Wedding Of

The Year

This was Rabaul’s wedding of the year—that stopped the traffic, post poned a race meeting, and dragged an estimated 1,000 white Rabaulites from their homes to see the couple leave the Methodist Church and 400 more into the church to see the Rev. Wesley Lutton perform the ceremony. The District Commis sioner, Mr. J. R. Foldi, was among the guests.

It happened on August 20 when Mr. Patrick Roberts, a planter, married Bougainville girl, Miss Victoria Mah. Our photo shows the couple leaving the church to enter the £2,500 Chevrolet sedan that was the bridegroom’s gift to the bride, and ride off to the reception where champagne flowed like beer usually does in Rabaul.

This isn’t the first time that a European has married a native girl in the Territory—but mostly it has been on the Papuan side, and there has never been a fuss like this, which was made all the more sur prising by the fact that, although Mr. Roberts has been in the Terri tory for many years, he has never shown signs of being “social”.

Some reactionary types (native and European) disapproved the match, but most white Territorians have got themselves nicely adjusted to the world of 1960 and just couldn’t care less.

Photo: M. R. Hayes.