The Editors' Mailbag

fho Broke Alick's

iving Record?

John Metcalfe, writing from ankston, Victoria, answers our estion about Alick Wickham, who alleged to have taught Aus ilians how to crawl (swimming riety), and asks another. \s we said in a paragraph in Feb ary PIM (page 85) Alick Wick m, a “native lad from the lomons”, visited Melbourne 60 ars ago and created a high-diving jord that lasted 37 years. We nted to know what happened to ,ck. Mr. Metcalfe says he went :k to the Solomons and is still jre, but what he wants to know who at the end of those 37 years, )ke Alick’s record dive of 205 ft nches. )an someone tell him?

Uick Wickham, we are told, lives the Roviana Lagoon, New orgia, within stone-throwing tance of Munda airstrip. Mr. tcalfe says that although he has Dwn of him since the 1920’5, he > rarely seen him as he lived a ;ive type of life and never sought minence. He says that he is not e whether it was Alick or Harry ckham who introduced the crawl Australia—both were famous mmers —but it was certainly sk who made the famous dive,

cific History in

Yellow Booklet

•efore Mrs. A. A. Innes sailed off Oriana from Sydney the other r , for a year’s wandering in ■ope, she sent us a yellowing old klet of printed testimonials to s May Anderson, RRC, one of early nursing trainees of the a Hospital. [rs. Innes thinks we might like ise the information in the book -should occasion arise, s far as we are concerned, there io occasion like the present. Miss ierson, now over 90, is living in rement in Suva—64 years after gentlemen who signed them es G. W. A. Lynch, MB., Bac., g., Camb., and B. Glanvill ney, MRCS, Eng., certified that 7 Christina Anderson had corn ed her three years of training had satisfied the Examiners of competence as a Surgical and lical Nurse. ne of the testimonials in the £ is from Miss Frances Webster iderburn, then matron of the pital (she later became a Mrs. mbe) who had been one of the ses personally selected for Fiji,

at Colonial Office request, by Miss Florence Nightingale. (Mrs. Innes recalls that when she met Mrs. Stroube, then an old lady, in Lautoka in 1914, she showed her a bundle of letters from Miss Nightingale and Mrs, Innes wonders what happened to them subsequently).

The mantle of Miss Webster- Wedderburn finally fell on Miss Anderson and towards the end of the book there is a letter from H. J.

Vansittart Neale who, “commanded by my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty,” thanked Miss Ander son and her staff for the “assist ance rendered to the sick and wounded transferred to Suva Hos pital from Her Majesty’s ships dur ing the disturbances in Samoa from June to September, 1899”.

Finally Mr. Vansittart Neale tells Miss Anderson that, on the recom mendations of their Lordships, Her Majesty the Queen has been “graci ously pleased to confer on you the Order of the Royal Red Cross”. That was in August. 1900.

Know Any

Navy Graves?

If you have a Navy grave on your island, Rear-Admiral Peter Phipps, Chief of Navy Staff, Navy Office, Wellington, NZ, would like to hear about it.

It seems that the NZ Navy is en gaged on a project to locate all the British Navy officers and ratings buried in New Zealand.

Rear-Admiral Phipps now wants to extend the idea further and locate any NZ Navy personnel who might be buried on Pacific Islands.

The NZ Navy is particularly in terested in the following Groups: Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Gilbert and Ellice, Hawaii, Norfolk Is., Kermadecs, and French Poly nesia.

Any information about old graves, with perhaps photographs of same, would be appreciated.

Memories of Once

Colourful Levuka

We are indebted for some valu able historical material to Dr, Richard W. D. Maxwell, now a mem ber of the staff of the NSW De partment of Public Health, but who was for 22 years a medical officer in Fiji, and for three years in Western Samoa.

In sending along some of this material Dr. Maxwell says: “It came to me many years ago through J. T.

Swanson of Levuka, together with

some other old papers and photo graphs which had belonged to Cap tain David Robbie.

“Captain Robbie was a bosom companion of my mother’s father, Dr. David Blyth, when both were members of the old Bailie Club in Levuka, away back in the 1880’s.

“The club’s whisky was Bailie Nicol Jarvie, I was stationed in Levuka as a District Medical Officer in the 30’s and I knew Captain Robbie well—then a wonderful old man in his late 80’s, and a legend in Levuka in his own lifetime.”

NZ Has Preserved

Those Maori Records

Lew Friday’s article on page 41 of the December issue, about the things the late Australian composer Alfred Hill did for native music, in terested Mr. C. R. H. Taylor, chief librarian at the renowned Welling ton (NZ) Alexander Turnbull Library.

Mr. Taylor, however, says he wants to make a correction on the statement by Mr. Friday concern ing the Edison cylinder recordings

of Maori music made after World War I.

The article said that the record ings, which Hill considered price less, had been buried away for 30 years in NZ Government pigeon holes and allowed to crumble away.

Mr. Taylor writes; These recordings were definitely not destroyed, but over 170 of them are held by the Turnbull Library.

There has been no neglect, but the experimentation to re-record them on permanent discs has been a dif ficult process.

Some have been sent to the United States for processing (suc cessfully) and Miss Mary Martin, of the Music Department of Otago

University, has been working with us for some years on the salvaging of the texts and songs A catalogue of the collection has been compiled by another musical scholar, and the Department of In ternal Affairs has made available any funds necessary to ensure the fullest preservation of the songs karakia and chants contained in this quite extensive collection.

Authorities who have heard the re-recordings have been able to recognise even the voices of old tohungas who had recorded their chants long ago, and the texts themselves can usually be followed fairly well.

The conditions of recordings, with

no amplification, and often in open air, have not helped to mi for clarity or freedom from ba ground noise, but a large proport will be salvaged.

Some texts, incidentally, go bi to years before 1910, before Alf Hill’s influence was felt in this fii The point is worth making, 1 that since 1045, the New Zea h Government has achieved a gr deal in recording by modi methods, as much as possible Maori chants, etc., by sending fi equipped vans into the remc areas where the older lore still s vived.

The Maori Affairs Departrm the Maori Purposes Fund Board £ the Broadcasting Service have been assiduous in this program] and I would think it fair to i that much that could have b saved in this century has been p served.

Nayacakalou

In Reply

The following letter to the Ed\ was received in mid-March, just late for inclusion in the Ma issue: On page 142 of your Febru issue one of your Staff Cor spondents quoted briefly from address to the Suva Rotary C (published in full in the Fiji Tii of January 30) so as to make appear that I am rigid in my vi( against any change in “the Fij way of life”.

Actually, I was putting a quest mark on all the blurb about p servation of the Fijian way of 1 urging closer scrutiny of the ci tents of such views and suggest the avoidance of blanket-terms si as “culture” —quite the opposite what your Staff Correspondent ! now attributed to me.

How he came to construe views in the way he did is unknc to me. But, as far as I can gu he must be only one of two thin either he was only deliberately n representing my views for the 1 of doing so; or he is a drongo, i able to receive the message. For sake I hope he was merely former, for such a fault he co have helped!

I am, etc.,

R. R. Nayacakalou[?]

Suva.

PI M’S COMMENT: We refer this back to the Staff Writer. : latter, obviously puzzled, asked to read the full report of : Nayacakalou’s speech. We read Our Staff Writer’s comment February seems fair enough. So also are in the Drongo class. He ever, Mr. Nayacakalou now made his meaning quite clear —j it is one we heartily endorse.