Up Front

with the Publisher

Written on NAURU IPUT my slim, smart executive styled briefcase on the bar table next to John Moses, who had been waiting to see me, and ordered a gin.

“That attache case is not YOU,” exclaimed Moses. “What in heck has happened to your battered old crocodile-skin bag?”

He seemed almost incredulous.

In 20 years of Island hopping, that bulgy bag and I have been in separable, but not until that moment in Suva the other day did it occur to me that anyone would have thought it worthy of comment.

Well, it’s gone, and I have to admit to myself that I loved that bag—in the same way I loved a battered Volkswagen I drove for 12 years. The bag burst for the last time at the end of Papua New Guinea’s Independence celebrations only a week before I flew to Suva. I suppose it was a fitting end to a bag that has done such loyal work in the Islands, and one whose skin probably came from Papua New Guinea anyhow.

For 20 years that crocodile skin bag was continuously being stuffed with reports, notes, photographs, manuscripts, proofs and letters on Island affairs from hundreds of sorties out of Sydney. It’s been crammed with books and whisky bottles. One pouch in it permanently held a plastic raincoat that has saved me from a thousand sudden Island showers.

The end of that bag also happens to coincide with the end of a personal era for me. From October 1, I passed over PIM editorship to John Carter, which is why this column is from the Publisher, not the Editor. I have had the chair for 18 years. John has been assistant editor for the last few, but for many years before that he’ was chief reporter for The Fiji Times, in Suva, and in his many years of Island travel he has long since become com pletely identified with the Pacific and its problems, and with PIM. I will continue to contribute to PIM as publisher, under John’s competent editorship.

T>ORT MORESBY is a place where I feel immediately at home as soon as I get off the plane. Within the hour I am wearing the town like an old comfortable pair of boots, as if I had always lived there.

That rather special feeling I have for Port Moresby is now, somewhat

to my surprise, shared with Nauru.

I’m surprised because this visit to cover the conference is only my third to Nauru, and the previous one was almost seven years ago during Inde dence.

But there is the same feeling of warmth here, or personal friendship and of a general generosity of spirit.

Like Papua New Guineans, Nauruans away from home can take on a cer tain reservation and formality, but at home on Nauru I am surrounded by cheerful faces that I realise I have known well for many years. Around the streets I am continually greeting or being greeted by old friends.

Perhaps, because of Hammer Deßoburt’s paternal but positive leadership, Independence has brought a confidence here that I find comfort able. Thus, I own a second pair of favourite old boots, with Nauru’s name stitched into the leather.

IT’S not true, that I’ve visited every island in the South Pacific, or that I ever will. Among those that have escaped me are Rotuma, north of Fiji, and Ocean Island, east of Nauru.

I have been reminded of both of them here on Nauru. Among the South Pacific Conference visitors are Q. Weston and his wife Jill, whom I first met in Levuka, Fiji, in 1958, when Q, was Commissioner Eastern and Rotuma was part of his res ponsibility.

He was then about to depart by smallship for Rotuma for a few days and invited me along. I declined, saying I had a few other things to do and “would catch up with Rotuma the next time around”. Naturally, that was the last opportunity I have ever had of visiting Rotuma.

This week on Nauru when I was given the opportunity to visit Ocean Island aboard the Nauruan ship Eigamoiya, I discarded all my pre vious plans and grasped the oppor tunity with four pairs of hands. I en joyed the 14-hour voyage there, and the 14 hours back.

But what I saw of Ocean Island I saw with the aid of the ship’s glasses, because the weather was too bad to enable me to land. I wonder if it will also be the last opportunity I have of visiting Ocean Island, be fore the phosphate is exhausted and it sinks into oblivion.— Stuart Inder