People

• Mitaro Danis, land manage ment officer on Truk, Caroline Islands, is currently working for six months on Saipan, Marianas, under taking an executive training course.

Mr. Danis, 34, will in future have a hand in land policy programmes and budget allocations to districts. • Mr. G. F. D. Betham, Western Samoa’s Minister for Finance, re cently stayed 10 days in Honolulu, guest of the economic development planning agency of the Hawaii State Government. He held talks on in vestment in Samoa. • Dr. Eduardo Trujillo, staff plant pathologist with the US Trust Territory’s Agriculture Division, is currently stationed on Ponape, Caro lines, where his job is to upgrade pathology laboratory facilities, carry out a plant and breadfruit survey and assist local crop production and exports. • Captain Robin Bibby, British Marine Superintendent in the New Hebrides, was recently in Suva, Fiji, supervising construction of launches being built for use in the Hebrides.

Now living at Vila, Efate, Captain Bibby was formerly number two man in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Marine Department ( PIM, July, p. 110). • Mr. Jack Susove, a painter with the P-NG Department of Works, be came the 10,000 th member of the territory’s Public Service Association on October 8. To commemorate the occasion, the PSA was intending to make him a presentation during the month. • Grand old man of the Solomons, Melanesian missionary Dr. C. E. Fox, celebrated his 91st. birthday in early October. He was at the home of Archdeacon Harry Reynolds, in Honiara in the Solomon Islands, where he was staying for several days while undergoing minor medical treatment. Active in the Solomons for the past 61 years, Dr. Fox still edits the diocesan newspaper, the Melanesian Messenger, and is at present engaged in translating the Diocese of Melanesia’s new liturgy into the Gela language. • Two New Guinea stars of the Third South Pacific Games, Phillip John (gold medallist, 5,000 metres)

and Moses Pupuruk (silver medallist, 400 metres hurdles), were among the 62 soldiers discharged from the Pacific Islands Regiment in early October. The soldiers were dis charged following a strike by NG soldiers at the Port Moresby Murray Barracks. • Messrs. H. L. R. Niall, of Lae, and B, E. Fairfax-Ross, of Port Moresby, have been appointed alternate directors of Dunlop Papua and New Guinea Pty. Ltd. Mr. Niall is a former Speaker of the NG House of Assembly and Mr. Fairfax- Ross, a former Burns Philp man, is general manager of the British New Guinea Development Company Ltd. • The former Miss Elizabeth Mann will probably have reason to remember her wedding day even more than most brides. When she married Mr. Richard Wilson, in Brisbane on October 14, the cere mony took place in St. Andrew’s Hospital, beside the bedside of her father, Sir Alan Mann, Chief Justice of Papua-New Guinea.

Sir Alan collapsed at his office in Port Moresby in July and was flown to Brisbane for treatment. He was still not well enough to move or speak at the ceremony. Archbishop Strong, formerly Bishop of New Guinea, officiated. Miss Mann wore full bridal dress although only immediate members of the two families attended the ceremony. • Miss Mary Roro, formerly a primary school teacher at Aoba, in

the northern New Hebrides, has been appointed assistant woman educa tion officer with the British Education Department, Vila. Trained at Kawenu Teachers’ College near Vila. Miss Roro attended a special teacher training course in Britain in 1965-66. • The Rev. Melbourne Nelson, who spent the first 12 years of his life living in Fiji, was installed as priest-in-charge of Cakaudrove Parish, Vanua Levu, Fiji, in October by the Bishop in Polynesia, the Rt.

Rev. I. T. Holland. Mr. Nelson and his wife, Vivian, a Melbourne school teacher, were married early this year. • Mr. Nou Owen, a health in spector with NG’s Department of Public Health, has won a WHO fellowship to undertake a four-month course on environmental sanitation in India, the Philippines and Malaysia next year. Mr. Owen comes from Hanuabada Village, Port Moresby, and at the moment lives at Kieta, Bougainville. • A New Zealander, the Rev. Neil Whimp, is Presbyterian District Missionary on Lamenu Island, off north Epi, in the central New Hebrides. He replaces the Rev. A.

G. Howell, who left tiny Lamenu last year and is now associate sec retary of the overseas missions com mittee of the Presbyterian Church of NZ. • Alan Thornton, NZ artist, known in the Islands for his frequent painting exhibitions, was back on his stamping grounds in September at Vila, painting scenes of islands life and portraits of New Hebrideans.

Alan, while travelling on the Wallisien off Fiji in 1967, was ship wrecked, as he was in 1968 off New Caledonia aboard the Matipo. • Dr. Fanaafi Larkin, Western Samoa’s Director of Education, re turned in October to Apia after attending a United Nations con ference in Moscow, which dealt with problems of population growth and development planning. He said it was “interesting and useful”. • Crown Prince Tupoutoa left Tonga in October for Britain to continue his studies at Oxford Un versity, where he will undertake the special foreign service course at New College.

(More personals on p. 147)

Sir Alan Mann, Chief Justice of P-NG, still very ill in Brisbane. See below. Here, in happier times, he inspects a guard of honour.

• Fiatau Penitala Teo (Peni), District Commissioner, Ellice Islands, since 1967, retired recently after 39 years’ service with the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony Government, to his island home, Funafuti. Peni joined the civil service in July, 1930, as an assistant school master, he be came a clerk, interpreter, assistant administrative officer, 2nd Lieutenant in the GEIC Defence Force, acting DC, Administrative Officer Class B, lands officer, DC, Ocean Island (1963) and DC, Ellice.

A keen sportsman, scout, fisher man and a born leader, Peni received the MBE in 1956 for 25 years gov ernment service. He represented the GEIC at the 1951 Festival of Britain and at three South Pacific Con ferences as well as receiving a com mendation for destroying secret documents while Ocean Island was being bombarded during the Japanese invasion in the Pacific War.

O Mr. Bob Gordon, the only European copra planter on Malaita, Solomon Islands, was recently elected president and captain of the Auki Golf Club. His wife, Joan, was elected secretary of the club. The couple live on Baunani Plantation, 25 miles south of Auki, on Malaita’s west coast. Before moving to Malaita nine years ago, Bob spent eight years planting in the Russells. • Mr. George C. Kiskaddon, president of MILI, the US Trust Territory’s shipper, was in Sydney and Hong Kong recently discussing new operations for MILI. After several negotiations with Nauru, the shipper remains hopeful that joint shipping ventures between MILI and Nauru will come about, as will plans to co-operate with the Hong Kong based China Navigation Company.

A grey-bearded Battle of Tarawa veteran, Mr, Kiskaddon wants stronger links between his territory and other Islands territories. A Carolines-New Guinea service carry ing copra is one possibility. • British Phosphate Com missioners and government staff from Ocean Island, Nauru and Christmas

Island who may be on leave in December are invited to the Phos phateers annual Christmas re-union at the Brighton Town Hall, Mel bourne, on December 6. Those in terested should contact the Hon.

Secretary. Bruce Peek, 32 Primula St., Nth. Blackburn, Victoria, 3130. • Mr. D. N. Haliburton, a civil engineer with the New Zealand Ministry of Works, has been ap pointed project engineer in charge of construction of the proposed jet airport for Rarotonga, Cook Islands.

No construction tender has yet been let for the airport, which is due for completion in 1972. • Father George Kester, 62. the Cook Islands’ longest-serving priest, recently celebrated, at Matareva, Rarotonga, the silver jubilee of his ordination. Born in Holland, he started working in the Cooks — Manihiki—in 1947, and apart from a near-fatal attack of typhoid soon after his arrival necessitating a stay in Fiji and a couple of trips to Holland, Father George has remained in the Cooks. • Miss Simone Hanner, 21, New Caledonia’s number two swimming star at the Third South Pacific Games ( PIM, Sept., p. 30), has re tired from competitive swimming and won’t compete at the 1971 Games in Tahiti. She will take a two-year course in swimming coaching in Paris and return to Noumea. Caledonia’s number one swimmer, Marie-Josie Kersaudy, 15, earlier announced her decision to retire (see Sept, story). • Mr. Robby Roberts, acting Assistant Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, was to visit Fiji and Western Samoa in early November to study how these territories attract their capital for tourist development. On his two-week tour Mr. Roberts will also take a close look at local government tourist bodies. The GEIC has no tourist office but its Wholesale Society acts as travel agent for several overseas airlines. • Recent departures from the Solomons included Messrs. A. L.

Lindley and Mike Oliver. Mr.

Lindley, deputy chief of police, had served in the Solomons since Feb ruary, 1952, and Mr. Oliver, had served as a communications officer with the Postal and Telegraphs Department for 15 years.