People

• New Guinea residents are still shaking their heads over the news that the man who will replace P-NG Treasurer Ritchie in late April is a Treasurer named Ritchie. Popular Jim Ritchie has gone to Queensland University as Deputy Vice-Chancellor, and popular Harry Ritchie, 51, until recently Minister of Finance in Fiji, takes on the New Guinea post. A Law graduate from Belfast, Harry Ritchie was posted to Fiji in 1957 by the British Overseas Civil Service as Deputy Financial Secretary and did first-rate work in helping the colony develop its economy in readi ness for the dominion status it achieved last October. He made many friends in government and trade circles in Australia during his regular business visits from Fiji, and there is nobody who isn’t pleased that he’s not now going to be lost t° the Pacific. By the end of his time in Fiji he had ceased talking in an Irish brogue but he continued to talk a lot of common sense. • Bryan Williams, the brilliant young Samoan Rugby footballer, who was an outstanding success with the All Blacks on their 1970 tour of South Africa, won more overseas admirers during the Rugby Union (England) centenary celebrations in April. Williams was one of 24 over seas players picked to play in a four match series, culminating in a match styled President’s XV against England, at the Rugby mecca, Twickenham. In this match, won by the President’s XV 28-11, Williams scored three tries. In an earlier match he scored a try and kicked a conversion and a penalty goal. Two Fijians, George Barley and Jone Qoro, played in the series, but were not chosen for the match against England. • Margaret Mead is to return to New Guinea where her studies of primitive culture brought her fame in the 1930’5. Dr. Mead, 69, will leave New York, where she is head of Fordham College’s social science department, in July for the Admir alty Islands on a six month expedi tion. She said in April she would probably be studying the children and grandchildren of the people she studied in 1932. She plans to teach at Columbia University, NY, on her return. • Pitcairn Island’s radio operator, Tom Christian, lost half of his big

toe in a motorbike accident in April.

While on a fishing trip with his wife Betty he fell on a rain slicked pathway and jammed his foot into

the motorbike’s spinning chain.

Tom’s mother, Flora Christian, 63, suffered a stroke in April and was reported in a serious condition. • After almost three years as managing editor of the Papua-New Guinea Post Courier, Port Moresby’s daily, and umpteen years previous to that in Australia’s Northern Terri tory, Douglas Lockwood is reportedly headed for more southern climes in July. He has been given further pro motion in the editorial/executive hierarchy of the Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. group, with headquarters in Melbourne. His Port Moresby successor looks like being John Fitzgerald, Melbourne Herald’s acting assistant-editor. • Father Stan Hosie, the Aus tralian who is executive director of the New York-based Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific, returned to New York in April after an extensive Islands visit, which took in Hawaii, US Micronesia, Western Samoa, Tonga and finally Sydney.

For part of the tour he was ac companied by Mrs. Maurice Silver stein, the foundation’s president.

Greatest need in the Islands, as Father Hosie saw it, is for enough trained people to plan programmes and see they are implemented. The foundation, which already helps the Islands in many ways, may find a method of helping in this direction too. • Three recent visitors to Norfolk Island were Colin Donnely Went worth-Fisher, direct descendant of W. C. Wentworth (who prepared the draft of the Australian Common wealth constitution), and lan and Betty Moffitt, collecting material for a book on Australian history. Mr.

Wentworth-Fisher was on holiday on Norfolk. The first Wentworth on Norfolk was D’Arcy Wentworth, convict surgeon, who, it is believed, married a convict girl who gave birth to William Charles Wentworth. lan Moffitt, a feature writer on The Australian, has also written articles on Norfolk for his newspaper. • Mr. Peter Bird has been ap pointed general secretary of the Red Cross Society in Papua-New Guinea.

Former broadcasts officer with the Administration’s radio network, he takes the place of Mr. A. A. O.

Clarke, who “went finish” in April to Melbourne. • Mr. Sik Min, South Korean Ambassador to Australia, in March, paid his country’s first formal visit to Tonga since the two established diplomatic relations. Mr. Sik Min, with his wife, later left for Canberra via Fiji.

Harry Ritchie

Pretty Miss Esther Lapan, 17, is a New Guinean in Sydney. She's originally from New Ireland, works as a clerk in Port Moresby, and finds herself in Sydney on a Commonwealth practical training scheme.

She was photographed in April staffing the Papua-New Guinea display at Sydney's Royal Easter Show, with another New Ireland identity, 24-year-old Endy Nelson.