People

Mr. Charles Robert Harley Nott OBE, Secretary for Fijian Affairs,’ received the CMG in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. After 33 years in the Fiji Civil Service he will retire late this year; for a time he was in Tonga as British Agent and Consul. He will be succeeded by Mr. A. C. Reid, who has been in Fiji and Tonga since 1938. * * * Other Fiji Birthday Honours were: MBS to Mr. Walter F. H.

Freeman (assistant manager at SR Co.’s Nausori sugar mill, who will retire at the end of 1959 crush ing season), Ilisoni Cokanasiga (who as had 30 years’ service with the Government, mostly in veterinary clinical work), and Mr. Sadanand Maharaj (one of the best-known Indian farmers in Ra Province, formerly a nominated MLC) ; BEM Mil.) to Sgt. Isoa Vavaitamana member of No. 1 Construction Squadron of the Corps of Fiji Engineers at Christmas Island); Colonial Police Medal to Sub-Inspector Akaila Matanibukaca, of ailevu (member of the Fiji Police Force since 1932).

Assistant District Officer Bill Dwn, of Wewak, New Guinea, v to Sydney in June —to marry nera Kohn in the Congre gational Church, Rockdale. After a short honeymoon at Hayman Island, ADO Brown and his bride it back to New Guinea.

??e of the Dragon Ball in Rabaul, NG, in June was charming Miss Nancy Seeto.

Photo: C. H. Meen.

Rear-Admiral A. M. Valkenburg, Commander of the Dutch Naval Forces in Netherlands New Guinea, who was three years in Hollandia, has left for the Netherlands. Captain G. J. Platerink will act temporarily as C in C, and for the duration of that period he has been promoted to the rank of Rear- Admiral. * * * Dr. M. W. F. Schregardus, senior Netherlands New Guinea official in charge of Posts and Telegraphs and Shipping and Power, spent a couple of weeks in Pt. Moresby in June conferring with his opposite numbers in the Papua-New Guinea Administration.

Many tributes were paid to Mr.

Vishnu Deo. OBE, senior Indian elected member of the Fiji Legis lative Council last month when he announced that he was retiring from the Council and from politics, after a long and outstanding career, Except for a break of five years, he served in the Legco since 1929, as member for the Southern Division Fiji-born, he was a dominating political leader of a very large section of the Indian population in the Colony. Ill-health and failing eyesight had forced him to the de cision, he said. * * * Do-it-yourself fans are ever look ing further afield —now Mr. A. P.

Bagley, headmaster of Boroko primary school, Pt. Moresby, has just built himself a small aeroplane.

It took him three years, using plans obtained from UK, but it has been passed by the Department of Civil Aviation and actually flies at 80 mph.

Visiting Sydney from Wainunu, Vanua Levu, Fiji—Abraham Whippy, member of a well-known Fiji family. -Tele-Photo.

Mr. E. A. Craven, who was secre tary of Messrs. W. R. Carpenter & Co. Ltd., for many years, and who recently spent long leave in North America, now has joined the headquarters inspection staff. In June and July he was in New Guinea, taking an inspection of the com pany’s various subsidiaries there.

Mr. Phil Palmer, manager since '37 of Fanning Island Plantation d., Central Pacific, is now holi ying at Brisbane with his wife and two daughters. He travelled from uning to Fiji in the Cable ship 'corder and was joined there by Mrs. Palmer, who had flown from Brisbane. Their elder daughter is a nurse at Brisbane Hospital; the younger one is still at school and, later on, will go with Mrs. Palmer back to Fanning.

Captain Orme Denny, New Guinea manager for Qantas for many years, receives a gift from R. Law-Smith at a farewell function in Port Moresby last month; Mr. C. Oliver, QEA Islands manager, centre. (See page 47). —Papuan Prints.

Captain P. Miller, new Qantas area manager for ??, who takes up his new post following the retirement of Captain Orme Denny.

In brown homespun cassocks and cowls, sandal-shod feet, and white girdles knotted around their waists, three Anglican monks from Eng land presented an unusual sight in Sydney when they boarded the Qantas airliner on June 25 for Pt.

Moresby. They were Father Stephen and Brothers Mark and Andrew, on their way to join Father Geoffrey at Koki, Port Moresby, to establish the Anglican Franciscan Order’s first overseas mission. Later they will extend to the NG High lands. Roman Catholic Franciscan monks have been at work in NG since 1952.

Three top NZ educationalists re turned home in June after exam ining possible future education de velopments in West Samoa after self-government. They are Dr. C.

Beeby, NZ Director of Education; Dr. B. Lee, Superintendent of Technical Education: and Mr. J.

Leggat, Headmaster of Christchurch Boys’ High School, who will be come the new Director of Educa tion in Samoa.

Married at Taurama Chapel, Port Moresby, in June, were Mr. D. Lutterall and Miss L.

Barwick. —Papuan Prints.

Another recent Port Moresby marriage, in the Catholic Church —Mr. M. Thomson to attractive Miss B. Wilkins. —Papuan Prints.

A good many months have passed since a share-selling company bought from Messrs. Fraser and Matthews their well-planted coffee plantation in the Highlands of New Guinea .Messrs. Fraser and Matthews, with their happy families, went South last November. The purchase price was reported at the time to be in the neighbourhood six figures. Mr. Fraser paid a visit to the Territory in June, and was warmly welcomed. He and his partner were popular residents during their strenuous years in the Highlands. He has purchased a amazing property in the Tumut district of New South Wales. Mr Matthews and his family are at present in North Italy. * * * Mr. David Ernest will arrive in Suva in August to replace Mr. R. G.

Shackleton as US Consul in Fiji.

He was previously with the US Embassy in Paris, and is married with three children. Mr. Shackleton opened the Consulate in Suva after it had been transferred from Noumea last year, thus returning to its pre-war site. Older Suva people still remember the times when the Consul’s party guests did not drink liquor on the prepremises, because it was then the prohibition era and the Consulate was USA Territory.

Miss Helen Brown, 18, formerly Lae, NG, presented a bouquet to Lady Woodward, wife of the Governor of NSW, at the world premiere in Sydney of the film e Pennies” in June, and then met the star of the show, Danny Kaye. Helen was spotlighted

camp in the Star Mountains of NNG, a fist just in from a patrol (right) discusses Is with the technical leader of the Dutch ition which is now stationed there. Com er Venema, RNN (in white), and the Pacific leader Dr. Brongersma (with camera).

because her own true-life story of a fight against polio parallels that of the girl in the film. Two years ago, after completing her education in Sydney, she went back to her family’s home in Lae; and within two weeks she was stricken with polio. It has been a long, difficult fight but she now is almost re covered and soon will be discarding her iron caliper. Though she now cannot be a nurse, as she intended, she is studying orthoptics. * * * Patrol Officer Don Lindsay, with Capt. Roy McCary and Sgt. Henry Paolillo, of the US Army, set out from Lae at the end of June for the mountainous country in the Upper Erap River region of NG.

They will attempt to collect the remains of servicemen from the wreckage of a US Air Force Dakota that crashed in 1945, and which was recently found by natives.

Mr. P. J. Twomey, of Christchurch, who is secretary of the non denominational NZ Leper’s Trust Board, has been awarded a new honour for his 34 years’ work in the interests of lepers in the South Pacific the Decoration Bene merenti from Pope John XXIII. The decoration, a gold medal awarded to lay persons of the Roman Catholic, faith for outstanding service, is the fourth conferred on Mr. Twomey for his work in helping sufferers from Hansen’s disease in the Islands —he received the MBE in 1948, in 1953 the French Medal d’Or des Epidemics, and he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1957. * * * Mrs. M. McConnon, wife of a gold mine manager at Wau, NG, had an expensive shopping excursion while on holidays in Brisbane at the end of June —an £800 diamond fell from a ring which her husband had given her and was lost.

Splitting the kilocycles in June in places where radio amateurs are scarce, for the benefit of overseas "Hams”, Mr. Wyn McGee, loaded with the necessary permits and equipment, made a circuit of central Polynesia from New Zealand.

Dr C. V. Phipps, a Sydney ologist, has recently spent some time in the Solomons study ing the manganese deposits on inesave, in the Florida Group. Dr Phipps arranged for 30 drums of manganese to be shipped on the ikhoi. * * * Mr. John Grover, senior geologist the British Solomon Islands, married Miss Caroline Sandon, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. A. udon, of Surrey, England, in Sydney, in June. The bride arrived in Australia only a week before the wedding. The two will live at Honiara. * * * Mr. J. Thompson, a New Guinea forestry officer on leave in Australia, was elated when he won a le trip to Tasmania in a radio quiz session in June, but his enjoyment turned to despair in the middle of his tour when he received news of injury to his 17-monthsold son, Bruce. Bruce had damaged his eye in a fall on a garden stake at Yamba, Northern NSW, where the family was holidaying while Mr.

Thompson took his prize trip. To reach the bedside of the baby as he was operated on, Mr. Thompson made a 1,000-mile dash by air, train and car.

Ralph Perrier, Qantas manager Port Moresby, and Mrs. Perrier e recent San Francisco visitors route back to Australia and the Territory after leave. * * * The High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, Sir John Gutch and y Gutch, visited San Francisco fly in June en route to the United Kingdom on home leave, They will be visiting three sons, all at English schools; Sir John talked l his fellow South Pacific Com missioner, Dean Knowles A. Ryerson, his one-day California stay. Mr.

Irene Thomas, of Levuka, Fiji, celebrated her 21st birthday in June. Here, from left, E. Stolz, a well known Levuka resident; Stolz,; Miss Thomas; Mrs. Thomas; and G. F. J. Thomas. Photo: Raman Lal.

M. D. I. Gass, BSIP Chief Secre tary, is High Commissioner in Sir John’s absence. * * * Mr. A. Pavitt, banana shipping manager in the Samoa Department of Agriculture, retired at the end of June after 27 years in the Gov ernment service, 20 of them as plantation manager of the former NZ Reparation Estates. He now in tends to take up planting on his own account. * * * Mr. Frederick Devenish, who was British Consul at Tahiti when the Consulate closed in mid-1958, re turned to Papeete from UK as a passenger on the Tahitien in June.

He indicated that the British Consulate property may soon be re turned to the chiefly Pomare family of Tahiti which gave the land to Great Britain nearly a century ago.

The Governor-General of NZ, Lord Cobham, with Lady Cobham will pay his first official visit to the Cook Islands and West Samoa in late July and August. * * * Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Sanft, residents of Vavau, Tonga, recently moved to Nukualofa to take charge of the cinema business there owned by his father, Mr. Otto Sanft. * * * Mr. Owen Martin, Sydney author editor and publisher of school text books (he has written more than 50 textbooks and teachers’ handbooks) will be visiting P-NG in July August to discuss problems with teachers and parents. * * * Mr. Harold Hindwood, who has been general manager of Mandated Airways (a Carpenter subsidiary) in New Guinea for many years, retired on June 30, and will in future reside on his coffee plantation at

Ian Burness, formerly of Suva, at a meeting of the Polynesian Association of Sydney, with a Sydney friend Miss Thelma Smith. —Tele-Photo.

Kainantu, in the New Guinea Highnds. He has been succeeded by Mr.

Victor Nagel, as acting manager.

Mr. Hindwood has been a pre sent and popular figure in New Guinea since before the war, and rries with him into retirement my good wishes. Mr. Doug phinstone and Mr. Brian Car nter preceded Mr. Hindwood in s management of Mandated Air Services.

Vice-Admiral Sir John Collins, N, retd., Australian High Com missioner to New Zealand, made a brief visit to Fiji-Tonga-Samoa in le-July, travelling in the Tofua from Auckland. * * * Mr. J. L. Chipper, of Rabaul, has announced that his various properties are for sale, and he plans to leave the Territory. He has been Iminer, timber-miller, shipping

transport contractor, planter,

der, in the 30 years he has been New Guinea.

Mr. Chipper is a bitter critic of the Administration, and of the conditions forced on the country by Canberra. As a timber-getter, he instrumental in opening up the e and fertile and completely un inhabited Warangoi Valley. He constructed roads and built bridges he was confident that, when timber was cut out, he would be allowed to acquire a healthy slice

this potentially valuable cocoa

itry. Instead, he received only very small area.

The Administration, in accordance the Hasluck policy, is showing some stance in opening up the Warangoi Valley. It could have been a e for a score of European planters. Only four have so far been ;ted; and three or four more are contemplated. They will be ayailable for the returned servicemen of World War II.

Puhia "Tony" Lindsay was entertained in ? by his sisters-in-law, Mrs. Selina Whit ?e (right), and Mrs. Lil Hawthorne, in July. ? in Tahiti, Mr. Lindsay left there for New and in 1924. In 1928 the silent film ?orable Outcast" was shot in Fiji, and Mr. ?say was one of a group of nine young ?ds people who toured Australian movie tres supplying the authentic Islands back ground music at each showing. In that year ?"talkies" came to Australia, too. Now employed with an Auckland freezing company, Lindsay plans to spend a few months at Papeete, his home town.