I know I won't infringe copyright laws by giving you this small preview of a dozen-or-so pages from Gavin Young's excellent book "Slow Boats Home"; after all, there are another 440 pages and you are going to buy the book - aren't you? AREN"T YOU??? - after you've read these few notes about Bougainville Island and the mine:
Those of us who worked on Bougainville will never forget!
I'd love to get back to Camp 6 again and sit in the boozer under a moonlit sky, drinking 'Swamp Piss' and staring out to Number One island, arguing with my mates, "Look, there's a big ship coming in!"
Good ol' days! Of course, they were good ol' days because we were young then and not the decrepit old self of today, with false teeth, on the waiting-list for an artificial hip, and ready for a triple bypass.
Meri Krismas! Gutpela Nu Yia long yu!
P.S. Two books for your list: "Mr Pip" and "They Call Me Ishmael".
Set in the South Pacific and based on true events, this is a novel about war, gold, interracial friendship, and the emergence of a new nation.
Growing up in Bougainville, an island archipelago in the South Pacific, Ishmael always wanted to be a soldier. The Crisis—a brutal civil war with Papua New Guinea ignited by the gargantuan Panguna Mine—gives him his chance. As the guerrilla leader of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army, Ishmael secures a peace agreement that provides his islands with a measure of autonomy and the future right to conduct an independence referendum. If the people vote affirmatively, Bougainville could become the newest nation on earth.
In the aftermath of the Crisis, Bougainville’s corrupt and inept government causes a vacuum. From its perch across the Pacific, China salivates. They covet Bougainville, both for its Panguna Mine and its strategic location, and are prepared to do whatever it takes to grab it.
When Ishmael and Bougainville’s chiefs ask Jack Davis, a pin-striped American investor, to help rebuild their economy, he is intrigued. Although primitive, Bougainville holds billions in gold and copper, and its people seem lovely. Jack’s life has been comfortable, but things are changing. His family members have moved on with their lives, and his country doesn’t seem to value people like him anymore. Maybe Bougainville would be different.
That two men—one black and one white—from totally different walks of life could meet on a remote island and decide they stand for the same things is a testament to Bougainville and its people, and shapes a story that anyone who believes in the innate goodness of humanity should read. The fact that it all really happened is truly inspirational.
You can order the book online at amazon.com.
After the trouble starts and the soldiers arrive on Matilda’s island, there comes a time when all the white people have left. Only Mr Watts remains, and he wears a red nose and pulls his wife around on a trolley; the kids call him Popeye behind his back. But there is no one else to teach them their lessons, and no books left to learn from—except for Mr Watts’s battered copy of Great Expectations, ‘by my friend Mr Dickens’.
As Mr Watts stands before the class and reads, Dickens’s hero, Pip, starts to come alive in Matilda’s imagination. Soon he has become as real to her as her own family, and the greatest friendship of her life has begun.
But Matilda is not the only one who believes in Pip. And on an island at war, the power of the imagination can be a dangerously provocative thing.
A dazzling achievement, "Mister Pip" is a love song to the power of storytelling. It is about belonging and losing one’s way, about love, grief and memory, and it shows how books can change our lives forever.
If you've lived and worked on Bougainville, you must read this book. Beginning today, I shall add a new chapter to this blog, courtesy of www.archive.org:
Continue reading here (simply SIGN UP - it's free! - then LOGIN)
The PNG Philatelic Bureau has issued a warning to collectors to avoid bogus PNG stamps emanating from China.
For those who did it, bittersweet memories (moi included!);
for those who haven't yet, as a warning!
This memorial Bougainville Copper Project website is now more than fifteen years old. Quite soon after its first appearance on the web, Alan Wilson added his name to the "Honour Roll" which he followed up recently by emailing me,
"The location entry for Alan Wilson BCL Power Station Loloho (1971 to 1974) is shown as East Doncaster. I have moved twice since then; once to Ballina for 4 years, and now at Newlands Arm in Victoria, beside the Gippsland Lakes. I still read your blogs from time to time, with great interest. It seems that as time goes on the activity is slowing, which is to be expected. It is hard to believe that last month saw the 50th anniversary of my landing on Bougainville, which changed the rest of my life. I remember from a farewell party in Australia those 50 years ago, one of my friends said the only difference between a rut and a grave is the dimensions. I think that I have lived my life, after Bougainville, remembering those words. Keep up the good work. Alan"
To which I replied,
"Same here, Alan: fifty years ago it was when I went across from Rabaul to Bougainville which changed the rest of my life; and, yes, unfortunately, the contributions have slowed down as many of us have gone to the big mine in the sky :-) I guess you must've lived at Camp 6 which would've made us neighbours without knowing it. Same place, same time. Do you have any old photographs or anecdotes you want to share on the website and blog? Ballina sounds nice; why did you go back to the Deep South? Or maybe I shouldn't ask because I finished up down here near Batemans Bay despite my always having wanted to retire in the tropics. Life happens while you are making other plans, right?"
His response wasn't long in coming:
"I lived for about one week in Camp 8, then was assigned a house in Section 11 (I think). Then there must have been too many fully air-conditioned houses, so BCL decided that the Power Station Shift Supervisors should move into these and mine was on the other side of the Bovo River. I was not complaining as it was free accommodation with all the power that we needed to run the A/C. Went through a divorce 36 years ago and lost all of my old photos in the process, so all that I have is the memories. Managed to keep my BCL ID Tag which has a photo of some guy that I don't recognise these days. We decided to move up to Ballina about five years ago as we have our children scattered around the country and Ballina was a bit more central than a Melbourne suburb. Then the humidity seemed to become a bit of a problem as we were getting older. There was a fair bit of vegetation around our property and adjoining properties which seemed to attract the mozzies. So that was two strikes against living so far north. Then came the task of finding an alternative and we finished up beside the Gippsland Lakes. We actually started to look for somewhere to live south of Sydney and just could not find anything that suited us. Eventually, we crossed the border and found our new home with an outlook across the Gippsland Lakes. Never sure just how long we will live here. It could all depend on how long we have on this earth. Cheers Alan"
And he enclosed this print-ready story ...
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What a challenge for a young guy with a family to simply pull the roots out of Australia and move up to a tropical island. This is exactly what happened in August 1971, now fifty years ago. Then to get on my first commercial flight to get out of Australia, dressed in a three-piece suit and tie (what was I thinking?) Walking down the aisle of the plane after landing in Port Moresby was a wake-up call about life in the tropics. Off with the jacket, waistcoat and tie and up rolled the sleeves. Then onto the Fokker Friendship with thirty-five others and we were on our way to Aropa Airport, south of Kieta. The road up from Kieta was being improved and there were dozers there to pull vehicles up the hill, if required. The mud was pretty thick at the time. Remembered having to stop just out of Kieta (I think it was Kobuan) to be signed into the project, before we continued on towards Arawa and Camp 8, where I spent the first week on the island. The Power Station was headed up by Tom Worth as Superintendent, John Dutton the Operations Manager, and Henry Pearson the Maintenance Manager. The Operations Group was mainly recruited from Australia and the UK, which provided the experience required and was considered to be a really smart move by the management team (I was recruited as a Shift Supervisor after leaving Hazelwood Power Station with eight others). The first boiler/turbine/generator on line was Unit 2 and I remember the message that was sent by the Bechtel Commissioning Manager to Panguna saying that Unit 2 was on-line generating 2 MW with 43 MW available. My memory is that this happened on 13 November 1971. Life in Arawa was very different with no TV and Radio Australia until the sun went down. Sunset was at 6.12 pm, or so it seemed as there was no twilight. It got dark very quickly. We tried to amuse ourselves with the occasional party on a Saturday night when we would hang coconut palm fronds under a house to create walls to provide some sort of privacy. The music would be loud and there was always enough to drink. A boat trip out to Arovo island was always special with the snorkling providing a look down over the edge just off-shore. Shopping was at the trade-store in Arawa, or a drive to Kieta for something a bit different. The Post Office and Commonwealth Bank were set up and in the early days this was about all that could be found in the commercial area of Arawa. Then we could get newspapers from Australia even though they might have been one week out of date. The roads were all dirt with plenty of potholes. Then the company started to get the roads sealed from Kieta to Arawa and then onto Loloho. The mine access road was sealed and this made such a difference to everyone on the project. Schools were established, the hospital was operating, the Country Club opened up and we actually had a doctor living in Arawa (Fatini Weber was her name, I think). Bougainville provided so many people with the opportunity to get out of their ruts. I remember a friend saying at my Australian Farewell Party in 1971 that the only difference between a rut and a grave is the dimensions.
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... and a photo with the following description:
On Number 3 Island off Loloho. Some of the names of the people in the photo - which was taken by Theo van der Meulen *) - are:
Boat on the right: Irene Watts, Rosa van der Meulen, Mark van der Meulen, Nicole van der Meulen, Sian van der Meulen, Gavin Watts, Chick Healy, Eric Healy
Boat in the middle: Alan Wilson, Linda Wilson, Ian Wilson (with his arms up), Lisa Wilson
Sorry, but I can't remember the others.
Cheers
Alan Wilson
*) By the way Theo van der Meulen lives in Traralgon. We have maintained a group of four who left Hazelwood Power Station in 1971 and went to Bougainville. The group consists of Theo (Traralgon), Jim Watts (Geelong) Don Houston (Lara) and myself. We get together at least once a year, but this COVID-thing is providing quite a challenge to maintain the group.
Dear Peter
I hope you and your family are well and relaxed in thought that the current covid madness will be soon gone.
I love your RiverBend Nelligen web pages and thank you for keeping us informed so well and for so long.
I wanted to give you and all our Bougainville friends some information on our progressing project to clean-up the Jaba River tailings mess, which for too long has had a terrible impact on our mates living on Bougainville near the Jaba River, the Bana District and nearby.
Happy to hear from you all.
Kindest regards
Mal
E: mal@3REGroup.com.au
C: +61 (04) 7778 3734
Resources • Recovery • Remediation • Environment
www.3regroup.com.au
