Territories TALK-TALK

One of the several disadvantages of suffering from a heart condition is that it catches up with you at most inconvenient moments and you can’t do much about it.

THAT is exactly what I found out the other day when an incon siderate “ticker” sent me to a hospital bed at a time I should have been scribbling my Talk-Talk rambling for July.

So here am I gazing from my bed room window on wide stretches of parkland known in Sydney’s pioneer past as the Cowpastures country, with the Nepean River flowing to the sea just across the road and the famous Camden Park Estate where John Macarthur first ran his sheep.

It is a truly rural spot in which to rest for ticker troubles—save when the cacophony of semi-diesel trucks rends the early morning air along the Hume Highway.

Even here one comes across old residents from P-NG. There is Monsignor Fahy, who was in Port Moresby during the war, and who told me of recently meeting my old friend Bishop Tom Wade in the US; there is Padre Robinson who was with Angau and whom I met when I was released from the Japs in 1945.

And Ruby Allan of Gilalum (Kokopo) has settled here to be near her daughter Joan, who is married to Ray Wheeler, who at one time was on Gilalum. Ruby was a Dengate before she married Jack Allan, then of the AWA, and her two brothers Jack and Fred were on Kokopo district plantations for the Expro board in the early twenties. Both came from Camden, (Stop Press item: On the back page of The Sydney Morning Herald of June 18, I note that Jack Dengate has gone to his rest.) Another old AWA identity from TNG, contemporary with Jack Allan, was in this hospital only recently— Tommy Thompson who, if I remem ber rightly, was married to one of Ruby’s sisters. He lives at Bargo, not far from the Cowpasture country.

A stone’s throw from this House Sick is the home of Syd Richardson, an Angau man and working with A.

J. Bretag on the Morobe News in pre-War II days. Syd is the Big Wheel in the local Press world and runs the Picton Post, the Camden News and the Campbelltown-

With Tola la

Ingle burn News. For some years now he has been president of the NSW Country Press Association.

Not so far distant, at Bringelly, is one of the Territory’s oldest planters —“Tony” Edgell, who was in the New Ireland district more than 40 years ago and who later, in partner ship with Norman Whitely, owned Pak and other Manus plantations.

Now, having retired from the Gordon Edgell firm, he has given up vege tarianism for raising pure bred live stock. His charming wife was a Whitten, of Samarai, of the B-4 period.

It seems that no matter where you go you bump up against New Guinea old-timers who, sitting back in the afternoon of life, sort out their memories . . . and speculate (as others do) upon New Guinea’s future. (Over)-

Jrim Reaper

ork rd comes from London of the of Lily Eva Banks on May 26. vas in her mid-eighties. Eva was a popular identity in il from as long ago as the i when she and her husband, ran the Rabaul Hotel and an active part in the town’s life. While Ernie devoted his time to the intricacies of golf, vas a very welcome addition to anks of the Rabaul Dramatic y. ae stage experience in London us to her arrival in Rabaul gave >ecial qualifications in filling the for which she was cast, whether Jane the parlour maid, or Lady de Vere. After relinquishing the il Hotel in the thirties they took the management of the Pacific where they were located when ips came in 1942. Ernie was a video Maru victim; Eva retired dney for some years and then ed to England not many years was a cheerful soul and made nore pleasant for all those d her.

Dther victim of the Grim Reaper )rge MacLennan who passed on ospital in Gin Gin, Queensland, [ay 26. George was a well i pre-War II man in the Public ; Department at Rabaul. He :d Molly Ellis, daughter of Jack of Arawa plantation, Bougain post-war years the MacLennans over Kekere plantation from f Joyes. On selling this property departed for Queensland where nought a cane farm in the Gin irea, but George did not take to the life, and started con on work at Darwin, leaving his in and Molly to look after the Jin interests. 111-health brought ome to hospital where he died. • sympathies go out to Molly, I remember in Rabaul as a charming, capable person. e Do We Go Here? s only an item, picked up from BC news session, which has told ; the verdict in the Varzin land (See elsewhere.) urally, one does not criticise a Justice’s finding, more especially lave not seen his judgment, but :annot but speculate on the tial repercussions of such a al of the old German land which were accepted at the

surrender in 1914, when Colonel Holmes took over the colony.

I know not whether the magnitude of the atrocity, which occasioned Mrs.

Wollfe’s death, was revealed during the inquiry. There would be few of the present-day people—native or non-native—capable of describing the details of the attack upon this white woman in 1902. I heard a harrowing account some years later from a Buka police boy, who was present after the ordeal, and it was nausating even to me at that time, who had heard many accounts of native tortures.

One cannot fail to speculate as to

the extent a verdict of this nature will have in introducing—shall we say? —foreign investments into the Terri torY and it undoubtedly could em barrass Sir James Kirby and his crowd in their recommendations for the economic resuscitation of P-NG.

Is this a forerunner of the other cases?

Is it perhaps poetic justice, follow ing on the expropriation of the old German owners back in the twenties when they returned to the Homeland and received only a token payment for their New Guinea estates from the German Government? (Over>

ggest the finding in the Varzin /as badly timed, and I’ll leave hat.

Dirty Phrase

term “racial discrimination” irtainly become an unpopular : within the Western World— orld of Free Democracy where reedom of Human Rights is ily unheld. map of the fingers from Can and P-NG promptly and :ntly comes to heel to conform the Establishment, and the il Bill” is passed in the Legis- Council after a debate in which, mtly, only the European mem took part. But if ever a bill assed by a gaggle of legislators ongue in cheek, it was this one. the remarks of “Doc” Gunther peculiarly naive. veek or so later, following on ed racial riots in the Southern of the US, President Kennedy d an uproar in Congress when ide certain civil rights proposals i view to eradicating racial pre . The US legislators were not ed to follow the lead of their

P-NG counterparts and be pushed around, with the result that racial integration in the US seems to be further away than ever.

The one bright spot towards racial integration however, seems to come from Britain where Christine Keeler, the “model” who at present appears to hold the reins of government in the Mother Land, had no compunction in descarding racial prejudices, judging from her affairs with a British Minister of the Crown, a Russian diplomat and a couple of West Indian night-club entertainers.

It is not a happy picture at the moment where compulsory racial integration has to be introduced to create brotherly love and peace. One cannot help but wonder what effect the peccadillos of Profumo and their varied repercussions will have on the

New Guinea elite when they evaluate the very clayey substance of their one-time idol’s feet, t Footnote: The newly - introduced “Racial Bill” is, according to reports, t 0 cut both wa V s - And Y et 1 notice m a PoT Moresby newspaper supple rnent, “Good Health—The Years Ahead” there are most interesting a nd instructive articles from R. F. R.

Scragg, Mb, Bs, Dtm&H, Md; E.

L Wright, MB, BS, DRH; D. A.

Russell MB, BS, DPH; C. Haszler, MD, DTM&H; Joan Refshauge, MSc, MB, BS, Dip Ed, DPH; F. Tuza, MD, DTM&H; and then Dr. William Moi, AMO; D. E, Barmes, DDSc; S. C. Wigley, MB, MRCP; and Jan J. Saave, MD, DPH, DTM&H . . .

The only contributor to be accorded the title of “Doctor” was the non

Nnequin Parade: An Inter

[?]ional mannequin parade held by [?]. L. Johnson, wife of P-NG's [?]ctor of Education, during Red [?]ss month in Port Moresby in [?] was a truly international affair, [?]h Papuan, Fijian, Indian and [?]opean mannequins taking part. [?] also p. 123.) Above, dressed Fijian fashion, is Mrs. Agnes [?]reka, the Fijian wife of AMO [?]en Taureka, a Papuan. They [?] when he was studying in Suva.

Photo: Papuan Prints.

an AMO and one is inclined nder whether that is not a of the “Racial Bill” which ally declared that it applies to /hite and black! t In rm so outside industrial interests ming to New Guinea in the if the cigarette. The company, and H. O. Wills (PNG) Ltd., anned some two years ago and [rectors of British Tobacco ) speak in glowing terms of iministration’s assistance, such > years’ importation of duty abacco, 12 months’ freedom xcise and low company tax. linistrator Sir Donald Cleland to the venture as a “shot in m” for Territory secondary ies. Lung - cancer - conscious okers no doubt fear it may be t in the lung” for Territorians. way, gone are the days of the bras, the twist tobacco and the per cigarettes. he Mortlocks? aery sent to me some time ago e baffled, despite various in made to various folk, r whom were the Mortlock named? They are also called een. The native name for the is Tauu. any reader help me?

[?] MANNEQUIN; Mrs. Avis Mc [?]a, an Indian girl married to a Euro ducation officer in P-NG, took part Moresby's international mannequin in May. She modelled saris and some Malayan outfits.

Photo; Papuan Prints.