Norfolk Is. Has No Green

Grass Or Leafy Lanes

Letter to the Editor IN “Tropicalities” (January “PIM”) you publish some notes regarding Nor folk Island by Mrs. Alice Innes, who spent last Christmas there.

As one who has visited the island three times since 1931, and who lived there for a total period of nearly two years I cannot understand why short-term visitors who write about this picturesque and interesting island should deem it necessary to depart from the factual and wander into the imaginative, Mrs. Innes’s statement that “even every shop building was set away in a quiet retreat and garden area” is incorrect.

The principal general stores (BP’s, Joe Jenkins’s, Martin’s, Jack Jenkins’s and C. C. R. Nobbs’s) abut directly on to the roadway, as do the butcher’s, the baker’s, and the Gift Store. Further, regarding Mrs. Innes’s account of a shopping tour —she was lucky to see any green grass at all, to say nothing of lawn-like pad docks with carpets of Norfolk Oak petals. (By “Norfolk Oak” Mrs. Innes probably means the tree known to the Islanders as the “White Oak,” a name given by the convicts over a century ago to one of the most plentiful native trees on the island and, perhaps the most beautiful.) As to the “leafy lanes” I would very much like to know where these are. Most of the roads on the island, as I remem ber them, were about a chain wide, and I cannot remember any one of them which could, with any degree of accuracy, be described as a “leafy lane.” My wife and I, while on the island, were engaged in collecting insect and plant specimens, in the course of which work we traversed the whole island, probablv seeing more of it than any individual Norfolk* Islander has ever done.

Regarding Mrs. Innes (or even Mr.

Innes) “climbing the orange tree to ‘pick our purchases’ off an old veteran of the citrus world”—as one who has had a lengthy experience of the spiny nature of the branches of orange trees and the gathering of oranges (in my case with a suitable appliance attached to the end of a pole) I can only say that I regret that I was not present when the tree climbing act was performed.

With reference to Mrs. Innes’s further contribution, “Norfolk News,” (in the same issue of the “PIM”) —the surname of the driver of the so-called “grog wag gon” is Buffett, not Burfit. He is a descendant of John Buffett, an English man, who landed on Pitcairn Island in 1823 to become its first school-master.

In my opinion, visitors to Norfolk Is land would render a useful service to its inhabitants by speaking and writing the truth about it; most of the articles which I have seen of recent years have, I consider, done more harm than good.

I am, etc.,

J. D. Mccomish.

Wahroonga, NSW.

February 10.

(Ed. Note: The unfortunate mis-spell ing of Mr. Buffett’s name was due to a typographical error not to Mrs. Innes.) Sir Maynard and Lady Hedstrom, of Suva, arrived in Sydney in February from Auckland, where Sir Maynard had spent a few weeks in hospital. In March, they went on to Victoria and Tasmania, and they will return to Sydney in April.

While they were in Sydney they received much hospitality from numerous old friends. Twice Sir Maynard was the honoured guest at the weekly luncheons of the Old Fijians.

Miss Peggy Byron, who visited Brisbane for the Christmas vacation, has returned to Rabaul. She was secretary of the Brisbane-New Guinea Association during the evacuee period.

Miss Flora Stewart, daughter of Mrs.

P. Stewart of Lae, New Guinea, revisited Toowoomba recently. She was formerly a pupil of the Presbyterian Girls’ College there.

The Director of Agriculture, Mr. C.

Harvey, and Mr. C. A. Adams, have been appointed to the Central Board of Health.