuit has been inspiring other Papua New Guineans to write. "Up to now," he says, "due to my encouragement, 32 people have had their first books published here and overseas."

Now ASOPA PEOPLE is proud to be able to offer readers access to the Matane Library. Twenty-eight titles are available through the charitable Paulias Matane Foundation. Look for The Matane Library under ASOPA People Extra at left where you can find book descriptions by Sir Paulias himself and an order form.

By purchasing these books, which are offered at very reasonable prices, you can delve deeper into the issues that interest Sir Paulias while at the same time assisting charities in PNG. Never before have the Governor-Generals's books been offered in Australia.

Meanwhile, here's a taste of what's on offer in the words of Sir Paulias. I think you'll agree that even this small sample represents a splendidly eclectic collection. By the way, all prices includes postage and packing).....

Humour: The Papua New Guinean Way. "Humour is the quality of something that makes it funny and evokes laughter. What makes humour distinct is the environment and quality of life of the people in a particular region. Papua New Guineans are generally among the happiest people on earth. They live a carefree life and smile and laugh a lot. This book has 100 jokes that will make you laugh and make you happy and healthy."

The Time Traveler. "This book contains a collection of my popular and much sought after weekly columns in The National from 2000-05. It was published to coincide with the 30^th anniversary of Papua New Guinea's political independence."

Ripples In the South Pacific Ocean. "This is the longest historical novel ever written by a Papua New Guinean. It was first published in 2003. The novel portrays the development in the village life and culture of Papua New Guinea. It is an eloquent portrait of Aimbe, who, by his attributes of courage and compassion, becomes a leader of his community after his father's death." [318 pp]

50 Golden Years: Saga of True Love. "This was my 40^th book. It's in colour and black and white photographs and was published just before Lady Matane and I celebrated our 50^th Wedding Anniversary on 20 January 2007. The book narrates the story of our true love and how we have remained united for such a long time. It addresses important questions like what true love is, the pressures of work on married life and what it takes to make enduring relationship in marital life. Contributors to the book include our three children, grandchildren, adopted and those we helped to raise when they were children." [211 pp]

Paulias Matane – educator, author, leader

Sir Paulias Matane, a former Director of Education, has been PNG’s Governor-General for the past four years and has served the office with great distinction. Sir Paulias is a sprightly 76 - he walked part of the Kokoda Trail last year – and he tells me that since he ‘retired’ from the Public Service (“not public service,” he adds) at the end of 1985, he’s been very active.

“I went home and continued to work hard for communities, wrote books, weekly columns for one of our dailies, produced weekly EMTV Chit Chats, and travelled the world,” he writes. “I have been to all seven continents on earth.” In 2004, Sir Paulias was ‘forced’ by the PNG leadership to take up vice-regal office, where he remains today.

One of his passions over the years has been writing (he’s published 44 books) and another pursuit has been encouraging other Papua New Guineans to write. “Up to now, due to my encouragement, 32 people have had their first books published here and overseas. Five have written their second books. This shows me that there are capable people here who can write. I am pleased with their interests.”

Sir Paulias’ latest writing has been a Foreword to a new 419-page book entitled: ‘Major Religions of the World’ by Indian author Mohan L Ahuja. The book is virtually a mini encyclopedia and covers all major religions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Bahai’i Faith, Confucianism, Jainism, Shintoism, Taoism, and Zoroatrianism. If you’re interested in this book you can email the author here.

We’ll be providing a full list of Sir Paulias’ books together with prices and ordering information in a future ASOPA PEOPLE.

By the way, each of Sir Paulias’s emails is signed off with the delightful words, ‘Serving with Love from Government House!’

How a home-grown discipline was forged

When I met Dr Ruth Fink Latukefu in the common room at the Macleay Museum last week, she was brandishing a copy of Dr Geoffrey Gray’s latest book, ‘A Cautious Silence’. It was, in the circumstances of an exhibition featuring the first generation of Australian anthropologists, an apposite choice of reading.

In this book, Geoff, who will we hope later this year begin work on the first definitive history of ASOPA, explores the foundations of modern Australian social anthropology, examining the forces that shaped it and revealing the struggle to establish it as an academic discipline.

He argues that to achieve this position, anthropologists had to demonstrate that their discipline was the predominant interpreter of indigenous life. Having done this, they were able to assist government in the control, development and advancement of indigenous peoples especially in Papua New Guinea and Australia. Indeed, it is arguable that, without an Australian Anthropology, there may have not been an ASOPA – although this is my conclusion not Geoff’s.

You can find out more about ‘A Cautious Silence’ and also read a chapter from the book by visiting this website.

‘A Cautious Silence: The politics of Australian anthropology’, Geoffrey Gray, Aboriginal Studies Press, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, August 2001, paperback, 304 pp, RRP $39.95

Gold and treachery – the Mt Kare affair

“The mob was yelling and screaming behind us, carrying bush knives and spears. It wasn’t a good time to stop, so we kept driving, keeping a couple of hundred metres ahead of them. Then the chopper squeezed between the trees and landed on the road. I scrambled aboard. It had been a close call, and my non-smoking resolution fell by the wayside yet again.”

Andi Flower arrived in PNG from New Zealand in 1965 and found he had little time for the expatriate community. He had a flair for trading and developed a special affinity with the Huli people of the Southern Highlands. Then CRA found gold at nearby Mount Kare. By mid-1988 thousands of people were taking gold worth tens of millions of dollars from Mount Kare’s cold, black, glutinous mud. Conditions were truly appalling: no medics, no law enforcement and no Government presence.

The Huli people asked Andi to help them negotiate equity in the CRA mine. In the end they won 49 percent of the project but had to compete with unscrupulous opportunists that Prime Minister Rabbie Namaliu later branded as ‘spivs, crooks and carpet baggers’.

Between 1990 and 1993 Andi was subject to personal attacks, public humiliation, death threats and serial legal actions alleging impropriety, dishonesty and fraud. He saw dirty tricks, duplicity, greed and corruption on a scale he had never imagined.

This book is Andi’s story of the Mount Kare saga, told from the inside. It exposes the consequences of applying Western remedies to Melanesian problems, the destructive activities of outsiders and the greed, graft and corruption these engender.

Last weekend the Australian published a long review of Andi Flower’s book ‘Mt Kare Gold Rush’ by Greg Roberts. You can read the full article here  and go to the book’s website here.

‘Mt Kare Gold Rush: Papua New Guinea 1988-1994’, by Dave Henton and Andi Flower, $48 plus $14.95 postage to www.mountkaregoldrush.com or PO Box 678, Cotton Tree, Qld 4558.

Source: ‘How PNG gold lost its lustre’ by Greg Roberts, The Australian, 16 February 2008

Hal Holman puts phoenix to bed at last

In a long career as jackeroo, soldier, ad man, artist and sculptor, Hal Holman OAM has lived a rich life. As a young commando, he fought in the New Guinea campaign in World War II beginning an association with PNG that continues to this day. It is a relationship that has yielded a strong cultural outcome: he designed the PNG national crest, sculpted larger than lifesize bronzes of every PNG prime minister since Independence and contributed significantly to the design of the PNG flag.

Hal has now completed the long task of writing his autobiography. The book focuses both on the making of the artist and the trials and tribulations that seem an inevitable part of the artistic life. Here's an extract from the book, ‘The Phoenix Rises Eternal’…..

We spread out again until I began to doubt that Jack would tend toward the furthermost signal fires. From earlier conversations I knew that he would head for the saddle on the eastern side of Mount Wilhelm. That would keep him more toward the two fires we had passed. In view of this I also surmised that Jack might have treated the five shots as a Japanese ploy. I also realized it was possible that he might be dead.

My gut feeling was that a repeat volley of five shots was needed to affirm that there was someone here who was not afraid of being heard. So I fired another five rounds at measured intervals. The echoes seemed to go on and on.

A great hush fell on the carriers. Then a shot rang out within a reasonable distance!

The team had been ordered to remain silent in such an event and they all converged on me to seek my instructions. I addressed them when all were accounted for. In subdued tones I instructed them about the folly of rushing to the origin of the shot in case it came from the Japanese. I took two carriers with me and we approached the site with stealth. If it were Jack I would let the carriers know. With that I left with two men; the others were to hide in the bush to await our return.

You can read the full chapter in The ASOPA Archives at left.

‘The search for Private Jack Dellar’, from ‘The Phoenix Rises Eternal’, an unpublished memoir by Haldane Sinclair Holman OAM

The growing ASOPA–YouTube library

Diane Bohlen’s been busy, very busy, ensuring that the visual history of the Class of 1962/63, together with its attendant hangers on, is recorded for posterity in a modern 21^st Century form.

The latest addition to YouTube is Friends Forever, which you can find here under the title Friends For Life, a collection of pics from the latest Sofitel luncheon of the Brisbane Chapter of seafood and vin rouge aficionados, which cannot let go those friendships so firmly cemented during the planning and organisation of the Brisbane ASOPA reunion.

Friends Forever joins a rapidly growing library of ASOPA YouTube video content: 2007 Brisbane Reunion (Parts 1 and 2), Port Macquarie 2002 (Parts 1 and 2), ASOPA Buildings and Grounds, Class of 62/62 Brisbane 2003, Dianne’s ASOPA Days, Sydney Reunion 2005 and Brisbane River City. Well worth catching up with on a lazy afternoon.

And drop Bill Bohlen an email here if you’d like to add your own content to the ASOPA program on YouTube.