John Standen emailed from Brisbane:

Hello Peter

I did know you but you may not have known me, John Standen or better known as (Blossom), I would like to go on the Honour Roll, if possible.

I arrived on Bougainville in August 1971 as a Plant Fitter, first stop Loloho Dongas, and sat in that old red chair, started in B10 and worked all over the place or wherever needed or tolerated, got married while there to (Sniff) had children, they went to school in Arrawa, left in 1989.

Everything happened so fast, they were the best years, I do have many photos, and there are some of yours that I would like to acquire also, it was only the other night I was looking at that copper coin that we got on the start of production, I was wondering how many people still have them?

We are now living in Brisbane north.

Cheers and Beers
Blossom
standen.mob[AT]bigpond.com

Deanne Holmes emailed from the USA:

I stumbled across your website this evening and even noticed my dad had posted, Paul Holmes,

We lived in both Arawa and Panguna during our 3.5 years there, 1978 - 1981.

My sister and I both attended Bovo Primary School and also International School in Panguna My brother attended Boarding school in brisbane and i also did our 3rd year there St Peter's Lutheran College.

I remember one of my teachers well, Mr Hayden, who took us on a billeted trip to highlands in New Guinea.

I also remember the Brophy's, Kastener's, Groom's and Grant's. They were all in Panguna during our time there, I'm positive there are many other people I'd remember if i saw their names. My Mum, Jan Holmes worked a lot with the social club in Panguna and also at tech College, She use to cut peoples hair (a lot of the single guys with no wives etc)and also draw family's portraits etc for people..Tragically, she passed away in 2007, Dad is still going strong, still in the industry and lives in central NSW.

Arovo Island was magical, I have never forgotten the color of the ocean there, it was so beautiful, also all the treks into jungle looking for orchards with our parents, and playing in the Bovo river and swimming.. I miss so many things about Bougainville, Hot Bread Anyone? I still think it was the best bread on earth :)

The earth tremors, and playing in the rain, I saw star wars for the first time there at the Panguna Social Club, and ate my first ever star wars icy pop there too, haha how strange to remember such things,

The people were friendly, and going to Loloho beach for holidays, spending a week in the cabins, it was so fantastic, a real paradise.

I also miss Fred (affectionately we called him uncle) and also Blue and Marty who managed/owned plantations and I have the best memories of going up there and spending time game fishing, relaxing and enjoying the plantation lifestyles, the houses were immaculate and amazing, and I've never forgotten the first trip up there in our suzuki 4wd.. We owned 3 dogs while there, Bastie who passed away before we left, Boxer who was the best watch dog ever and Natasha a golden cocker, who had puppies thanks to Fog (another golden cocker) from down the street in Panguna. I think the Horns owned him.

Its been a long time, but i will always hold dear and treasured memories of Bougainville, and i am very blessed to have been one of the children who got to spend some of their childhood growing up in paradise.

Thanks for the website it brought back a lot of great memories, I live in the USA now so it also gave me a chance to share some of those memories and my childhood with my newer and extended family here.

Deanne L Holmes
dayleigh2011[AT]yahoo.com

Penny Spalek (née Rampling) emailed from Miriam Vale in Queensland:

Just found your site and some of the names are familiar. I arrived in Bougainville as a new wife in Feb/March of 1971 (not long out from the UK). We lived in married quarters in Panguna until Arawa was completed. Finally a house after nearly a year in a donga!! My son Dirk was born at Arawa Hospital on the 17 October 1972. Great timing, yes?

As so many people have said on your website it was a magical place and remembered fondly. Yes lots of parties and drinking but then no telly/DVD’s. I just recently had contact with Katrina Bartlett amazed that she remembered us. Ian White was best man at our wedding and I remember his brother David and his wife Jenny with fond memories.

We moved back to Australia in July 1974 and ended up in Darwin, not the best place to be on 24/12/1974. Sadly as a result the marriage broke down. I am now remarried and we coming up to our 23rd wedding anniversary on 1/11. Enjoying a great life in Queensland and have just bought a house in Miriam Vale about 72 kilometres south of Gladstone and looking forward to renovating the old place. Feel free to contact me if you remember us and would love to see photos as the ones we had were destroyed in Cyclone Darwin.

Thanks again for the site.

Penny SPALEK (nee Rampling)
lifeis2short@bigpond.com

Just Bougainville - just click:

I've got the BCL Blues ...

 

Hi. I was on Bougainville with BCL in 1986-87....and loved it. The BCL Blues was written to capture and celebrate as much of that experience as possible. Kent Quigley brought recording gear down to the Yacht Club on August 28th 1987 and we recorded it. Here is that recording, set to a selection of Bougainville pics that hopefully captures the atmosphere and feelings of the time.

 

A short and shaky blast from the past ...
a drive to Kieta Sailing and Cruising Club...1986.

 

Alan Smith
smiffs.as@gmail.com

Carmen Letton emailed:

Hi there,

I was trying to look up someone from PNG to see if there is any internet news of them and accidentally came across your website. It was great to read some of the stories and to look at the photos.

I lived and worked at the Lihir Gold Mine for six years (2000-2005 inc.) where I was the Chief Engineer in the Mine. During my time in PNG I worked with many people who had spent time at Bouganville, all having wonderful memories of the time and the place. Many of the Papua New Guineans that I worked with in the mine were trained and gained their experience with/at BCL and they were an amazing team of workers with diverse and very high levels of skills/competence.

Some of the people that I knew and worked with are Ian and Jenny White, Colin Vale, Thomas Tomputu, Steve Beno (Tom and Steve worked in the mine as operator Supervisors and they are the best that there were) and there are many others who tell stories of the wonderful place it was but equally they tell of the horror of the uprising and the emergency evacuation from Bouganville when “the crisis” hit.

Thomas Tomputu brought me some photos of the mine as it is today, in about 2004, and I was amazed to see that the haul roads are still in near-perfect condition and the pit still looks great (no collapse or failures anywhere to be seen). All of the facilities and equipment are burnt, salvaged or just “gone into the ground” but there is still evidence of the magnificent place it once was. Thomas lives in a village at the top of where the pit is, so I asked him if I could go on field break with him and get him to take me to have a look. He said….”NO WAY, you are a mining engineer. They will shoot you”. The wounds are still raw. I would love to be part of a team that goes back in there to have another go at Bougainville. There are some wonderful examples of how to successfully integrate mining into a local traditional community in a sustainable fashion. (Lihir Gold Mine and the Anitua Story is one of those where local landowners, under the tutorship of Colin Vale (Ex-Bougainville), have made an enormous success of the opportunities afforded out of mining.)

Once again, lovely to read your stories. I too loved my time in PNG and would go back there to live permanently if I could but with kids in high school and plenty happening here at home in Brisbane, my place is here for the time being.

Bye for now.

Carmen Letton
T: + 61 7 32061496
M: +61 437 795 876
E: CarmenLetton@bigpond.com

Annette Embery emailed from Canada:

When we left Bougainville after twenty plus years in Panguna,we decided to settle in Canada and purchased a very busy,17 unit motel on a large lake in Rocky Mountain country, British Columbia.

One daughter, Caroline and her husband, Terry now manage Kaslo Motel and thus Bougainville Lodge was created,a log home in the woods overlooking Kootenay Lake,a tranquil B&B where wantoks are especially welcome.

Check out both places on the website www.kaslomotel.ca for the motel and for Bougainville Lodge,
www.kaslomotel.ca/bougainville

Lukim yupela behain,
Annette Embery

Michele Sare emailed from Montana:

Hi - thanks for your website! My brother and I snorkeled most days, watched Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid sitting on a fallen coconut tree - in the rain - because the projectionist wanted to see it too in what had been a coconut plantation. We lived in Arawa in '71-2 - just a string of houses. My dad, Del Sare, was a construction boss w/ Bechtel. He arrived in '69 over a year ahead of our family. I remember the squishy crunching of all the frogs on the roads at night under the tires of the little blue Toyota truck. The commissary grew from a small shop to a large metal bldg., the hospital w/ purple doors was completed, but empty for lack of medical personnel, a tennis court sat next to the fuselage of a B52,Tony Dianamighty (I have no idea if that was his real name) - a dynamite expert working on the road to Kieta - taught Mike & I how to eat spaghetti 'properly', there was a couple next to us form England - he had been an organist at Westminster, I worked for Les Cosh - the dentist across the 'street' and down 2 houses from us - making amalgam with too much mercury (I thought it stuck together better...sorry if I poisoned any of you), and the only other folks I recall were the Bowlings and a young Aussie couple w/ 2 adorable little kids. We went to Arovo Island - what a great adventure! I fell against the boat's exhaust pipe - 3rd degree burns - so skin grafts in Towoomba when I went there for my senior yr. of high school. I remember Joe Tac Long's store in Kieta, a small clinic that sat up on the hill - above Joe's - with a screen door to their little surgery, and when the big new Kieta grocery went in...lobster for $5 USD and Cowuna (sp.??) who cut our grass w/ a machete. There had been a 'jungle' market just past our houses where we would get the best ever oranges with green peel and little banana leaf packets of roasted nuts of some sort. One week my dad's crew had no jobs lined-up, so he had them build a palm drive beginning and ending nowhere - just outside of what was the 'town' of Arawa. I have fond memories of when the first Euclids arrived - dad was so excited - my brother and I went with him to see the new earth movers w/ the mammoth tires. Those pioneers are gone...my dad, Del Sare, passed away in 2005...he had built dams in Afghanistan, roads and ports in Borneo, Peru, Venezuela, Greenland and Saudi Arabia...our home movies and our family's friends were of a breed of adventurous men and women who took on tremendous challenge and hardship - and gave people like me a magnificent life...and as w/ so many, Bougainvillitis is indeed a welcome affliction! Thanks for for the place to remember...
Michele Sare..Montana
sare.michele@gmail.com
http://nursesfornursesinternational.com

John Esling emailed:

Hi Peter,
I’m trying to locate a few of the old faces from Bougainville 1968. I’ve seen some of the photos on your site, but they don’t reproduce all that well. I am trying to locate anyone who may remember and have taken any pics of the concert we put on at the Pan Flat Canteen for Miss PNG 1968. We made up a troupe of cancan dancers under the guidance of one of the wives, to whom my boys referred as ‘raba susu’ because of her padded bra!! She was a relatively petite blond school teacher, married either to the HR officer or one of the accounting staff – but can’t remember any names.
I have finally found Barry Rees, a best mate of mine at the time, and he has sent me a few slides which I will be digitizing shortly.
Cheers for now,

John Esling - 1968 Assistant Surveyor to Gunther Froemel
johnesling@clear.net.nz

Wendy Rigney emailed:

Gary Rigney at centre of photograph; next to him in blue shirt Kerry Bond

 

I would like to have my father's name listed. He was Gary Rigney, and he was the workshop manager for CCS & SHRM, responsible for all of the maintenance of the transport fleet and catering operations. I am his daughter Wendy, email wendyrigney59[AT]gmail.com.

We came home to Melbourne in 1976. Dad worked on Bougainville from 1970 -1977 (?) He unfortunately passed away in 1989, aged 50. He was a friendly person and would help anyone who needed it; he was also a gentleman who unfortunately died too young. Any memories you have of dad, I would love to hear them anytime.

He enjoyed photography and had his own dark room in Panguna and developed his own photos. He won the top prize at an exhibition with this photo of a little Bougainville girl, Louisa Kariko, cuddling with my sister Karen.

 

Karen Rigney and Louisa Kariko

 

Karen and l went over to Port Moresby in 2011 and stayed in Louisa's village of Hanuabada for ten days. It was a fantastic time and they are very poor but the way they group together as family and help each other is amazing. They couldn't do enough for us, looking after us and of course laugh at us at times because there were rats the size of cats, but according to them they are pets, we were living in houses in the ocean; sounds like a resort l know but far from it! They don't even have a rubbish removal truck; the rubbish goes in the ocean. It's terrible the way they have to live.

The wooden bridge you walked on had so many holes and broken pieces that l was sure l was going to fall into the water but they showed us where to step. All l wanted to do was go and buy some wood to fix this bridge so that they could walk on it with safety. Louisa's house happened to be the last house which was at least 1km out on the water, l think it took me 15 minutes or more to get there, but looking back now l would do it all again. We will always stay in contact with them, they are part of our family!