How PIM was born

A reminiscence by R. W. Robson, from RIM, September 1951: As a young reporter before World War I, I was the guest of the New Zealand government in Tutanekai which was taking the then Governor of New Zealand, Lord Liverpool, on a pleasant, cool-weather trip around the Cook Islands. The skipper, Captain Post, was a hard-bitten old lad; and the NZ Cabinet Minister accompanying His Excellency was a well-educated, tem peramental Maori, Dr Maui Pomare, later knighted.

Apart from vice-royalty we were a happy party. But his Ex, a tubby, pompous little man, did not mix readily with common roughnecks: and his lady, a pleasant, freckled woman, had no conversation beyond her favourite topic of white leghorn hens.

The Captain and Minister regarded them as a cross that was hard to bear. But vice-royalty retired early and it was our practice to gather each evening at 9.15 in the skipper’s cabin.

There the ritual never varied. The Aide pulled the cork, the Chief Engineer poured the shining liquor, the Minister led us in a round of more or less improper reminiscences, and the Old Man lifted his glass in a final toast: ‘Well, gentlemen, I give you Their Excellencies - Lord and Lady Liverpill.”

It was a chat with Bob McKegg there in Rarotonga in May 1914 which first gave me the idea of the Pacific Islands Monthly - given effect to 16 years later.