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 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!