People

i MAN who left many friends be hind him has just left Noumea Fter a stay of three years. He is ie Indonesian Consul, Mr. Tarmudji, ho has returned to Djakarta.

During his stay in Noumea, Mr. armudji attended French classes ven by the New Caledonian Cham ;r of Commerce. The result is that ; now has a considerable command I the French language. Mr. Tar ludji’s successor is Mr. Achmed loegalih. • There was a number of New uinea people at the wedding in on April 28 between Mr. oel Serafini and Miss Jennifer Aplitt, ith of Lae. They included Mr. and [rs. W. A. Kelly, Mr. and Mrs. A. inner, Mr. Tony Botsman, all of ae, and Mr. and Mrs. George [anson, of Port Moresby. Best man as Mr. Robert Ferraris, of Lae, and nior bridesmaid was Miss Rena irafini, daughter of Mr. Ernest ;rafini, of Lae. Mrs. Mary Zuydam, irmerly of Lae, came down from risbane. Besides the bridegroom’s irents, Mr. and Mrs. Greg Serafini, e bridegroom’s two brothers, Paul id Carl, were also at the wedding ior to leaving Sydney together on three months’ world tour. The bride id bridegroom will return to live Lae after a world tour of their vn. • William A. McGrath, his wife, leaner, and their sons, Rod and on, who have been in Saipan, US *ust Territory, since February, 1966, e still enjoying life and their new ivironment. Bill McGrath joined the dministration of Papua-New Guinea 1953, and between 1959 and 1961 as with the Native Lands Commis- Dn.

In the Trust Territory he is Lands anagement Officer, and Eleanor is pharmacist in the Health Depart ed.

They now collect and read books on icronesia as eagerly as they once d on Papua-New Guinea—and II is preparing a bibliography. Their le nostalgic lapse is to occasionally ten-in to 9PA-VLT6 Port Moresby, hich is received very clearly in lipan. The two children, aged eight id six, now speak American with a hamarro accent. • Miss Dorothea Tomkins, who 2kked for two weeks over New uinea’s Owen Stanley Range to

escape the advancing Japanese in 1942, has left Papua after nearly 30 years with the Anglican Church there.

She is retiring to Brisbane, where she was born.

Miss Tomkins nursed and taught at half a dozen Anglican mission stations throughout Papua. During the past two years she has been acting as an occupational therapist at Embi T.B. hospital near Popondetta.

She encouraged the people to revive their native arts and crafts which were dying out and has now estab lished a small showroom at the hospital where the patients’ work is on display. • Governor H. Rex Lee returned to American Samoa on April 4 after being absent from the territory since before Christmas. Governor

Lee has been busy in the United States mainly with hearings in the Pacific air routes case and American Samoa’s congressional appropriation request for the 1968 financial year. • Dr. John Harold, Director of Education in American Samoa since 1965, was to begin a new job with the National Association of Educa tional Broadcasters on May 1. He is to make a feasibility study of educational television programmes, such as American Samoa’s, for use in developing countries. • Lafaele Fonoti, a Samoan, has been appointed acting principal of Sili’aga School in American Samoa.

He is the first Samoan to take complete charge of a consolidated school in the territory. • Mr. Gordon Skipper, Director of the New Zealand Volunteer Service Abroad, visited Tonga and Western Samoa recently in the course of a Pacific tour. The aim of the service is to help developing countries in Asia and the Pacific by sending New Zealanders with skills needed in those areas to use and teach those skills. Mr. Skipper had talks with the Tongan Government, and saw possibilities of assisting Tonga in education, agriculture, forestry, public health and public relations. At present there are eight volunteers working in Tonga. Others are serving in other Pacific islands. The New Zealand Government pays for administrative costs and travelling expenses for the volunteers, but remuneration and out of pocket expenses are met by NZ

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Miss Dorothea Tomkins.

sponsorships, public subscriptions and donations. The host countries supply accommodation, • Mr. Jim Anderson, a 25-year old freelance photographer from Kansas, USA, who has appeared in PlM’s yachting columns over the past three years, was working in Sydney in April. He left Hawaii in December, 1963, as a crewmember of the 40 ft ketch Mar-Quesa and visited many islands in French Poly nesia before signing off to join the

100 ft schooner Dante Deo in Raro tonga.

From Rarotonga he sailed to Niue, Tonga, and Fiji before arriving at NZ where he stayed for most of last year. He plans to marry a NZ girl soon and perhaps head for NG. • Mr. Graham Parmenter, of Rabaul, NG, has started what is be lieved to be the territory’s most unusual occupation—flying plumber.

Parmenter, who operates his own plane, will fly to outstations in New Britain and on nearby islands to answer the call for his services. He has been a plumber in Rabaul for several years but only recently bought his own plane. • The Senior Assistant Secretary (Finance) in the GEIC, Mr. D. M, Freegard, left Tarawa in April on transfer to the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. Mr. Freegard had spent a total of nine years in

the GEIC over the past 14 year: In this time he held a variety of post both in the Secretariat and in Distru Administration. • The newly-appointed Com[ troller of Posts and Telecommunicc tions in the GEIC, Mr. C. S. Loade was expected to arrive in Tarawa o April 29. • Mr. Paulius Matane, a distru inspector with the New Guinea EH partment of Education, is on a five months’ tour of African States unde a Churchill scholarship. He will 100 at the problems of supervision an inspection of schools in a number c countries, including Uganda, Kenyj Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana, Nigeru Malawi and Sudan. He will retur in September. • New nuclear tests—the fir; since October—are to be held in Jun and July at the French nuclear tesi ing centre at Mururoa Atoll, Frenc Polynesia, according to an officu French announcement in April. Ir formed sources in Paris expect th new tests to involve the explosion c small atomic bombs suspended fror balloons. These bombs are being de veloped as the trigger for France" first hydrogen bomb.