*note by Max Uechtritz: The story below is not mine. It was written in 1954 by adventurous Australian Womens Weekly journalist Dorothy Drain. I just happen to be doing a short film on Drain as one of Australia’s first women war correspondents (Korea, Malaya, Vietnam). I stumbled on this article during research – and was amazed and delighted at the number of wonderful, familiar New Guinea characters in it. She writes how she forged the raging Erap River on a horse to get to our old friend and Markham valley neighbour Tommy Leahy’s place(we then lived at Erap). How she came across the great WW2 ace Bobby Gibbes DSO DFC and bar and his family along with Brian “Black Jack” Walker. Also legendary pioneers like Doris Booth and George Greathead, whose son Dennis was an old school friend. George featured in the escape from Rabaul after the Japanese invasion. Other interviewees include world famous salvage king Johnno Johnstone and goldfields identities Jack Wilton and Terence Powell. It’s all too good not to share with the many people who knew these characters or at least their stories.

Story below written BY DOROTHY DRAIN

One of the things that people often say to journalists is, “You must meet such interesting people.”

In New Guinea it happens to be true. That is because the Territory is still an adventurous country, peopled by adventurous men and women.

Some of them are “Befores,” the Territory label for those who were there before the war. Some, as servicemen, saw the country under the worst conditions, but realised its possibilities and returned.

And some are newcomers looking for wider horizons.

I met all three types one afternoon in the Markham Valley. The newcomer was tall, fair-haired young Tommy Leahy.

A nephew of the celebrated Leahy brothers, explorers and goldminers in New Guinea. Tommy was a schoolboy on the Darling Downs, Queensland, when parachutes were dropping into the now-peaceful valley; when the great Nadzab base there, now head-high in kunai grass, swarmed with Americans and Australians.

Tommy, whose wife and their new twin babies, boy and girl, are due to return soon from Australia, has a rice crop which could put him on his feet. (*twins Peter and Anne, longstanding Uechtritz family friends)

If it doesn’t come good, he says cheerfully, he’ll have to get a job working for some-one else.

The ex-serviceman was Bill Robertson, a New South Welshman who served as a commando in the hills over-looking the valley where he now manages a 5000-acre Gov-ernment livestock station. To-day cattle graze there in green paddocks that could be Australia were it not for the native stockboys.

His wife is a “Before.” She was the widow of a former Administration official when she and Mr. Robertson met at Alice Springs after the war.

To visit the station we had crossed the stony, seven-knot Erap River on horseback. This, as I hadn’t been on a horse for ten years, seemed pretty adventurous to me.

However, a seven-months old baby made the crossing too. The baby’s mother, fair skinned, red-haired Mrs. Jack Lamrock, wife of an agricultural officer, took it as a matter of course. A few years ago, she told me, she waded several miles waist-deep through water to her first home in the Territory.

New Guinea is that kind of country. It is not for softies.

In towns such as Port Moresby and Lae, when you sit in pretty homes over tea, you soon find’ that many of the smartly dressed women have had their share of isolation in the outposts.

It is a country full of people who ought to write books.

You hear stories all the time, tales of the old days, of wartime, and diverting snippets such as that of the man up in the wilds who had been told by his doctor to eat vege-tables for his eyesight.

So he ordered, by telegram, a case of carrots.

‘”Absurd mistake in transmission,” thought the addressee, and forwarded a case of claret.

Some people, of course, have written books. One of them is Mrs. Doris Booth, perhaps the best-known woman in the Territory. Her “Mountains, Gold, and Cannibals,” published in the ‘thirties, told of her experiences as the first woman on the Bulolo goldfields, back in 1924.

Mrs. Booth now lives at Wau. I met her, a fair-complexioned pretty woman, at a dinner party in Lae. She was on her way to Port Mores-by to the meeting of the Legis-lative Council of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, of which she is a member.

At the same partv was Mrs H. R. Niall, wife of the District Commissioner for the Morobe district, of which Lae is the headquarters. Twenty four years ago, when Mrs. Niall accompanied her husband to Gasmata on the island of New Britain, she was the first white woman there. For the first six years of her ma-ried life she didn’t see another white woman except when she went on leave.

At Goroka, administrative headquarters of the Eastern Highlands, I met a concentrated bunch of celebrities, most of them growing coffee.

Jim Leahy has a place there. So does J. L. Taylor, who, with another patrol officer, made the first patrol through the area in the ‘thirties. Both Mr. Taylor, and Mr. George Creathead, who succeeded him in charge of the district, retired from the Administration to grow coffee.

George Greathead laid out Goroka. When he handed over the district in 1952 to Ian Downes there were only nine houses. Now there are about 70 timber houses set in bright gardens in this little township in the Asaro Valley, five thou-sand feet up and an hour’s flight from Lae.

It is a pretty place, surrounded by high ranges, and its pleasant climate gives it a dream-like quality after the steamy heat of the lowlands.

Everything’ in Goroka, from the materials for the huge, newly completed Department of Civil Aviation hangar to the regular bread and meat has to be flown in from the coast.

Maybe that’s why there is such a high percentage of ex-pilots among the Highlands coffee-planters.

Across a ravine from the little hotel where I stayed is the plantation of Jerry Pentland, famous pioneer Territory pilot.

Up the road lives Bobby Gibbes (D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar).

His pretty young dark-haired wife, formerly Jean Ince, of Melbourne, learned typing and

riband after their marriage in 1944 so that she could help Bobby in his post-war career. She went to Wewak with Bobby in 1946, when it was still full of the litter of war, and when ships bringing fresh food sometimes didn’t call for five months. Now she does his office work for him.

Bobby started an air service from Wewak just after the war. He opened up about 30 airstrips in New Guinea.

He still runs his Gibbes Sepik airways, grows coffee and tea near Mt. Hagen, has founded a co-operative farming venture called Highland Development Ltd., and recently invented a mechanical tea-picker of which he has high hopes.

The day I met the Gibbes’ at Goroka they had with them another famous pilot, Brian (“Black Jack”) Walker, now a test pilot for De Havillands, who hopes to get land on the Highlands and grow coffee too. “This’ll do mc”

“BOBBY sold me this place by remote control,” he said. “I came here three days ago for the first time to test a plane, and I said to myself: “this’ll do me.”

At least two ex-managers of airlines are among Highlands coffee-planters, and there are several former goldminers.

Though gold is declining in importance in the Territory (unless someone should dis-cover a new Edie Creek) it runs like a theme through the New Guinea story.

At Bulolo I met two men who have personally handled most of the £30,000,000 worth that the Bulolo GolDredging Company has taken out of the valley.

In a little room that looked like a pantry, where chipped enamel mugs full of gold speci-mens sit beside a basin of sugar, they let me handle £6000 worth of it, making the cus-tomary joke to female visitors: “If you can pick it up with one hand you can take it away.” .

It was a bar the size of a small house brick, weighing 341b. avoirdupois.

Terry Powell says he has yet to find anything more interesting than gold, and he doesn’t mean what it can buy. He just likes the stuff for what it is.

He and Jack Wilton are the only two men at Bulolo who actually handle the gold. They collect it from the dredges and see it through till it is poured from the crucible, cooled, and despatched by air to Sydney.

And at Lae, while waiting for a plane, I met another man who had had a lot to do with other people’s gold.

He was “Johnno” Johnstone, the famous diver who in 1941 directed the salvage operations that recovered more than two million pounds’ worth of bullion from the sunken Niagara.

He was on his way to Rabaul to look over the sunken ships in the harbor there on behalf of a group of financiers interested in steel. These ships represent the last of the big quantities of wartime scrap in New Guinea.

“Johnno” Johnstone, who says his official age is 56, has retired twice. He emerged from his second retirement to take this job.

“It lasted only three months,” he said. “I couldn’t settle down to carrying a string bag.”

I had breakfast with Mr. Johnstone at the Qantas passenger quarters in Lae. I could have listened to his stories of ships and the sea all day.

“Don’t make it sound too adventurous,” he said, as he left to fly to Rabaul. “When you know your way round you’re safer at the bottom of the sea than you are crossing Pitt Street.”

It used to be said that if you stayed long enough at. the Cafe de Paris, everybody in the world would pass by.

Add the word “interesting” after everybody, and you could say the same thing of a New Guinea airstrip.

By Max Uechtritz

We likened Mick Brosnan to a “caravan postman” – travelling thousands of kilometres collecting and delivering donated caravans as temporary homes for bushfire victims.

Other descriptions fit: Good Samaritan. Godsend. Hero. Humble Mick would shudder at ‘hero’, but if anyone should wear that overused tag then it’s this volunteer charity worker who spends his life helping others live theirs better.

The former schoolteacher is chairman of the Social Justice Advocates of the Sapphire Coast. He’s a heart-warming exemplar of how communities are dealing with the horror, heartache and hopelessness of the 2019-20 summer bushfires. That is, communities helping and healing themselves as victims fall between official cracks in the formal recovery process of governments and councils.

When Ray Martin and I filmed with him near Bemboka in the Bega Valley on the NSW far south coast for our documentary Forgotten Australians on the Prime7 network, Mick was delivering his 49^th caravan. He’d picked it up from Newcastle. Since the fires, caravans have come from as far as Melbourne, Brisbane, Wagga Wagga, the Blue Mountains and all over NSW. The recipients had been camping in tents, half-burned sheds or even lean-tos. At best they were in rented accommodation, but for many the rent assistance had run out.

That’s what had happened to the recipient family we filmed  – Angus and Stephanie Johnston and their three little girls aged two, four and six, pictured above After losing everything, they’d lived firstly in a garage and then a small rental before Mick delivered their temporary home on wheels to their block in the Bemboka hills.

It’ll be tight living for the Johnstons as their new house is built, but they don’t mind. They are home on their own soil, and that in itself is part of the healing process. Funds ($25,000) for their caravan were raised by a local church group ADRA. A couple of sheds – for a kitchen and kids’ schoolroom – were donated by the local Coates Hire franchise.

 However, many of the caravans have been simply donated by strangers – to strangers.

“People were contacting us, giving away their caravans, “ said Mick. “Perfectly good, roadworthy, registered vans, just giving them to the fire survivors.” He told the story of one young couple who phoned to say come and take their brand-new caravan – complete with crockery, cutlery and linen.

“Human nature is extraordinary. It may sound like a cliché, but the human spirit is fabulous. The strength of community, the strength of volunteerism in rural communities, the resilience of people and their ability to smile and grit it through. I mean, that’s quite extraordinary.”

What’s also extraordinary that, nine months after the fires, there is a still a need for caravans as basic shelter.

“One of the images I first had was going to (the small town of) Quaama, delivering a caravan. And the lady is sitting there, the trees are blackened, all that’s left is the iconic brick chimney, blackened and burned and the twisted metal. And she’d been waking up to that for several months, and you just felt for her. She was just waiting for someone to come and clear it all away, to erase that image from her mind. 

“ And there was another older couple in a similar circumstance, again at Quaama. And I went there three months later and they were still traumatised, like the fire just happened yesterday. Yet they had waited for months to ask for help.”

After the caravan delivery we went with Mick to his next stop in the Bemboka hills where he helped install a shower for a 75-year-old woman. Jan Reynolds (above) wasn’t eligible for government financial support because her house burned down in big bushfires of 2018. Because this wasn’t part of last summer’s fires, Jan wasn’t eligible for government assistance. Two years later, her own caravan was perched on a bare compound which previously housed her homestead, sheds, orchid garden and three vehicles – all lost – with no running water available.

Mick and his mate Mark Smith from the Social Justice Advocates fixed that. They installed a pump from Jan’s creek, a hot water system and a shed with shower. The look on Jan’s face said it all as the water sprang from the shower nozzle – for the first time on her property in two years.

While Jan is forever grateful, she is also bewildered at why a first world country should be relying on social and charity groups to help victims of natural disasters. She can’t understand how the two billion dollars of federal recovery funds and tens of millions of other funds and donations isn’t covering basic housing.

“For instance the government could provide emergency housing or social housing in these small communities where in an event such as this happens,” she told us. “And there are going to be more such events, this is not a one off. We need to be prepared for the next one. So, where they can just let people have a bed for the night, you know, or a week or two, or more, whatever’s necessary.”

Governments and councils, she says, should also be more proactive in going into communities checking for those who need help.

“People need to be asked, they won’t come out and ask for it,” she said. “Most of us don’t like asking. But when someone offers you, as I was offered the shower, you know, that’s marvellous. But I wouldn’t dream of going and asking for it.”

Mick Brosnan agrees and says the coronavirus has added a dreadful element for those affected by fires and drought before that.

“It is an extraordinary thing for a rural community, “ he said. “Volunteers are overloaded, organisations are overloaded, and the government has to just realise this. And people say, ‘Ah, we’re forgotten now because COVID has taken over from the fires.’ They’re not forgotten. But that triple whammy has trebled the impact of the drought, the fires and COVID. 

“You do hear people say, ‘Oh, the government doesn’t care anymore, COVID has taken precedence over everything. That’s all we see on the news.’ It’s not that they don’t want to see and hear about the fires again, but they just want people to remember that, hey, we lost everything in January and, you know, we’re still here. We’ve got no home. Just to be recognised for that and supported.”

The theme of communities rallying together runs through our documentary.

At tiny Dargan, near Lithgow  in the Blue Mountains, we filmed 40 people coming together over a weekend to build a barn and shed for the Alexander family. Susan and Nick Alexander and daughter Jessica will move into the barn and live on their block as their house is rebuilt.

In Cobargo, the south coast town that became a byword for bushfires, the Ayliffe family has made the single biggest donation to help the town’s recovery and ensure the tragedy is never forgotten. The Ayliffes have six family members in the RFS, including the current brigade captain Mark and former captain Brian, one of the nation’s most experienced firefighters with 62 years in the RFS.

Brian and wife Helen owned a house – their original family home – and a shop in the main street which burned down. Instead of rebuilding, they have donated the empty land block to the town as the site of a proposed Resilience Centre. As a gallery, museum and archive it will be a permanent memorial to those who died or suffered in Cobargo’s worst event.

Cattle and sheep farmer at Wandella in the Bega Valley, Warren Salway, was blown away by young people who helped him and wife Helen after the fires wiped out sheds, barns, equipment, tools and fences. They donated time and tools to build new sheds and fences.

A Mallacoota on Victoria’s far north coast, depressed musician Justin Brady originally was considering leaving and settling elsewhere after losing everything. But he told us that the way the community rallied around each other had convinced him to stay.

Justin now is a beacon of that community spirit. He often wanders down to the Mallacoota lookout and entertains elderly ladies with his upbeat mandolin and harmonica music.

As our Good Samaritan Mick Brosnan said, human nature is extraordinary.

Postscript: In my view, Mick and many more quiet, grass roots achievers like him in our communities represent everything we should be looking for when selecting recipients for Australia Day awards.

By Max Uechtritz

What could possibly connect two little boys born in New Guinea and China on either side of 1900 and the Olympic Games legend as portrayed in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire?

Rugby. The Scotland national rugby team, to be precise.

Those far-flung lads would go on to don the famous dark blue together and link arms as brave hearts before taking on England, Ireland, Wales and France in the Five Nations Championship of 1922.

Hector Forsayth – “one of the finest fullbacks Scotland ever had” – was born at Ralum, Kokopo on what was New Guinea’s first coconut plantation, in 1899. He was the grandson of legendary pioneer known as Queen Emma. His grand aunt was my great grandmother Phebe Parkinson. Hector was my father Alf’s second cousin. At The King’s School, Parramatta in Sydney, Hector was a star of King’s First XV and the combined GPS team. He won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University in the UK.

Eric Liddell – “The Flying Scotsman” of Chariots of Fire fame – was born in Tientsin, China in 1902. The son of Scottish missionaries, he was schooled in China until he was five before boarding in England. He went to Edinburgh University and graduated in Pure Science.

Fullback Hector (1921-22) and winger Eric (1922-23) each was capped seven times for Scotland. They both played in their university XVs. Hector also was called up twice to play for the legendary Barbarians FC XV, the most distinguished invitational team in rugby.

Eric’s feats at the 1924 Paris Olympics inspired the Chariots of Fire film which won four Academy awards including best picture. The devout Christian was favourite for the 100 metres but famously refused to run in the heats because they were on a Sunday. Instead he raced and won the gold medal – in world record time – in his less favoured distance 400m on a weekday.

Soon after, Eric returned to China to serve as a missionary. He was interned by the Japanese in WW2 and died in a civilian POW camp in 1945. That’s another albeit sad parallel: three relatives of his former teammate Hector also died in Japanese prison camps (in New Guinea). One was his grand aunt Phebe Parkinson who had raised her grandson, my father.

So, how did Hector, the grandson of an American-Samoan woman who started a trading empire in New Guinea, end up playing rugby for Scotland? Heritage.

His grandmother Emma Coe, daughter of the American Consul to Samoa and a Samoan princess, married Scottish trader James Forsayth in Apia, Samoa in 1869. James Forsayth disappeared at sea soon after, leaving Emma with an only son, J.M.C “Coe” Forsayth.

Emma left Samoa and established a trading empire in New Guinea from 1879. She would become known as Queen Emma and her exploits would inspire books and a movie. Her son Coe was educated at Newington College, Sydney, before helping his mother run the business from the famous Gunantambu bungalow at Ralum, near Kokopo, the current capital of East New Britain in PNG.

J.M.C. Coe Forsayth had seven children. His second son Hector Heinrich Forsayth (middle name later changed to Henry) was born on Dec 18 , 1899, less than two weeks before the turn of the century. Some records have listed Rabaul as his birthplace. This is wrong. Rabaul didn’t exist then and was only stablished in 1910. Hector was either delivered by a doctor in Queen Emma’s Gunantambu bungalow itself or Coe’s house just behind it on the Ralum plantation.

It is unclear what year Hector was sent to boarding school in Australia. It’s most likely that his early schooling, like my grandmother Dolly Parkinson and his other Parkinson cousins, was at the catholic mission school at Vunapope in Kokopo.

But we know he later attended King’s and graduated in 1918.

Hector’s grandmother Emma had sold out her vast New Guinea enterprises in 1910 and died in Monte Carlo in 1913, leaving her vast wealth to son Coe. He moved his young family to a mansion at Vaucluse in Sydney’s establishment eastern suburbs and became prominent in social, yachting and horse racing circles. Probably because of his son’s rugby prowess – for Kings and the Combined GPS schools team – Coe also inaugurated the JMC Forsayth Shield for the annual match between GPS and United (military) Services. The Forsayth Shield existed until the 1950s.

Rugby history records show how Hector chose to play for Scotland over England: “Forsayth moved to Oxford University, where both England and Scottish official sought to woo him. He chose Scotland and played two solid seasons…Playing for Blackheath FC in 1923 critics judged him the best fullback in all English club rugby but, of course, he was now ineligible for England.”

In the book Rugger – The History, Theory and Practice of Rugby Football the authors wrote that Hector Forsayth was “one of the finest fullbacks Scotland had ever had.”

Perhaps his Samoan heritage played a part in Hector’s athleticism. For those who don’t know rugby , Pacific Islanders are the most naturally gifted players in the world and dominate All Blacks and Wallabies line-ups and star for other teams like England. Hector’s father was of quarter Samoan heritage and his mother Ida was part Samoan (it is thought half Samoan).

The famous Barbarians team – called the Harlem Globetrotters of rugby – is picked for flair and entertainment so we can assume Hector was an elusive and dashing running fullback.

A newspaper report from 1921 describes how King George V was present for a game in which Hector starred for Oxford against old rivals Cambridge. One of his 1922 Oxford teammates was Tommy Lawton who in 1929 would captain the Australian Wallabies to a rare 3-0 whitewash series win over the mighty New Zealand All Blacks.

We have no way of knowing whether Scottish teammates Hector and Eric Liddell were close off the field. I’d like to think they would have had a rapport based on their shared unusual backgrounds in comparison to the rest of their team. Eric was an intellectual and would have been fascinated by Hector’s stories of New Guinea, including how one of his uncles (John Coe) was killed and eaten by cannibals and his grandmother Emma nearly suffered the same fate  after being hog-tied to a pole and carried away by warriors before being saved by her brother-in-law Richard Parkinson with his own praetorian guard of Buka islanders.

I am still trying to find out more about Hector’s life after he returned to Australia in 1923. We know it was a very different one to Eric Liddell. Both died young. Eric in the Japanese prison camp in 1945 aged only 43 and Hector “suddenly” in Gladstone, Queensland in 1952 at the age of 53. He had served as a signalman in the Australian army in WW2.

Hector was married in 1926:

The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954) Thursday 17 June 1926 
FORSAYTH-BAKER.
The wedding of Miss Josie Baker, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Langford Baker, of North Sydney, to Mr. Hector Forsayth, second son of Mr. and Mrs. J. M. C. Forsayth, of Vaucluse Hall, Vaucluse was’ celebrated on Wednesday night at the Church of England Grammar School chapel, by Rev. Davis. The bride wore a bouffant white satin frock trimmed with silver. Her veil was lent by her sister ln-law, Mrs. L. Falkiner. She wore a lace train and carried a bouquet of lilly-of-the valley, orchids, and hyacinths. There were two bridesmaids, Misses Edna Samuels and Ruth Baker. Their frocks were of apricot satin and gold lace, and they carried gold lace fans. Mr. Neville Goddard was the best man, and Mr. Grant Forsayth the groomsman. After the ceremony, a dinner party was given at the Australia (Club).

I began this research primarily because our daughter Isabella is currently studying for her doctorate in veterinary medicine at Edinburgh University – forever linked to Eric Liddell – and am very glad that I did.

I discovered an inspiring Eric Liddell, so much more than a rugby and Olympic ‘hero’. When the war came, he evacuated his wife and daughters to Canada and stayed on to continue missionary work in China before being interned in 1941. It’s reported that Winston Churchill himself tried to get Liddell freed in a prisoner exchange with the Japanese  – but Eric refused and gave his place to a pregnant woman.

Conditions in Weihsien camp were harsh. Food supplies were short. Eric himself was emaciated. But he was constantly looking out for his fellow prisoners, providing care and support. He arranged sports events, taught science using a home-made textbook, carried supplies to the old and sick, and ran a Sunday School for the children. He died a prisoner of a brain tumour with complications from starvation and exhaustion in February 1945. He is interred in the Mausoleum of Martyrs in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province.

In August 2008 a poll in The Scotsman newspaper found Liddell was the most popular athlete Scotland has ever produced. Meanwhile, because he was born in China and died there, some Chinese claim Eric Liddell to be that country’s first ever Olympian, something that would no doubt please him greatly.

In 1991 the University of Edinburgh erected a memorial headstone, made from Isle of Mull granite  and carved by a mason in Tobermory, at the former camp site in Weifang. The city of Weifang commemorated Liddell during the 60th anniversary of the internment camp’s liberation by laying a wreath on his grave.

The Eric Liddell Centre was set up in Edinburgh in 1980 to honour Liddell’s beliefs in community service whilst he lived and studied in Edinburgh. Local residents dedicated it to inspiring, empowering, and supporting people of all ages, cultures and abilities, as an expression of compassionate Christian values.

There’s a modest plaque for Liddell at Edinburgh university. Isabella can pass it on the way to her lectures and perhaps muse on the connections and achievements of the two little boys from New Guinea and China who wore the dark blue of Scotland.

By Max Uechtritz, President of the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia (PNGAA).

It was a very special bond – the PNG army band piper and the Australian Governor-General.

Lance Corporal Michael Pissa was there for two of the biggest moments in the life of Major General Michael Jeffery AC CVO MC (retd), former Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia.

General Jeffery, who died yesterday aged 83, was also co-patron of the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia (PNGAA) since 2003. Few stories better illustrate the powerful and poignant connection between the two countries than the tale of the two Michaels.

Lance Corporal Michael Pissa piped the bride down the aisle when Michael and Marlena Jeffrey were married at ‘Haus Lotu’ at Taurama Barracks in Port Moresby.

Forty-one years he was with them again – this time at Government House, Yarralumla in Canberra  – reprising the wedding piece in surely the most emotional farewell ever given for an Australian Governor-General.

The moment was recorded beautifully by Fairfax writer Tony Wright.

“AS MAJOR-GENERAL Michael Jeffery and his wife Marlena strolled from Government House, Yarralumla, a small man in the crowd of perhaps 500 well-wishers lining their path pumped his bagpipes and blew into the chill Canberra air the strains of that most haunting of farewells, Now is the Hour.

He primed his pipes again, and that other great tune of endings and beginnings, Auld Lang Syne, floated into the afternoon.

As the Governor-General and his wife finally forged their way through the crowd, the little man – clearly a long way from home – stepped into their path and led them to their waiting limousine, this time playing the lilting Mairi’s Wedding.

It was the very tune he had played 41 years previously when Michael and Marlena Jeffery were married in a military barracks in Port Moresby.

The piper then was simply a 19-year-old Papua New Guinean (attached to the Pacific Island Regiment, where Michael Jeffery was a 30-year-old officer.

Now that same piper, Sergeant-Major Michael Pissa, 60, is musical director of the PNG Defence Force.

He was spending a couple of weeks on holiday in Queensland when he heard that his old commander was about to retire as Governor-General. He felt it would be his duty and his pleasure to attend the farewell.

He paid his own way to Canberra, taking his pipes with him, and notified General Jeffery only at the last minute. He was treated to morning tea at Government House and then strode through the gates of the vice-regal estate, waiting alone in the crowd to deliver his tribute.“

There has never been a farewell quite like it for an Australian governor-general. 

At a function in 2005, General Jeffrey had spoken warmly of Michael Pissa.

“Some of you may be aware that Marlena and I were married in the ‘Haus Lotu’ at Taurama Barracks over forty years ago, when I was posted here from 1966-69 with the 1st Battalion, The Pacific Islands Regiment,” he said.

“Indeed in 2005 the Battalion piper Michael Pissa, who piped Marlena down the aisle of the Taurama Chapel some 41 years earlier, walked from his village for several days, bringing with him his pipes and old green juniper uniform and played the wedding march at a reception held in our honour, evoking many tears of happiness.”

General Jeffrey had two stints in PNG. He served as company commander of 1 Paific Islands Regiment  from 1966-69  and then was the last Australian CO of 2 PIR in Wewak in 1974/5.  

General Jeffrey continued:

“I returned to command 700 very fine soldiers of the Second Battalion in Wewak, and as a result was privileged to be here at Independence on 16 September 1975.

“In those days we conducted border security operations on the PNG / Irian Jaya border as a battalion and I can say to all of you present here that I would have been honoured to take that battalion to any operational theatre in the world.

“We were a happy, well trained, highly disciplined family with our wives and children living and growing up together in a beautiful barracks environment.

“Last year, I was greatly honoured to be invested as a Grand Companion of the Order of the Logohu by Sir Michael Somare when he visited Australia for the APEC leaders meeting. I have renamed my small fishing boat ‘Logohu’ as a permanent reminder of my association with a country for whom I hold such great affection.”

General Jeffrey felt privileged to be in PNG for Independence in 1975.

“Independence in Wewak was a very special occasion, with, in the words of Sir John Guise, the Australian flag being lowered rather than torn down for the last time and the beautiful Papua New Guinea flag being raised in its stead,” he said.

“It was deeply touching to be personally farewelled at Wewak airport afterwards by Prime Minister Somare, with the pipes and drums of the Regimental Band and a large crowd in attendance.

“The most impressive aspect of Independence was the positive and joyful spirit in which it occurred.

I believe the positive spirit displayed then between our two nations, provided a solid foundation for the multifaceted relationship, based on mutual respect, shared experiences and geo-strategic realities that remain to this day.”

The Canberra Times reported the death of a great Australian yesterday.

Former governor-general Major-General Michael Jeffery has died.

Current Governor-General David Hurley issued a statement on Friday afternoon.

“Linda and I are saddened at the news of Michael Jeffery’s passing,” General Hurley said.

“On behalf of all Australians, our thoughts are with Marlena and the whole Jeffery family. As a nation, we give thanks for Michael’s extraordinary lifetime of service.

“He was, by every measure, a great Australian.”

Mr Jeffery died on Friday, less than a week after his 83^rd birthday on December 12.

He was Australia’s 24^th governor-general, serving between August 2003 and September 2008.

Mr Jeffery, supported by his wife Marlena, was prominent in his support of Canberrans in the wake of the 2003 bushfires. The couple more than made their mark on Canberra.

The Jefferys, regarded as a strong team, were in high spirits and close to tears when they were farewelled from Government House in September 2008, walking through a throng of school children, staff and other supporters. 

During that farewell, a committee member of the Children’s Medical Research Institute’s Canberra committee, Elly Cox, described the Jefferys as the ”most natural, approachable people”.

General Hurley praised the service of Major-General Jeffery.

“After graduating from the Royal Military College in 1958, he served on operations in Malaya, Borneo, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam, where he was awarded the Military Cross. He held numerous commands, including of the Special Air Service Regiment, before retiring from the military in 1993,” his statement read.

“His distinguished military career was just one chapter in his lifetime of service. He became governor of Western Australia in 1993 and, in 2003, Australia’s 24th governor-general. After his term in office he became Australia’s first National Advocate for Soil Health.

“Throughout his career – in its many iterations – he worked tirelessly, put others ahead of himself and brought immense intellect, work ethic and commitment to everything he did. Unfailingly polite, he was, quite simply, a gentleman.

“He was also a husband, father and grandfather. Our thoughts – as we give thanks and acknowledge a lifetime of service – are with his loved ones.”

As current president of the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia and on behalf of the PNGAA family, I pass on the association’s deep condolences to the Jeffrey family.

The pipes will never be silent.

IN OCTOBER, 2003 Julius takes Dad back to New Ireland to try to find remains of his granny Phebe Parkinson. They are met there by great friend Mick Kuerschner. The plan is to return to where they have been told Phebe was buried in 1943 after her death in a Japanese prison camp.Gordon had found the location when he and Dad earlier visited New Ireland for a plaque ceremony honouring those lost in WW2. Gordon had located an old man called Das Das, who had looked after Phebe’s grave for 60 years. It would turn out to be the most important discovery of our family history.

Julius wrote a little diary for the two days, October 24 and 25 and took photos. The first day was the finding Phebe .. and the second the erection of a plaque to forever commemorate the spot. Here are Julius’ thoughts and some of his pictures from those days and, soon after, at Kuradui cemetery where the family would return Phebe in January 2004.

JULIUS DIARY 

An emotionally charged day.

Get up early in the morning, get packed, go to the Rabaul airport, check in and wait an hour.

Spend the hour worrying if everything going to work out? Forgot anything? Discuss the possibility of finding nothing, long silences.

Finally take off, anticipation building but soon forgotten, seduced by the scenery… volcanos all in a line on the left, small one puffing, blues and azures below contrast sharply with the lush green of the islands. 

Again anxiety asserts itself as you are reminded of that grave in the jungle, waiting 60 years…..

Before you finish thinking, the plane banks and turns, lands. Mick, good old reliable Mick is there, with a car and shovels.

We want to go straight there but nobody sure of the road, go to Xavier’s get a guide. Go, go…

We find the place, park on the road, walk in between cacao and grass, houses, kids, women, some young boys. Das Das is dead, a month now, can see the disappointment. All now thinking..how will this affect things.?…who is in charge?….will agreement with Das Das stand?

Yes, no problem. Daughter of Das Das speaking, we have been looking after the grave…… “you can go ahead, over there, some young men to help”. Kids run off to find them..

We walk through the house-line clearings, notice a number of new buildings going up, through copra and cacao, some grass long, barely distinguishable path.. kids scamper, we follow. Constant chatter.

The grave is there, exactly as imagined. Aslight depression in the jungle floor, surrounded by green-tinged coral stones, everything damp…mouldering…a very tangible dampness…

No prayer is spoken but everybody has their few words with God privately. We tell Phebe we are there, to take her home.

We dig..and dig and dig…endless…all eyes on the next shovelful of ground, nothing…nothing….unbearable. Walk around a bit, drink water, go and see a man about a dog (Alf’s words)

Heart is getting heavy. New ground being dug where the feet should be so go back the other way, dig, dig, dig…. Where is Das Das with his confidence, with his “mipela plantim em long hia.?”

Suddenly something…what is it, dark…steel? No, timber. A little block, gingerly take it from the grave, look closely. It’s a bit of timber with brass door latch attached. Alf says door, they carried her to the grave on it, buried her on it.

Then some white pieces of ….yes it is bone, finger-nail sized pieces, soft..crumble very easily almost like ash, but very few, not what is expected. 

Then a cross, green with time, bronze or brass. From the rosary beads says Alf, buried  with them around her neck, like a necklace.

Then a small broch, like a butterfly or two leaves, and then …nothing. Why? how come? Where are the bones? Dig, dig…

Excitement, the skull !! Just a hole in the ground where it was bumped, hollow clearly shows, but again very soft.

It comes out in pieces, just like the other bone soft , crumbly, but definitely the skull.

We look and look, dig and dig more but nothing much else – some rusty nails, brass screws with bits of door attached, but no more bones.

We finally accept the obvious, Dust has gone to Dust, all gone, enough to allow us to affect a transfer of remains…very few but are all that remains.

Then a weight is lifted. We came and we did find what is left. Das Das was right and we found him at the right time.

In evening, we did not shower at the guest-house, we drove down the road to a spring, Halis Spring, and immersed ourselves in it, in the clear cool water

We washed away the dirt and sweat, the anxiety and the uncertainty.

Tomorrow will be a bright day.

X

Woke after a deep sleep, momentarily lost …but yes, Namatanai.

Feel happy, we have something of Phebe’s to transfer……. get up.

No water running, no power, bucket water to the toilet, brush teeth with bottled water- why do we stay here ? It is the only place in town, that sort of place.

The only good thing about the guest-house, it is across from the beach, Alf goes for a walk, stands on the beach and looks across the water, the low tide exposing the reef and familiar smells.

Alf is transported to Sum Sum, he is there again..

As he was last night. A young boy again, with Granny, her presence peaceful, comforting, safe. “Thankyou Alfred” she said, “I couldn’t find Kuradui before, but I can now”.

Was it a dream ? Can a dream be real? It was too vivid to be a dream…

Had a leisurely breakfast, no toast (no bread) but cake and miniature pikelets instead, nice paw-paw.

Went back to the grave, is it a grave now, still? All the Das Das line is there, small brother whitehaired and rheumy-eyed, looks very like Das Das.

Post with the plaque is planted, everybody gets their picture taken with it, small Elizabeth in front, hiding the plaque. Mick asks her to move in a funny way, the tension in the air disappears in peals of laughter from the children. Cannot help but feel Phebe is smiling, bathing in the laughter of young children.

Back under the fruit trees, the car in their shade, Alf thanks the Das Das line and gives some money to the daughter, to distribute accordingly, as a token of his appreciation for keeping Phoebe’s relics.

We depart waving, knowing we will never see that place again. We have what made it important to us.

Next, it was back to Kuradui to restore the Parkinson family cemetery (matmat), which was severely damaged by American bombers in raids on the Japanese occupiers. in WW2. The cemetery had been ‘lost” and ignored by decades. Julius and Mick and their Nawae equipment and workers slowly but surely restored the scared site.

The family – of which you are, and always will be, a special part of , Julius – will be forever grateful for your love and support of our Mum/Dad/Grandpa/nana, Alf and Mary Lou.

Thank you #8