People

Commander of French naval forces in the South Pacific, Rear-Admiral Y. L. L. Leen hardt, recounted in an inter view with La Depeche de Tahiti, following his recent Pacific-wide tour (PIM April), how the French warship Pro tet carried out a ‘Passex’ exer cise with its New Zealand counterpart Otago. The exer cise includes passing a line be tween the two vessels: a bottle of champagne goes one way on the line, and a bottle of whisky the other. (No prizes for guess ing which bottle went which way between the French and New Zealand ships.) On a more serious note, Rear- Admiral Leenhardt said; ‘l'm a little ashamed to say it, but I rediscovered the very great efforts these two antipodean countries of Australia and New Zealand made in the past for us. It’s been a bit too quickly forgotten that 60 000 “Anzacs” (Australian and New Zealand

Army Corps) sacrificed them

selves for our country in the war of 1914-18.’

The Melbourne-based Fiji- Australia Association recently organised a reception for the visiting Fiji Police Band which was in the Victorian state capi tal for Moomba festivities. The association’s public relations officer Bruce Sowter reports that the band’s visit was a great success and that the reception enabled many of its members to renew old friendships with Fijians now living in Mel bourne. The association, which recently elected its new com mittee, has also produced an appealing logo with which it hopes to publicise its exist ence.

Tumat Sogolik, silver medallist for Papua New Guinea at the Commonwealth Games box ing last year, has turned pro fessional. Tumat, who was the PNG amateur featherweight champion, will be trained and managed by Norm Salter of Port Moresby who said that

Tumat would fight in the ban tamweight division and had the potential for an international title. His first fight was expected to be late last month against an Australian bantam

weight.

The first man to register a commercial aircraft in Fiji - Captain Gordon Fenton, now 90 was back in Suva recently.

But. in 1930, no sooner had he got his Simmons Spartan bi plane and his company Fiji Airlines off the ground than he was brought back to earth with a thump as a result of the de pression. He tried to get an air line in operation in 1932 but the going wasn’t easy and by the time Fiji Airways was formed in 1933 he was ready to throw himself and his aircraft in with it at a salary of £3OO a year. Captain Fenton now lives in Russell. New Zealand. ‘lnoke Fotu Faletau, Tonga’s high commissioner in Britain, has been appointed ambassa

dor extraordinary and plenipo

tentiary to the US. This, added to his other accreditations to France, West Germany, Lux

embourg, Holland, Belgium

and the European Economic Community should make ’lnoke a very busy man.

Peter Stinson, son of former finance minister Charles Stin son, took over Fiji’s troubled

Housing Authority in April.

Aged 31, Mr Stinson became the youngest chairman of a statutory body in Fiji. In March, Roger Probert, the for mer chairman, resigned after a

dispute with Minister for Urban Development Militoni Leweniqila. Dr Isireli Lasaqa filled Mr Probert’s shoes in an acting capacity until Mr Stin son’s appointment. Mr Probert is understood to have resigned after Mr Leweniqila de manded the sacking of six of the authority’s senior staff.

After Mr Probert stepped aside two senior authority execu tives, Neal Jenkins and Shan tilal Raniga, were sacked, according to the Fiji Times, amid ‘accusations of minis terial interference and racial bias in the allocation of houses’.

A 14-year-old boy from the New Hebrides who lost the use of one leg 10 years ago has

been given hope of walking

again. He is John Mark Remy, from Espiritu Santo who was crippled at the age of four by

poliomyelitis. Professor

Ronald Huckstep, professor of orthopaedic surgery at the

University of New South Wales, has performed a major operation on one of John’s legs, and says more surgery is necessary. ‘I cannot promise that John will walk, but he has a better than 50-50 chance,’ he said. John went to Australia at the suggestion of Father Vince Kiss, an Australian priest on Espiritu Santo. He has been ‘adopted’ by the Lions Club of Randwick, the suburb where the university and its associated hospital are located.

It is whispered that while it is tacitly understood that Aus tralia and New Zealand will not put forward candidates for the top job in the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co operation, the administrative arm of the South Pacific Forum, the job of deputy direc tor is to alternate between officials of those two countries.

The May appointment of John Sheppard, an Australian Department of Foreign Affairs

Left: The Fiji-Australia Association’s new committee ... back row from left: Mike Bourke, John Nand and Peter Robson; front row from left: Torika Sanerive, Ben Whippy, Margaret King and Bruce Sowter.

Below: At the Fiji Police Band’s get-together...Senior Superintendent Josefa Lawacei, Margeret King, Ben and Laisa Whippy.

officer, to succeed New Zealand’s Rod Gates gives strength to this view. Mr Gates is now Wellington’s top diplo mat in Tonga. Mr Sheppard for the past two years has been in

charge of his department’s

South Pacific desk. Another whisper is that the former

University of Papua New

Guinea vice chancellor and at present acting secretary of the Department of Decentralis ation, Gabriel Gris, will be Papua New Guinea’s nomi nation at this month’s Forum meeting in Honiara for the post of director which Mahe Tupouniua has held since SPEC’s establishment six years ago.

Two Air Pacific trainees were due to graduate at the end of June after a 32-week commer cial pilots’ course at the Nationwide Aviation Space

Academy, Cessnock, New South Wales, and a further two will finish the course in October. They are Rajendra Dass, 21, of Nausori, and Paul Hilton, 24. of Suva who have just completed their studies, and Nitin Hirala, 18. and Shah Mohammed, 19. both of Suva.

Another trainee, Bruce Cor nish, 22, of Savusavu, has undertaken a nine-week course for his senior commercial pilot’s licence under an Aus tralian Development Assist ance Bureau scholarship. And, from Papua New Guinea, Lieutenant David Inau of the Defence Force, has become the first Papua New Guinean pilot to fly a military jet solo. Lt Inau, who graduated as a flying instructor at the East Sale. Vic toria. Royal Australian Air Force base, in April, went solo in a RAAF Macchi training jet.

Since joining the Defence Force in 1976 he has logged

more than 1300 hours flying Dakotas in Papua New Guinea. Lt Inau, whose home is Sapuain village in the East Sepik Province, is now spend ing a year as an instructor at the

Point Cook Flying Training

School, Victoria.

When US Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young visited Port Moresby on his Pa cific swing recently it gave him and wife Jean an opportunity to renew an old friendship with PNG Office of Information as sistant director Dr Paul Bren nan. Mr and Mrs Young and Dr Brennan were classmates together at the Hartford Theo

logical College, Connecticut,

US, where Dr Brennan was completing his masters in

anthropology, Mrs Young was

studying sociology and Mr

Young was studying for his de gree in divinity after complet ing a science degree. Dr Brennan now heads research into establishing a national

communications policy.

Tito Isala of Tuvalu has taken over as administration officer of the South Pacific Bu reau for Economic Co operation from Robert Osborne who held the position for six years. Mr Isala was pre viously with the University of the South Pacific. ‘Everyone knows me as Frog

gie and that’s okay by me.’

That was the message PIM got from the Prince Alfred Hospi tal when we read in the hospi tal’s staff news sheet Pacemaker of popular volun tary interpreter ‘Froggie’ Daly.

Pacemaker reports: ‘For many years, ‘Froggie’ Daly has been

ministering angel to countless

patients, especially French speaking ones from Noumea and New Caledonia. Froggie herself comes from New Caledonia and first arrived in Australia at the age of 16 with her French mother and Irish

father. . . Froggie is much

more than a voluntary interpreter. She accompanies French-speaking patients to specialists, meets and farewells them at the airport, and is at the hospital sometimes at 6.30 am to calm and reassure patients about to be operated on. All this seems the more in credible when one learns that she was 73 last month

(February).’

Despite protests from several areas, Philip Bouraga, former permanent head of the prime

minister’s department in Papua

New Guinea, took up duties as police commissioner in May.

The quietly spoken Mr

Bouraga got down to work in civilian clothes his uniforms were still with the tailor but there was one change, he’d had his hair cut to meet police regu lations. i can assure officers, rank and file members, and the public that I will do my best,’ he was reported as saying on his first day in one of the hot test government jobs in a country troubled by urban crime and rural highlands tribal warfare.

Clockwise, from left: A PNG re union ... Andrew Young, left, with US Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Mary Olmstead, meets Dr Paul Brennan: PNG Post-Courier photo; Australia’s John Sheppard ... SPEC’s new number two man; At the controls of a RAAF Macchi jet ... PNG Defence Force’s David Inau: AIS photo; ‘Froggie’ Daly and patient at the Royal Prince Alfred

... ministering angel