People

• Mr. Reg Leydin, who retired as Administrator of Nauru earlier this year, got back into harness in June as Australia’s special repre sentative at the UN, speaking on the Nauruan question. He was accom panied to New York by Mrs. Leydin and the two planned later to go on to Europe for a six months’ trip.

They have been staying in the Mel bourne flat of Sir William Dunk since Mr. Leydin’s retirement and they have not yet decided where to live on their return —although they have their eyes on the warmer climate of northern NSW. • Dr. F. J. Dy has taken over as director of the Western Pacific region of the World Health Organisation, from Dr. I. C. Fang, who retired on June 30 after 15 years service.

Regional headquarters is in Manila. • Mr. A. J. Mitty has been ap pointed manager of the Rabaul, NG, branch of the Bank of New South Wales. For the past two and a half years he has been in Port Moresby, where he was assistant manager. • Two pioneers of the educational television service in American Samoa left to take up new appointments in mid-June. Mr. Blair MacKenzie, who helped build KVZK-TV from the ground up, has been appointed con sultant to the Government of Nigeria to help establish a new television production centre. Mr. Norman Tyler, the first TV teacher in American Samoa, will go on active duty with the US Coast Guard and then return to a teaching position in Tacoma, Washington. • The British Secretary of State for Colonies, Mr. Fred Lee, will visit Fiji, the New Hebrides, the British Solomon Islands, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and Hong Kong in July and August. • The Acting High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, Mr. L. M.

Davies, is to pay a visit to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in July.

Mr. Davies is Acting High Com missioner in the absence of Sir Robert Foster, who is on vacation leave. • Papua-New Guinea’s first official public relations officer, Miss Kathleen Vellacott-Jones, who retired from the post last year, writes from

Dorset, England, that she has been getting “excellent medical reports” and that she plans to leave England for Canada, her home country, in late June. After 12 months in Canada she plans to return to the South Pacific, taking a good look at the eastern islands before arriv ing in New Guinea in time for the elections in March, 1968. Mean while, VJ, using Dorset as a base, has been travelling widely and has recently been up the Nile to the Aswan Dam, to Russia, Poland, Germany, Holland and the Scan danavian countries. She says she is “really enjoying life”. • Mr. Tom Kaser, a Honolulu newspaperman, arrived in Pago Pago, American Samoa, on June 14, to begin a two-year contract as Govern ment Information Officer. He re places Mr. Ralph Craib, who will leave American Samoa on July 3 to return to the San Francisco Chronicle. Mr. Kaser has worked on several newspapers including the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. He is married with two young children. Mr. and Mrs. Craib will holiday in Fiji on the way home. • Mr. Ted Wolfers, who is at pre sent working for his master’s degree at the University of Sydney, will spend two years in Papua-New Guinea from next year on a fellow ship from the Institute of Current World Affairs, New York. The fellowship will enable him to study the Papua-New Guinea political situ ation. Mr. Wolfers was host in Sydney in June to John Kaputin, when Mr. Kaputin passed through Sydney on his way to the East-West Centre in Hawaii where he has been awarded a four-year scholarship.

Mr. Kaputin, originally from Rabaul, and who has been working as a House of Assembly interpreter, will be joined by his Australian wife and their three children at the end of the year. • After seven years in Tarawa as senior auditor for the GEIC Gov ernment, Mr. M. W. Adams left with his wife for leave in the United Kingdom in June before taking up an appointment with the Audit Depart ment in Fiji. • Lady Mann, wife of Sir Alan Mann, Chief Justice of Papua-New Guinea has been appointed honorary chairman of the recently-established Papua-New Guinea Committee for UNICEF (United Nations Inter national Children’s Emergency Fund).

The new committee will be re sponsible for the UNICEF greeting card operation in P-NG. • Mr. A. M. Wilkie, British Resi dent Commissioner in the New Hebrides, left the Central Hospital, Honiara, BSIP, early in June, and was convalescing at Government House. Mr. Wilkie was admitted to hospital on April 23 suffering from a strained heart while on a visit to the Solomons. He will remain in Honiara for some weeks and then possibly go on leave to the United Kingdom. • The Danish consul in Tahiti, Mrs. Natacha Boeg, left the island in June to return to Europe. Well known Swedish writer. Dr. Bengt Danielsson, who is already the Swedish) consul, will also act as Danish consul for the time being. • Mr. Wilson Vuria, an agricul tural assistant with the BSIP Depart ment of Agriculture, has been pro moted to field officer. He is the first Solomon Islander to reach this rank. • Mr. Gordon Thomas ( PlM’s regular columnist “Tolala”) was a patient in Camden District Hospital in July and did not expect to be able to write his August column. • A preliminary survey of the medicinal plants traditionally used in the South Pacific is to be conducted by Dr. Jacques Barrau (previously Executive Officer for Economic De velopment in the South Pacific Com mission), and now assistant director at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, together with Mr.

H. Pardee of Yale University. The pair will visit Tahiti, Fiji, New Cale donia, New Guinea, the Solomons, and the New Hebrides.

Miss Vellacott-Jones