From WALKABOUT, March 1972

 

"Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret"

 

It was Benjamin Disraeli who is supposed to have said this. I have reached old age, and should start to regret, but I don't. I have made mistakes - many mistakes! - but when I think of the frailty of human nature, of the pitfalls that surround us, and the crazy world we live in - I was going to shorten it to 'the vicissitudes of life' but I didn't want to confuse you, Des! - , I merely wonder why I did not make more mistakes.

One thing that I have noticed is that, whereas during all those past struggles I hardly ever looked back, I now look back all the time. As there is no future to speak of, I live in the past, before the struggle began - a harking back to youth which, alas! has departed for ever.

An email received from an ex-colleague of my days on the Bougainville Copper Project makes me think that I am not so different from others:

"Until old age caught up with me very suddenly - it sneaked up on me without my realising it - work had been everything to me. I was in demand and there was one project after another. Altogether, it has been a successful career, all thanks to my time on Bougainville. A lot of people worked there for lots of reasons; dollars were probably the main reason. I had just spent a year living in a boarding house in Melbourne run by Jews which was all right except that the cooked dinner was beef schnitzel and mashed potatoes every night, so a change of food and scenery was enough for me to sign up. Engineering-wise there was a lot of "new" technology on Bougainville with little back-up information which taught me to innovate. Thanks to my time there, I enjoyed a working life which I would never have dreamed of."

And can't we all relate to this? I certainly can! After my first and futile attempt to rent a furnished room with a family in a Canberra suburb - I spotted their Jewish menorah on the sideboard before they spotted my German passport! - I also had moved into a boarding house - click here - with an also very predictable menu - "if it's Chicken Maryland, it must be Friday!" - after which I went to Rabaul where I shared a house with two other chartered accountants - click here.

I'd gone to Rabaul just for the adventure on a much reduced pay and an even more reduced menu because, as each one of us took a turn in doing the weekly shopping, when it was the turn of the other two, they merely bought a leg of lamb and spent the rest on beer.

I had answered a similar ad when I worked and lived in Rabaul, except mine gave Bechtel's Kieta postal address to which I replied. By return mail, I received a return ticket to present myself at Panguna for an interview which I did and, as they say, the rest is history ...

When the local newspaper, the POST-COURIER, began carrying ads for audit personnel on the Bougainville Copper Project, I applied and was invited to fly across for an interview in September 1970. I was hired on the spot, returned to Rabaul to give notice, and within a few weeks was back on what was then the biggest construction project in the world. Woo-hoo!

AUSTRALIA'S MOST WANTED accountant
For more revealing photos, click here

Seeking adventure had been my main reason for coming to New Guinea, seeking more money was an added reason for going to Bougainville - I went from $2,000 to $7,500 a year, plus full board and lodging and a beat-up Toyota Landcruiser - , but it was the professional challenges that kept me there for several years.

"Auditing" meant checking contractors' monthly progress claims against contractual terms and conditions. Those contracts had been written not by accountants but by engineers in far-away Melbourne, often with little or no regard to the practicalities on the ground.

Pitting our brains against those of the contractors' representatives whose aim it was to make the most of a once-in-a-lifetime chance, interpreting contractual clauses and, where necessary, pushing through essential contract changes which could save vast sums of money, made those long ten-hour days often seem not long enough.

Of course, there were those to whom Bougainville was just a great disappointment. There was one who had arrived on the island and, taking one look at those cloud-covered mountains behind which Panguna was supposed to be, refused to leave Aropa airstrip and took next morning's plane back out. Another one, having scored the much-coveted trip to Bechtel's Melbourne office to hand-deliver the monthly batch of computer punched cards (remember punched cards?), was never seen again. This act became known as 'doing a Joslin' (take a bow, Frank!) Then there were those who, having run up an adding-machine striplist from 365 down to zero which they taped to the wall behind their desk, would each morning cross off another number. Not many endured this agonising mental torture long enough to reach the longed-for Day Zero.

As for me, and a select group of others, we revelled in the challenges, in the comraderie, and eventually in the opportunities that, thanks to our time on Bougainville, came our way on other projects and in other countries.

As my former colleague wrote, "Altogether, it has been a successful career, all thanks to my time on Bougainville." And so say all of us!

 

Echoes of Marquis de Rays

 

The Marquis de Rays' Expedition is known by name to practically everyone who has wandered in the Pacific; but very few knew the actual complete story, with its attendant tragedies of fraud, disillusionment and death.

It is generally known that the Marquis, by highly-coloured promises, induced a large number of people to go to a "new colony" on the southern shore of New Ireland, and that many of them died there, in that hopeless, fever-ridden hole; but a detailed account of the enterprise has not previously been published.

We should therefore be grateful to Mademoiselle J.J Niau for writing "The Phantom Paradise", which is not only a most readable book but also a valuable addition to available records. Alas, it has long been out of print, and is only available at selected libraries - click here.

One is surprised at the extent of the fraud - for there seems little doubt that it was simply a gigantic "racket". One gets the impression, from this carefully-compiled, well-documented book, that the Marquis did not launch his scheme with fraudulent intent. A member of an ancient aristocratic family of Breton, he was a dreamer, a wanderer and a visionary. France was rent by political troubles. He made a plan - as many another patriot has done - for establishing, overseas, a new, free home for his oppressed countrymen. But, instead of going personally to see the home of La Nouvelle France, he took the word of one Duperry, commander of the "Coquille", who had landed on August 12, 1823, at Port Praslin, on the southern extremity of New Ireland. Dupeery described this place as a Pacific Paradise; and De Rays, who had half the Pacific open to his selection, by a most unlucky chance chose this as the location of his new settlement.

De Rays threw himself with great energy into the work of organisation. His first advertisement, offering land at two francs an acre, with "rapid and assured fortune", appeared in Le Petit Journal on July 26, 1877; and, within the next two or three years, people in France, Italy, Belgium and Spain almost fell over each other in their eagerness to join the expedition and pay the Marquis liberally for the privilege. The progress of the enterprise may be seen from the dates of the sailing of the four vessels which carried the poor, deluded colonists,to the number of nearly 1000, to Port Breton (as it was christened):

Chandernagore, left Holland September 14, 1879.
Genil, left Barcelona July 9, 1880.
Nouvelle Bretagne, left Barcelona April 7, 1881.

Clipping from the Mount Alexander Mail, Vic., of 19 March 1880

No ship sailed out of France. The French authorities were suspicious of the Marquis from the first, and did their utmost to dissuade people from joining him, and refused clearance to his ships. He defied them, and despatched his ships from other countries. He may have sent away the Chandernagore in good faith - he was dreamer enough - but he knew, before the Genil left in March, 1880, that Port Breton was totally unsuitable for any colonising enterprise. He made no effort to delay the sailing of other ships, or to seek other territory for colonisation. Instead, his lieutenants drove the colonists ashore in the rain-soaked, fever-stricken place, and some even went to extreme length to prevent the wretched people escaping to a more hospitable country. One commander, Captain Henry, refused to put his quota of colonists ashore in New Ireland, and tried to find a home for them elsewhere; but the others seem to have ben rascals in the pay of De Rays, and their chief object was to maroon the poor, deluded people and prevent their getting back to civilisation with their damning tale of deceit and cruelty. Altogether, a thousand people were brought out in those ships, to the great enrichment of the Marquis.

Clipping from Maryborough Chronicle, Qld., of 29 April 1882

The detailed story is a most tragic one - it is hard to believe that the people could have lived through such misery. As a matter of fact, only a proportion of them lived - the graves of the others line the shore of Port Breton and Liki-Liki (another place just around the corner on the south-east coast, to which some of them moved).

The only bright spots in the story are furnished by the heroism of Dr Baudouin, who stayed with the colonists and fought for them against the Marquis and his gang; and by the hospitality of the missionaries (Rev. Brown and Rev. Benjamin Danks) and traders (Mr and Mrs Farrell) in the Duke of York Islands. Mrs Farrell, presumably, is the lady who was the daughter of Mr Coe, consul in Samoa. She ran away to the Western Pacific with Mr Farrell, who was very successful as a trader, and subsequently became known throughout the South Seas as "Queen Emma".

In time, the settlers either died or got away to Australia, the Philippines, Europe, or some other Pacific island; and, in a few years only a few sticks and stones, many unmarked graves and some cruel memories were all that remained of La Nouvelle France.

Even as a romance, "The Phantom of Paradise" would be an amazing story. Yet it is true - a tragic bit of the strange chequerboard of Pacific history, more recently invoked by the following article in THE BULLETIN of August 1982:

 

For a scholarly dissertation of this colossal real estate fraud, click here.

 

Further reading:

1) Three articles by J.H. Niau in THE SUN, three years before her book:
Part I, April 23, 1933,  Part II, April 30, 1933,   Part III, May 7, 1933.

2) "The South Sea Bubble of Charles du Breil" by Louis Becke - click here

3) "Charles I, Emperor of Oceania" by James A Michener - click here

4) "The Marquis provided the mill-stone", PIM, February 1949 - click here

5) It inspired Daudet's burlesque "Port Tarascon" - click here

 

 

 

Return to Paradise

To read the whole book online, click here, then SIGN UP (it's free!), LOG IN and BORROW

 

I was lucky because my first job in the islands was in Rabaul after which everywhere else was just an anticlimax; everywhere else except perhaps for Western Samoa where I lived and worked several years later and where the movie "Return to Paradise" was filmed which in turn was loosely based on one of James A. Michener's stories in his book "Return to Paradise".

But back to Rabaul which had been my jumping-off spot in the then Territory of Papua & New Guinea when I arrived there in early January 1970. It was everything I had expected of the Territory: it was a small community settled around picturesque Simpson Harbour. The climate was tropical with blazing sunshine and regular tropical downpours, the vegetation strange and exotic, and the social life a complete change from anything I had ever experienced before! And to top it all, I loved the work which offered challenges only available in a small setting such as Rabaul where expatriate labour was at a premium.

Much of those happy memories came back to me when I read the story simply called "Rabaul" which is also contained in Michener's book "Return to Paradise". I quote from it here without, I hope, running foul of any copyright laws. After all, the incomparable Michener has been dead since 1997, and the publishers shouldn't mind either as I know you'll be rushing out to buy the book after having read this one story. Here goes:

 

Rabaul Before the catastrophes, Rabaul was the loveliest town in the Pacific. Lying near the equator, it demonstrated how idyllic tropical life could be. It was a picture town. Wide avenues were lined with flowering trees. Handsome homes were surrounded with gardens of profuse beauty. A botanical park contained specimens from across the world, and the town was kept extraordinarily clean. There were no mosquitoes, no malaria and the nights were cool. The Germans had built Rabaul in 1910 on a scimitar-like arm of mountains that cut off a bay of great beauty. The town was completed in 1914 and immediately lost to the Australians, under whose supervision it became even more charming, with a social life patterned upon archaic eighteenth-century customs. There were two clubs, the Rabaul and the swanky New Guinea. Manners were impeccable. At formal dinners women wore gowns from Paris. Men were obliged to wear patent-leather pumps, black trousers, stiff shorts, hard collars, bow ties, white mess jackets. Perspiration was measured by the bucket and par was three fresh shirts for an evening dance. But "the conventions were protected." Men visiting Rabaul who refused to wear tropical whites were asked to leave. Women who wore shorts were visited by the police and informed of the next ship south. The police also dealt ruthlessly with any white man who had visions of beachcombing with some dark beauty. He was tossed out of the territory, fare paid if necessary. It was all right, however, to welch on debts owed to Chinamen, many of whom went into bankruptcy because of unpaid chits. Each family had five or six servants - ninety cents each a month - and no white man was permitted to lift or carry. White women often did no work at all. There was a good library, movies, a gay party life and a plane from Australia twice a week.    more

 

You may have already gathered from the use of the word 'gay' that Michener's book was published as long ago as 1950. Much had already changed by the time I arrived, and the final blow came on 19 September 1994 when Rabaul's volcanoes blew up and destroyed the town.

Read the rest of Michener's story "Rabaul" - click here - until the fitting end, "... and the noonday brilliance of Rabaul have enchanted many white travelers who have stayed on for many years and built happy lives. Often on a cool night when the beer was plentiful and the stories alluring, we have envied the men and women of the South Pacific."

And so say all of us! (Now go out and buy the book!)

 

The power of words, imagination and Charles Dickens

 

"You cannot pretend to read a good book. Your eyes give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames." [From "Mr Pip", page 155]

With his rumpled tropical suit and wide-eyed look of perpetual concern, Hugh Laurie's Mr Pip – the only white man on the island – could be a character out of a Joseph Conrad novel. But it's 1991 and he has been caught in the midst of a civil war in Bougainville, where he's trying to lighten the spirits of the village children with readings from Dickens' "Great Expectations".

This unlikely but beguiling idea was dreamed up by New Zealand novelist Lloyd Jones after he covered the conflict between Papua New Guinea and Bougainville over the closure of Rio Tinto's copper mine in the 1990s. And it gave him a prize-winning novel, which has done more to expose the sufferings that the war inflicted on Bougainville's people than all the reporting done at the time.

It's not often you get a book - and a movie - that sings literature's praises so eloquently. Set it against the background of the conflict in Bougainville where my own career really took off and shaped everything else I did later in life, and you finish up with a brilliantly nuanced examination of the power of words, imagination and Charles Dickens.

 

P.S. To watch the full movie, you may have to buy the DVD or look for it on Netflix. To read the book online, click here, then SIGN UP (it's free!), LOG IN and BORROW.

 

 

Pidgin English Kuk Buk

 

A tour of Panguna in 2018

 

Bougainville Copper AGM 2019

 

In April 2019, Bougainville Copper travelled to Arawa, Panguna and Buka to interview landowners, ex-Bougainville Copper employees, Bougainville Copper Foundation scholarship recipients and people who lived in the mine affected area.

This was the first time Bougainville Copper had been invited back into Panguna since the 1990 Compensation Payments in 2016.

The purpose of the team’s visit was to gather opinions of the villages in the mine area and surrounds. It is clear from the footage which we are about to witness, that our hardworking team, our Village Liaison Officers in particular, are doing a fantastic job, assisting Bougainville Copper re-connect with Bougainville. We hope to continue to strengthen our relationships, support our community and work towards a sustainable future for the people of Bougainville and the company.

 

"Your post goes against our Community Standards"

 

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen ..." Actually, it was a bright cool morning in October when I felt like Winston Smith because facebook had just told me "Your post goes against our Community Standards" and took down this real photograph taken on a real Singapore Airlines flight.

I wanted to share it with others in the PNG Expatriates facebook group but Mr "Sugar Mountain" Zuckerberg's Thought Police thought otherwise, and not only took it down but also banned me from posting anything else. What a relief! I've finally got my previous facebook-free life back!

With a name like Zuckerberg, this may be a regrettable throwback to Mr Zuckerberg's humourless Teutonic past, but it still doesn't explain why members of the facebook groups NGI Historical Society and TAIM BIPO, PHOTO HISTORY, PNG, PAPUA & NEW GUINEA with a decidedly learned anthropological leaning are not allowed to publish authentic photos of barebreasted native women or, indeed, native men with penic gourds.

I've just returned from my early-morning walk and found an enormous face gazing down at me from the wall of my house. It's one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it runs.

 

A million different journeys

There are no contributions from ex-Bougainville expats coming in, so here's a bit of a filler about Papua New Guinea generally: