The author, Nari Elspeth Hamilton WATKINS (née Campbell), was born in Rabaul where her father, Cam, was the manager of the first Commonwealth Bank there. After two years the family moved to Raua Plantation, an isolated property in Bougainville, where she was the first white child ever seen by many of the people. Nari was eventually sent to boarding school in Melbourne. She was 17 when war came to Bougainville. With the Japanese invasion expected, Nari found herself heading south on the MV Macdhui, with other expatriate women and children being evacuated, leaving her parents behind on the plantation.
On arrival in Australia however, Nari heard a radio report that the Japanese had invaded New Britain and were expected to move on to the Solomon Islands. She decided to join the war effort instead of going to school; but a girl had to be twenty-one, or have her parents’ permission to join up. Nari ran into the engineer of the old steamer who used to visit the plantation every six weeks and got him to convince the draft board that she must have been easily 21 and she was in. In the service Nari learnt to drive trucks, eventually driving around important personalities, most notably Bob Hope.
Because of her knowledge of Bougainville she was drafted from the WASBEES for a time to service in intelligence in Townsville to help with the battle of Bougainville, during which time her parents escaped the Japanese by American submarine. Nari was then sent to India with the WASBEES where she met and married an Englishman, Captain Peter Forster. With her parents they returned to Raua to rebuild it after WWII. A son, Michael, was born but unfortunately Peter was killed in an accident a few months later. Later, after her father’s death, a family home was set up in Moss Vale and Nari returned to Raua to run the plantation.
Farnborough, a dairy farm, was later bought for the family in Moss Vale. Nari travelled between the two but eventually returned to live full-time on Bougainville. She met Les Watkins and they married in 1960, with Diana born in 1961. During this time Nari wrote this semi-fictional and quasi-autobiographical novel, Laua Avanapu. Nari and Les contributed to developing PNG as independence approached, with Nari very involved in matters cultural. A home in Moss Vale meant that time could be divided between the two places. Nari returned to Bougainville for one last time after Les passed away in 1982. She spent the last two years with daughter Diana and her husband Toby on a farm in Wallendbeen, near Cootamundra. Nari passed away in 2004, aged 78. She is survived by Diana, Michael and four grandchildren.
