Angus Baird emailed from Indonesia:

Hi Peter,

I see so many familiar names on your site that I am inspired to add mine.

I am Angus Baird and I worked at the Anewa bay Power House from (I think) 81 ~ 86 and then again returned after two years and stuck it out until we were sent home. I remember that the day before I got on the plane to go back for the second stint I heard that they had started blowing things up. ‘What have I done!’ I thought to myself.

Like many of the other refugees, since BCL, I have worked all around the place on various projects. Currently I am Owner’s rep on a 660MW coal fired project in West Java.

I should be thinking about retirement (62 next month) but can't see it happening for a while yet. I still enjoy work even though I do tend to complain about it a bit. There are many of us Boomers now still working and I have worked with guys well into their 70s and still going strong.

Your site is wonderful, thank you for all the effort that you must have put in to creating and maintaining it.

Are there any recent photos of how things look now?

Take Care

Angus
angus.baird[AT]cirebonpower.co.id

Just another night at Camp 6 at Loloho

Christmas 1970

From left to right: Neil Jackson, Bechtel Head Timekeeper, already well into his drinks but still some time before he would turn ugly and disagreeable, who eventually finished up back in Melbourne where, having inherited his auntie's million-dollar-mansion in blue-ribbon Toorak, he was surrounded by a whole lot of cats and empty bottles and neighbours who were trying to have him evicted; Peter Goerman, Bechtel Senior Auditor, sitting on the donga's most important piece of furniture, the beer fridge, and wondering how he'd finished up in this company of alcoholics and misfits; Bob Green, recently married Bechtel Timekeeper, whose young wife back in Australia would write him one long, multi-paged letter every day which he would receive by the dozen each mail-day, and then spent all night in his donga replying to them. Of course, such mental torture was too much and he only lasted a couple of months before returning to Melbourne.

A friend who was also there in the early days, posed the question, "Why did we all look so fabulously happy and healthy when we were there? Could we re-capture that if we went back there?" He answered his own question when he continued, "Actually, camp life is camp life and ... it is a real pleasure to be part of it and it never changes. I have had the opportunity to experience it in recent times and it is fun and brings back a lot of memories and really makes you feel young again, although when you try to leap over tall buildings like you used to, you hit the wall halfway up, but it's the trying in the right atmosphere that makes you feel good."

Bougainville Copper Induction Video

COMING SOON   Gordon Wadsworth in Tasmania has kindly sent me a copy of the original Bougainville Copper Induction Video for new employees. I am right now converting it for upload to YouTube so you can watch it and go all nostalgic for the good ol' days! WATCH THIS SPACE!

James Colbert emailed:

"Life at Arawa Technical College"

What I recognised as a paradise was never taken advantage of by most of the staff,....almost everyone, continually bitched, gossiped & backstabbed one another. It never really "got" to me., I just lived it as I saw it, & enjoyed every little bit of my time living there. Everyone on the island was paid well, for what I considered an easy & enjoyable lifestyle. I really liked the Bougainvilleans.

James Colbert
email jrc10846[AT]gmail.com

Debbie Wilson (now Underwood) emailed from Dee Why:

Hello Peter

It's Debbie Wilson! I was so surprised to come across your wonderful site last night. I was feeling a little nostalgic for those wonderful times on Bougainville and googled fortunately I came across your site.

I was amazed to find my picture on page 4 - sweet 16, believe it or not turning 57 this year, has it really been 40 years?

You employed me in 1972 for CCS then your very dear friend Des Hudson took over. Was great to see the old pictures and hear Des is married with 2-3 children, which is it Peter?

I have been married for 27 years and have 1 son 25 years old. We live in Dee Why, Sydney and I work at St Paul's Catholic College in Manly. You would remember my very dear brother Gary Wilson who you worked with at Bechtel, unfortunately Gary passed away in 1985 which was such a tragedy.

I will send some photos, unfortunately many of my photos have been water damaged. Please send my best wishes to Des. My husband John and I have been holidaying at Tuross for the past 7 years, beautiful area down there.

Very best wishes to you
Debbie Underwood (Wilson)

Debbie with her new boss, Des Hudson; Debbie is the one on the right ☺

Debbie with some of the CCS/SHRM office staff

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Richard Salisbury emailed:

Hello Peter,

Just reading some of the wonderful stories about Bougainville where I grew up in the late 1950's early 60's.

My father Fred, was Kip McKillop's partner in Arawa Plantation, and dad would regularly take me up there from Sydney.

The butterflies seemed SO HUGE when I was a kid.

And the fantastic orchids - some of which, actually hundreds - ended up at our house in Sydney.

Dad would attach them to the gum trees, and they thrived - and giant staghorns too.

I'm strangely drawn back there in my mind of late....

Anyhow, well done on your initiative to keep the memories alive.

All the best

Richard Salisbury
email admin[AT]recs-australia.com

Gordon Wadsworth emailed:

Hi Peter

I worked for Tarave Wholesalers which later became Arawa Enterprises Ltd from 1978 to 1985 and acquired a coffee table style book of B&W photos covering the mine development from exploration until about 1980. If you have not seen it before it certainly fills in many blanks as it includes the road construction, delivery of the machinery, port development etc. Plus somewhere I have the VHS tape that was made to show to potential employees what to expect when they arrived. If of interest drop me a reply and I’ll locate them for you.

Like yourself, Bougainville has many special memories and I still maintain contact with friends from that era including the former owner of Inus Plantation who made many of our staff welcome visitors. To read that nationals were employed in slave like conditions is a total distortion of the place and it is sad to think that this has not been strongly refuted by those who lived there and shared with nationals a special place spoilt by greed and misunderstandings of what economically it could achieve for the local population.

I was employed when Maurie Pears was GM. Paul Wells had just commenced as well and I was the Special Projects Accountant required to commission the SHEILA accounting package on the Data General computer becoming PNG’s first on-line warehouse in doing so. Your pictures of Arawa now were upsetting to say the least. Our son was born at Arawa in ’79. I’ll do a biography later of some of our workmates etc for the honour role as enjoyed the contributions from many of your existing honour roll authors despite its focus on BCL staff. Chris Van Gessel lives in NZ now and has entered the priesthood for the Catholic church and there are many others whom I can add a little about. I’ll post you the induction tape if you forward an address as I don’t have necessary gear to upload it to YouTube. Seems the book I advised about is in the possession of another contributor also so may not be so rare after all. Will scan some of my photos and slides to see what I can add later as well.

Regards
Gordon Wadsworth
email wadzygc[AT]bigpond.com

Wade Green emailed:

Hi

My name is Wade Green and like Sue I was a child when my family was on Bougainville.

We moved there from Broken Hill in 1972 when I was 3 my dad (Dave Green) worked for BCL in the Pink Palace as an accountant. My family is Mum Helen, brothers - Travis, Brodie, Aaron (born on Bougainville) and Joshua (also born on Bougainville). My grandfather Charles Francis Gardner (Frank) worked in the mine at Panguna and moved to Bougainville with his wife Molly and two daughters Dana and Jodie.

I have many memories of Bougainville such as playing with Jamie Brophy and Sues brother Mac (what we called him), swimming in the Bovo, traveling by bus up the narrow windy road to Panguna amateur swimming club and singing songs the whole way, waking up after the earthquake to find the contents of the pantry on the floor, walking to school barefoot, laying paper trails with mum for the hash house harriers (not sure of the name), the all night parties mum and dad used to have, finding the shell casing and giving it to Sue to use for her school project, the strange guy on Loloho beach who used to stuff seaweed down his speedo then swim out into the ocean and eat the seaweed, walking up into the local village and through the crops, seeing the locals as they had always lived, throwing stones at pigs and being chased by bush knife wielding locals (not proud), dad driving all over the road on the way up to Panguna just to scare us kids (it worked, just ask my shrink;->), dad driving over toads/frogs as we listened to them pop, dreaming about ice cream spiders, holidays on the Gold Coast, Christmas parties at the Sports and Social club and Golf (country) Club, getting my fingers stuck in the old Merry go round at the Country Club during a movie night, eating salty plumbs, getting boils, being stung by wasps, watching from the Bovo bridge as mums best bed spread (that disappeared off the clothes line months before) floated downstream, the girl from Canada who had chicken pox, great big black acid spitting centipedes, running down the road in front of the wall of rain as is rolled down from the mountains, surfing down the street after the rain, the smell of the rain, catching hermit crabs on Loloho, when the queen came for independence day....and so many more..

Great site, great to read other stories/memories from Bougainville.

Regards
Wade
email wadesipad[AT]bigpond.com

P.S. Amendment to above: grandfathers name was not Charles Francis Gardner it is Thomas Francis Gardner (aka Frank).

Derek Gorst emailed from Brisbane:

Hi

I arrived on Bougainville in September 1973 with my wife & 2 boys as Senior Mine Industrial Engineer reporting to John Dunlop. I left in February 1990 a week before the mine closed. In the interim I worked as Senior Industrial Engineer for Ron Kay, Manager Computer Services for Bill Davies, Manager Information Services & Maintenance Services Manager under Paul Piercy. My wife Gill was active in the Little Theater & wrote/directed several plays. She also wrote the Fenella articles in the Bulletin. It was a major part of our life & undoubtedly the best. I still have fond memories of sitting on Loloho beach on Christmas Day eating cold chicken & drinking iced champaign. The trip to Arovo in a "banana" boat filled with cartons of booze, the moon rising over Puk Puk & the water filled with phosphorescence and many many more. We lost all of our photographs in the Brisbane floods so this site is a particular delight to Gill & myself.

Thanks
Derek Gorst
email derekgorst[AT]gmail.com