A message from the webmaster:

 

It is perhaps not surprising that this blog and the Bougainville website are dying a slow death. However, as the numbers of ex-Bougainville employees are diminishing, it puts an even greater responsibility on those who are left to keep recording those times which were important to us as well as to the island of Bougainville.

 

 

An old Bougainville friend from those early days, who stayed until the very end of the construction phase, wrote, "I remember clearing up old files after Bechtel left. There were a couple of box files filled with letters from women, solicitors, lawyers etc., all much of the same theme, so-and-so was believed to be working on the project and was wanted for child support payments, etc. The standard reply clipped under the lid was to the effect that there were over fifty companies working on the project with a total of 10,000 workers, and if the writer would please care to contact the respective company. Of course, they knew that if they dobbed in one guy, they would instantly lose a big percentage of the workforce."

 

Camp 6 Loloho
Click on image to enter Bougainville Copper Project website

 

Well, I was still single and too young to have done a runner from home. To me, Bougainville was home and it came in the shape of a 9x9ft donga tastefully decorated with PLAYBOY centrefolds of girls waxed to the point of martyrdom, where one's wordly possessions easily fitted into a 2ft-wide metal locker and one's needs for comfort were satisfied by a red plastic chair on the porch.

Life was so simple then; we were so innocent! Or, at least, some of us were. The old saying that Papua New Guinea attracted three types of men, namely missionaries, moneymakers, and misfits, had to be rewritten for the Bougainville Copper Project to include those running away from their wives, the police, or themselves.

If you have an anecdote to contribute or some old photos, please email me at riverbendnelligen[AT]mail.com.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Peter Goerman
PO Box 233
Batemans Bay NSW 2536
Australia
Email riverbendnelligen[AT]mail.com

A trip back in time for fifty cents

 

6th Edition, February 1998

 

Most people buy their Lonely Planet Guide to plan a trip; I bought this old 1998 edition for a mere fifty cents at the local op-shop to take a trip back in time. And I discovered so much!

Only the very back of the guidebook, the last three pages 359-361, is dedicated to the place where I had spent most of my time in New Guinea. It begins with the explanation, "The following information is included in case the situation in Bougainville dramatically improves and travel onto the island is once again allowed. But this information is likely to be out of date since Bougainville has been off-limits for eight years and there's been considerable damage to the towns in the south."

And equally so about the place in which I first lived and worked: "Rabaul is a weird wasteland, buried in deep black volcanic ash. The broken frames of its buildings poke out of the mud like the wings of a dead bird. Almost the entire old town is buried and barren and looks like a movie set for an apocalyse film. Streets and streets of rubble and ruined buildings recede in every direction. The scale of what happened to Rabaul cannot be appreciated until you see it. If you were fortunate enough to walk its busy, noisy and colourful streets before September 1994, be prepared for a shock."

With the help of the old town map on page 315 I was able to walk, in my mind, from my office in Park Street to Casuarina Avenue, across Court Street, Namanula Road and Tavur Street, before turning left into Vulcan Street to arrive at the company-supplied accommodation, a converted Chinese trade store which I shared with two other accountants.

Then there is the Port Moresby City map on page 112 which also shows Cuthbertson Street where I used to sit in my parked car in the sweltering heat on a Sunday morning, waiting for the newspapers from "down south" to arrive at the news agency to grab one of the few copies of the weekend edition of the Australian Financial Review which always advertised the best job vacancies, and to check my mailbox at the post office on the opposite side of the street for letters from "down south" but especially for any job offer in response to some application I had sent off in previous weeks.

Page 131 reminded me of trips to Yule Island where "the missionaries who arrived at Yule Island in 1885 were some of the first European visitors to the Papuan coast of New Guinea." On the way there I would stop over at a small trade store at Hisiu, then run by an Australian and his local wife.

Then there were those many trips out to Idler's Bay to the west, Bootless Inlet to the east, and north to Brown River. Sailing my CORSAIR dinghy from the Royal Papuan Yacht Club all the way out of Fairfax Harbour to Gemo Island and Lolorua Island and capsizing it far out at sea. I would have never made it back home had I not been with my mate Brian Herde who dived under the boat and pushed the centreboard back through the slot so that I could grap it and pull the boat upright again. I lost my precious wristwatch and we lost all our beer but only nearly our lives.

The map of Lae on page 176 shows the corner of 7th Street and Huon Road where I lived and spent my last Christmas in the country in 1974 before flying out to my next assignment in Burma. My old friend Noel had flown across from Wewak to spend that Christmas with me, and I still remember talking about another job I had been offered eighteen months earlier as manager of a thriving co-operative at Angoram on the banks of the mighty Sepik River. Angoram was no more than a couple of hours' drive away from Wewak and I had been tempted to accept to be near my friend but how different things may have turned out because only a few months later, again at Christmas time, I developed accute appendicitis which was quickly and successfully dealt with through a hurried operation at the newly-built hospital at Arawa but which could've been far more complicated in the remote wilds of the Sepik District. And, of course, no access to the Australian Financial Review with all its interesting job ads! We are so often the result of the circumstances we find ourselves in.

And then there is Wewak itself, described on the guidebook's page 254 as "an attractive town where you can happily spend a day or two in transit to the Sepik or Irian Jaya." Well, that was then: today Weak is a very unsafe and run-down place and the border to Irian Jaya is also closed. The town map on page 256 still mentions the Windjammer Hotel which burnt down many years ago. The larger district map on the facing pages 250 and 251 shows the road to Cape Wom and the Hawain River where my friend Noel used to live before Independence and the unruly natives forced him out.

A great trip back in time for a mere fifty cents!

 

The Highlands Trilogy

 

 

When Columbus and Cortez ventured into the New World there was no camera to record the drama of this first encounter. But in 1930 when the Leahy brothers penetrated the interior of New Guinea in search of gold, they carried a movie camera. Thus they captured on film their unexpected confrontation with thousands of Stone Age people who had no concept of human life beyond their valleys. This amazing footage forms the basis of "First Contact", part one of "The Highlands Trilogy" which I recently bought at our local op-shop.

 

 

It had been collecting dust there for well over a year, unwanted and overpriced, until I lashed out the thirty dollars last week and brought it home with me. I've watched it twice already, and no doubt will watch it again and again whenever "homesickness" for New Guinea overtakes me.

 

Here are two previews of Part 2 and 3 of "The Highlands Trilogy":
"Black Harvest" and "Joe Leahy's Neighbours" and "Black Harvest":

 

 

 

A Christmas Eve in the Far South Seas

 

Listen to the story here

 

Iin the islands, by some unspoken agreement, we never talked about Christmases or birthdays. As my best friend Noel once confided, "Talking about them makes them more real", and so we never celebrated them either. It was our way of coping with loneliness and being far away from home. Not so in this story by Louis Becke, "A Christmas Eve in the Far South Seas":

"Donald MacBride and myself were the only Britishers living on one of the North Pacific Island lagoons when Christmas of 1880 drew near, and we determined to celebrate in a manner that would fill our German and American trading rivals throughout the group with envy. MacBride was a bony, red-headed Scotchman, with a large heart and a small, jealous, half-caste wife. The latter acquisition ruled him with a rod of iron, much to his financial and moral benefit, but nevertheless agreed with me that we - Donald, she and myself - ought to show the Americans and the 'Dutchmen' how an English Christmas should be celebrated. But as Sera was a half-caste native of the Pelews, and had never been to a civilised country, she also concurred with me that Donald and myself should run the show, which, although I was not a married man, was to take place in my house on account of the greater space available. Donald, she said, wanted to have a 'hakkise'; so we bought a nanny-goat from Ludwig Wolfen, the German trader at Molok, and one evening - the 23rd of December - I helped Sera to drive and drag the unsuspecting creature home to her husband's place to the slaughter. (I may as well say at once that MacBride's nanny-goat haggis was a hideous failure, and my boat's crew, to whom it was handed over, with many strong expressions about MacBride's beastly provincial taste, said that it smelt good, like shark's liver, but was not at all so juicy.)    Continue reading here ...

Louis Becke ends his story thus, "... we raised our glasses and drank to the memory of those who had gone before". I shall do likewise, raising my glass of Pino More to dear and absent friends who, however briefly and whether still alive or not, shared those lazy island days with me: [in no particular order] Noel Butler, Des Hudson, Roy Goldsworthy, Peter Logan, Graham Ward, Ian Paterson, Frank Joslin, Chris Jeffries, Dave Richardson, Hubert Hofer, Brian Herde, Neil "Jacko" Jackson, Bob Green, "Bulldog" Malcolm Baker, Urs Christen, Merv Nightingale, Ian Paterson, Colin Cowell, Werner Seifert, Volker Leidner, Urs Christen, Bill Brown, Brian Darcey ... and the list goes on

We've made it home safely, so it's safe to wish us all a Merry Christmas!

 

 

We were all citizens of the world

 

 

Why is it that whenever I hear Rick declare his nationality as "I'm a drunkard", I immediately think back to my character-forming years spent on the Bougainville Copper Project?

Of the thousands of men that worked there, and the scores I knew, there was only one who did not drink - alcohol, that is! - but then he didn't do much of anything else either. As for the rest of us, we were all citizens of the world and drinking responsibly meant not to spill it.

I've always thought that all of us should have been commended for our services to the Australian brewing industry, and I can think of at least one who should have lived out his days as Sir Osis of the Liver. I won't mention his real name as a show of respect for the dead which he must be by now as no liver could have taken all that punishment for long.

All that was almost fifty years ago, and while I still enjoy the occasional glass (or two) of wine, my liver has never ceased to be surprised by the sudden stream of lemon-and-ginger tea it's been metabolising ever since I settled down. Speaking of which, remember the rumours about the stuff they put in our tea in the camp to keep our mind of it ...?

Well, fifty years later, I think mine is showing signs of beginning to work!

 

Bougainville Before the Conflict

 

A very interesting read - click here.

 

Sean Dorney's book "Papua New Guinea: People, Politics and History Since 1975"

 

Sean Dorney has been reporting on the Pacific (with a particular focus on Papua New Guinea) for over four decades. His book "Papua New Guinea: People, Politics and History Since 1975" deprives Australians of their best excuse for not knowing about what goes on in Papua New Guinea.

 

 

It begins with an overview of the country's history until Independence in 1975, and then traces the major themes that have resonated through its first twenty-five years as a nation: corruption, rich resources, political volatility and uncertainty, lawlessness, a troubled border with Indonesia, and - of most interest to me - the war on Bougainville, which led to the extraordinary engagement of the Sandline mercenaries.

 

Four Corners program "Preying on Paradise"

 

Not long after the ABC made Sean Dorney redundant in 2014, he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. It has severely limited his ability to type. Whereas once he was a ten-fingered typist, he is now down to two fingers, and even that is laboured. However, his legacy, "Papua New Guinea: People, Politics and History Since 1975", will live on - and so does he, aged 72, in Townsville.

 

Rex Brooks emailed from Townsville:

 

Hello Peter,

I was randomly browsing and came across your blog. I was amused by the photo of you in the article "The die was cast", as it could have been a photo of me from that era, similar age and build, identical glasses and same dress sense. It brought back memories of a time of my life I won't forget.

I was recruited in Cairns by Ken Phillips for a job with CRA Exploration. We arrived in Kieta in April 1964 and commenced geochemical sampling around Kupei mine. The team consisted of Ken, myself (field assistant), Ian Wilkie (field assistant), Edgar Mucenikas (geochemist) and Neville Robinson (Mines Dept. liaison).

We moved across to the western side of the range and set up a base camp in Panguna valley, see above photo. This spot is where the BCL Admin, warehouse and workshop later stood around 1970.

I did many and varied jobs and managed to see many areas in PNG, all the while being paid for the experience. I gradually drifted into Supply and worked with Ken Nelson for several years. After three years I thought I was missing out on "life" in Australia and left, but within 6 months I was back, with a new bride, and stayed until 1970.

Rex Brooks with second child in 1970

Anne and John Barnham were our next-door neighbours at Panguna. My first daughter was born in this period and I can remember my wife being swamped at the markets by the meris wanting to touch the baby's fine white hair.

I followed Ken Phillips to Ok Tedi with Kennecott Exploration but two years later, now with three daughters, I settled at Greenvale Nickel Mine for 20 years!

The day Greenvale mine closed I was on a flight back to PNG for 10 years of FIFO at Porgera.

My last job in PNG was with Morobe Mining at Hidden Valley in 2012. I am now retired on a small property outside Townsville and have become adept at doing absolutely nothing.

In the time I spent in PNG I often came into contact with many ex-Bougainvilleans. Without exception they all portrayed the "bug" that seems to get into your blood after a stint up there. Bougainville was home and you went to Australia on leave.

I am gradually reading through all the old posts but sadly age seems to be cutting down the ranks.

All the best to you, Peter, for keeping the memories alive.

Regards
Rex Brooks
Email: sandrex@activ8.net.au
Mobile : 0406398743

 

 

Papua New Guinea: Initiation and Independence

 

To continue reading, click here.

 

A Message from Rene Pogel, BCL's Employee Relations Manager:

AFTER years of reporting "there has been no production since 15th May 1989", things may appear to be improving for Bougainville Copper following the election of a new autonomous government last year and recent meetings with the PNG Government discussing the possible resurrection of the massive Panguna copper-gold mine. If you are interested in re-applying for your former position with BCL, please email me now. But hurry as there is STIFF competition for the jobs!!!