Islands Ring

[?]orfolk Veteran's [?]ames Have An Islands Ring

From Merval Hoare on Norfolk Island

Anyone who knows anything

)out the South Pacific could not istake Norfolk Island resident

aoul Sunday Bell as a genuine

mizen of the Islands, for his jo Christian names are the imes of the island where he as born.

IR. BELL, who is generally known as Roy, was born in the :rmadecs, on lovely Raoul Island therwise known as Sunday Island), years ago. This was four years er his family settled there.

Roy retains vivid memories of his rly life on the island, where his nily lived off the land, cultivating ge areas of crops and, each season, oking hundreds of mutton birds • the table.

It was a strenuous life, for the n'ily had no labour-saving devices; s often plundered their crops and rehouses; and earthquakes were all ) frequent.

All this provided interesting iterial for Elsie K, Morton’s book the Bell family’s life in the rmadecs, The Crusoes of Sunday md.

Roy moved to Norfolk about 1910, 1 has worked on the island both a planter and photographer.

But his main interest has been natural history. He collected shells for Tom Iredale, plants for Dr, Oliver, and birds for Gregory Mathews.

Under Mathews he became an expert field naturalist and Mathews’ book The Birds of Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands, published in London in 1928, was based on his work.

Various birds and shells that Roy discovered, including the Norfolk owl, Ninox boobook royana and the Kermadec shell Trochus royana, were named after him.

Roy’s skill as a photographer was recognised in 1947 when one of his photos, a view of Norfolk’s Ball Bay, was used as the design for Norfolk’s first postage stamps. This design was, for many years, the only one used, Roy served in World War I as an aerial photographer in the Royal Australian Flying Corps and in the last war as a telephonist on Norfolk.

Now, in retirement, he lives quietly at Burnt Pine.

FOOTNOTE: The island where Roy was born was named Raoul by the French explorer D’Entrecasteaux in 1793. Three years later, the captain of the British vessel Britannia came upon it, and— unaware of D’Entrecasteaux’s dis covery—named it Sunday Island after the day he sighted it. The two names for the island have been in use ever since, although Raoul has been more commonly used in recent years.

Roy Bell.