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Fiji Old Hand Is Back Home

Fr ° m “ SUVa correspondent 3 CeSS J St ° r > ot the bo y down the road. Such a story is that of “Jumbo” Sabben, whose family in their modest way have been . proud flag of their Fl Jt hirth in places like British Honduras, Mauritius Vietnam New Guinea and closer to u ™ A f r A ’ r 1 }° nome > Australia. After an absence of 14 years, “Jumbo” himself is back in Suva.

In 1964 he went on promotion from Fiji’s Customs Department to British Honduras, and has just retired from the P° st of Comptroller Customs, Mauritius. In Suva, he has been renewing many old friendships as weß as enjoying talking over the current news in Mauritius with Fips Comptroller of Customs, his former deputy for five years, Mr.

E - F Mabbs. . Jumb .9.’, s links with the colony and ltb Fiji ’? Customs Department go J 3? to the 1880 ’ s when his grand- ™ er came out to Fiji from England. godfather joined the an i t( p U f, d do V n 5 d u?*™/ M ? ude . Bentley > the daughter of another pioneering Fiji T fami V y - W S Jfh bor " in Levuka, retired in 1945 as mechanical

engineer in the Public Works Depart born in Fiji, re ceived his early education at the Boys Grammar School and in Sydney where he later qualified as , ? o n in a t C h C e OU staffof teCusfoms Depart 0 ment. His wife, formerly Ruth Phillips, is a Fiji girl whose family !? ave farmed in tbe Vunidawa area to Vu CarS ; . Tb ?! r four children were all born m Fiji, and the two sons are now married. Frank, the eldest, aged 26, 1!. a . pat J°i T offl j* r in the Sepik J9 lst r* ct New Gumea; second son . 22, served with distinction the Australian Forces in Vietnam as a 2nd lieutenant, and J* 3 ® mentioned in dispatches for leadership of his platoon in an action a gamst the Viet Cong in which the Australians lost 18 of their men, with 26 wounded. David was among those ho , w< specially honoured by the bouth Vietnamese Government. He now working with the advertising department of a big Sydney store, With the years of retirement stretching out before him, “Jumbo” is busy buying a house on the Gold f oast Q ue jnsland to provide a home for his two daughters, Maureen, 18, and Barbara, 15, so that they may complete their educa tion. Then when that’s done thprp

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to come home to Fiji again.