People

Mr. Harry Hoehler, Rabaul trading ship skipper, was reported in April to have sold his Conus gloria maris, one of the world’s rarest sea shells, to an American buyer for $2,000 (about £AB93). Mr. Hoehler told PIM earlier this year that he had bought his shell “for a few shillings” from a Bougainville woman at Teop Island {PIM, Feb., p. 15.) The shell is 5i in. long—the big gest of its species ever found—and is one of several found in New Guinea. Mr. Hoehler did not know he had a fortune on his hands until he saw a picture of one of the other shells in a newspaper. * * * Miss Dixie Joanne Lee, daughter of Governor and Mrs. H. Rex Lee of American Samoa, will marry Mr. Ted J. Born at Christmas. The engage ment was announced on March 28.

Miss Lee attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and is now at the University of Hawaii, where she will graduate in June. Mr. Born is a graduate of Northwestern University, Illinois. * * * The birth of a boy called lonaleafaatuaafatagata was registered in Western Samoa in April. The name is thought to be the longest Western Samoa’s Registrar of Births has ever had to cope with. The boy is the 13th child of lona Tafili and Nia of Felevao. * * * Australian-born Elaine Fifield, the world-famous ballerina, who forsook the stage four years ago to live with her husband on a plantation 85 miles from Port Moresby, has returned to Australia to resume her ballet career.

Miss Fifield is married to Mr. Les Farley, a plantation owner, who un successfully contested the recent House of Assembly elections. She was once acclaimed as a new Pavlova, * * * In one corner of the office of Mr.

Doug Ewing, now manager for Burns Philp on Norfolk Island, is a billiard cue with sentimental attachments.

The cue had been used widely in Papua-New Guinea and Sydney be fore arriving at Norfolk. It was Mr.

Ewing’s trophy for winning the first post-war snooker tournament arranged by the New Guinea Club,

Rabaul. Mr. Dudley Jones organised the tournament and Mr. Ewing won it from Mr. Gilbert Renton. * * * Visiting South-East Asia on SPC business recently, the Commission’s Secretary-General, Mr. W. D. For syth, was able to look in on old friends made when he was Australian Ambassador to Vietnam. And he also said hello to a number of former SPC men, among them Mr.

W. V. D. Pieris, who is now at Bangkok. The same tour took Mr.

Forsyth to Guam and Saipan, While there he was invited to address the College of Guam on the work of the South Pacific Commisision. * * * Admiral Picard-Destelan has taken over in Noumea as French naval commander-in-chief in the Pacific. He succeeds Admiral de Scitiveaux who has returned to Paris after completing his term of duty. Admiral Picard- Destelan visited the New Hebrides in April in the warship Amiral Charrier. * * * Mr, Geoff Matthews, who has been shooting crocodiles in the Solomons and New Hebrides in the last few months, bought a new boat in Vila in April—the ketch Dida —and sailed for the Solomons on April 21. The Dida arrived in Vila nearly a year ago with a Mrs. Frazer, who had sailed the ketch from Jamaica. ( PIM, August, p. 103.) Mrs. Frazer is now shore-based in Vila. She has bought a property on the road to the airport which is a combination of shop, bar and

restaurant; and she has also bought the Island trading vessels Trudy and Two Brothers from Keith Cook. The Trudy is now on charter work. * * * Norfolk Island, which has been without a resident dentist for about 10 years, will have one in June, when Mr. Ulric Whitling, an English dental surgeon, arrives. He will work at the up-to-date dental clinic at the Norfolk Island Hospital. * * * After 10 years’ service in Western Samoa, the manager of the Bank of Western Samoa, Mr. Nigel Maitland, has retired. The new manager is Mr, J. B. Sylvester, formerly assistant manager at the Bank of New Zealand, Auckland. * * * Miss Janet Davidson, an archae ologist from Auckland University, who has been excavating in old beach middens at Lotafaga, Western Samoa, recently discovered a partly-com pleted, one-piece shell fish hook, which is the first evidence of this implement in early Samoan culture.

The hook was in deposits over 8 ft deep, which seems to indicate that it was made a long time ago. * * * Adi Torika, wife of Dr. Malakai Ravai, of the Colonial War Memorial Hospital, Suva, visited Sydney in April to attend the 21st birthday party for their daughter Elenora, who is a nurse at the Seventh-day Ad ventist Hospital and Sanitorium at Wahroonga.

VISIT TO FIJI: The Bishop of Melanesia, Rt. Rev. Alfred Hill, accompanied by his Assistant Bishop, Rt. Rev. Leonard Alufurai, visited Fiji in April to pay a brief visit to Solomon Islands people living there before going to a conference in NZ. Bishop Alufurai (left, facing the camera) and Bishop Hill (centre) are seen with the Bishop in Polynesia, Rt. Rev. J. C. Vockler, meeting some of the people after a Fijian cere monial welcome.— Photo: Stan Whippy.