Rowan Hughes, March 2010. Last updated Mar-2011
I was at Court St. Primary School in Rabaul from 1966 to Apr-'69 and we lived in Toma St. opposite Sidthorpe's surgery. Speech night of 1968 was held at the RSL with all grades doing a stage show. A year book called Green and White was handed out to all. This was the one and only year book that I know of in any TPNG school. I have scanned my original copy and type-set into PDF format. You can download a copy (15MB) here. While the contents are not of any importance, the magazine is an original document and so is a rarity of colonial times. Ron Antoine had the foresight to produce this magazine for us; few TPNG schools even had class photos.
You can also download Rabaul, Lae, and Madang street maps from 1994, just before the destruction. Printing G&W is best done on a bubble jet. Additions and corrections, two so far, appear in blue.
Wendy Clarke (nee Phillips, a Rabaul kid '51-'54) and Brian Zavattaro from Lae organized a Lae-Markham reunion in Sept. 2009. Wendy produced a booklet with short histories written by each of the guests. This a good read and is full of historical tid bits, like a mini version of Territory Kids. You will probably know someone in it; the Crowleys, Seetos, Dudgeons, and so on. Download below or from Wendy's site: http://www.wendyclarke.com and click on the flag to enter. Her blog on Lae kids is near the bottom of the page.
Here are two class photos, Gr5 and Gr6, and text from Madang Coronation Primary during '71 and '72: Madang Photos
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'Queen' Emma Coe wasn't the only business woman in colonial New Guinea, Flo Stewart's (1886-1979) quick biog' by James Sinclair is a good read; download it below. She's buried in the old Lae cemetery at the end of the runway. She ran the Lae Girl Guides and helped organize the ag. shows from the 50s to 70s. Her second Hotel Cecil was demolished in the late 90s and is a sports field now.
Derek O'Dean was a Rabaul kid in the 1920s; see http://www.jje.info/lostlives/exhib/odean/index.html Note his discussion about the two schools at the time, and the two social clubs. Note also that Toa's message wasn't the result of ESP, it was the result of walls having ears and with a sufficient grasp of English. Most colonial expatriates were unaware of the local grape vines.
Black Cats (Ed. AE Minty) available from the RAAF Museum has a good story, by Reg Burrage, about the Catalina rescue of a US Airforce crew from Sule, near Mt. Uluwan, during WW2. The crew had been hiding in the bush for seven months, and had all sorts of 'adventures'. The museum's international postage is quite expensive.
Rowan Hughes, March 2011, Townsville.
Downloads:
Firefox tries to open big PDF files as they are downloading. To avoid annoying stalls and crashes, right-click on an underlined link below and choose “Save link as”. Save the file to your desktop or other folder.
G&W 1968 (15Mb):................... GreenWhite.pdf (8Mar'10)
Lae Guest Booklet (936k):.......... SouvenirGuestBooklet2009.pdf (8Mar'10)
Rabaul Map 1994 (732k):............ rabmap.jpg(8Mar'10)
Rabaul street index 1994 (560k):... rabstreet.jpg(8Mar'10)
Lae map 1994 (1240k):.............. laemap.jpg(8Mar'10)
Lae street index 1994 (772k):...... laestreet.jpg(8Mar'10)
Madang Map 1994 (660k):............ Madangmap.jpg (27Mar'10)
FloStewart (44k):.................. flostewart.pdf(8Mar'10)
Links:
http://sites.google.com/site/rabaulhistory a collection of Rabaul photos.
http://www.darceyco.com Brian F. Darcey (many years in PNG) blogs. Check “older posts” near the end of the page, and see the Graeme Carson story.
http://www.pngaa.net PNG-Australia association. Rabaulites, see obituary for Morris Willis, of Nonga Hosp.
http://exkiap.net Ex-patrol officers forums, back to the late 40s.
http://www.historical-rabaul.blogspot.com/ New stories appearing, every so often.
http://asopa.typepad.com/ Ex-kiap Keith Jackson's site. Old stories and new issues.
http://www.galaxylink.com.hk/~john/paul/memoir8.htm Paul Cheung's account of Rabaul and the Yang Ching School 1936. (cut & paste the link)
Trivia below.
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Sub base beach May-'66 after a storm. The crane around the corner is long gone. The steep drop-off from the reef was the vent of an underwater caldera. It was discovered in 1985 and named Tavui, the Tolai name for the area. It is nearly the size of the Rabaul caldera, but was active much earlier.
Pidgin … “Sec sec”, to be given a fright. A slang term yelled out by German drill sergeants on parade grounds, and it means to “look sharp!” or “keep in step!”. “Gummi” is the German word for rubber; “gum” in English.
Buai … has been called “Betel” nut since the 1880s but the name is quite wrong. Betel (Piper Betle) is an Asian vine with fleshy leaves and is type of pepper, with stimulant effects. Kava is in the same family. Betel is chewed to substantially increase the effects of Areca nuts, and also tobacco. It has not found its way into PNG … yet. The lime is simply a wetting agent for the Areca alkaloids, and by themselves are no stronger than coffee. Darka, the seed stem from a mustard bush, made the Buai red, and probably had some significant reaction with Areca.
Bigpela Puk Puks … are found across PNG, the Solomons, some in Vanuatu, and occasionally turn up in Fiji. A very long way for a river reptile to swim. What do they eat?
