Vale September 2013

by president · 20/09/2013

Henry Robert Jack AMESBURY (May 2013, aged 90)

Jack Amesbury was an inspiring, innovative man who made a significant contribution educating and shaping the lives of many people. He was born September 1923 at Kyogle, NSW, and died at Caboolture, Qld.

For much of his life he was widely and affectionately known as “Bugandi Jack”. He earned the nickname from his tireless work in establishing a boarding school amidst thick jungle in a swampy area called Bugandi, outside Lae in New Guinea in the 1960s.

Carved from the jungle by students who cleared bush, installed drainage and established playing fields, food plots and cattle pens, Bugandi High School established a reputation for academic achievement and the quality of its rugby league players. Many Bugandi graduates went on to become political, business and professional leaders in Papua New Guinea.

Amesbury, a handy rugby league player around the New South Wales northern rivers in his youth, is credited with being the first to introduce the game to school boys in PNG. He retained a lifelong involvement with rugby league.

Born in Kyogle, Amesbury and his two sisters attended one-teacher Rosebank School during the depression of the 1930s. From there, he won a bursary to attend Lismore High School where he proved to be a good scholar and sportsman.

He was a top sprinter and his long jump record stood for many years. But rugby league was his forte. A lightweight hooker, he packed down in the school’s top team with notables Jimmy Sharp and Jack Rayner, who later became an international and South Sydney legend.

In 1940, Amesbury was elected school captain at Lismore High and many friendships from those years endured throughout his life.

The following year he started studies as a trainee teacher, but World War Two intervened and by August he had enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy.

Initially he served on the cruiser HMAS Australia but was transferred to the corvette HMAS Mildura when Japan entered the conflict. He later served in the corvette HMAS Warrego for six months before volunteering to train as a gunner on the DEMS (defensively equipped merchant ships). During his stint on merchant ships he was involved in fighting off air attacks where a number of crew received bravery awards.

After four and a half years naval service, Amesbury was discharged and resumed his teacher training as well as playing hooker for Ballina in the Richmond Rugby League competition. His playing career finished four years later when he badly broke a wrist when in action for Newcastle club, Belmont.

He immediately turned to administration and, with close friend Ron Sullivan, worked to establish the Western Suburbs rugby league club in Lismore in 1950.

He was a staunch believer that involvement in team sport, and rugby league in particular, built character and created opportunities.

In 1961, he embarked on a new adventure by accepting an offer to open a high school in Port Moresby. He immediately became involved with the DCA rugby league club as well as formation of a junior rugby league competition.

He then moved on to Lae and undertook the project of establishing Bugandi High School. His positive impact on rugby league in Papua New Guinea was significant and a factor in the code becoming the country’s national sport.

After retiring in 1974, Amesbury relocated to the Caboolture area where he remained involved with rugby league for many years, notably with the Caboolture and Caloundra clubs.

He is survived by his wife Didi and children Hope, Donna and Terri. Charlie Thurgood

Joyce May AUSTIN (5 July 2013, aged 78 years)

Widow of Lesley Roy Stanley Austin who passed away 10 December 2012, formerly of Rabaul, then retired to Redcliffe Peninsula near Brisbane. Advice received from Terry Davidson.

Robert BLAIKIE (14 September 2012)

Bob and I grew up as teenagers racing small sailing dinghies on the broad reaches of the Brisbane River. We were fiercely competitive but never able to defeat our clubmate John Cuneo, who went on to become a world-class sailor and one-time skipper of Southern Cross, one of Alan Bond’s America’s Cup yachts.

Quite independently we chose identical career paths as Cadet Patrol Officers.

He was inducted at ASOPA early in 1948 and I followed in the next intake later in the year. But we were destined not to meet up again, as senior Patrol Officers serving in separate districts. However, it was Bob’s unhappy lot to lead a patrol into the uncontrolled hostile Guam tribal lands of the lower Ramu River where in 1951 my patrol was attacked with wounds shared on both sides. Some of my peers referred to the incident as the “Battle of Ungei”. Bob’s Patrol Report reflects his trepidations of the possibility of a life-threatening experience as he followed in my footsteps.

Fate decreed that we should both be chosen to attend the Long Course at ASOPA in 1953/54. We bonded with a small conscientious hard-working student mafia of which John Norton, Ken Connolly and the late Dave Ross were members. We married innocent city girls who as brave and loyal Kiaps’ wives shared our lives on lonely outstations and bore our children.

In our retirement years this mafia group met regularly in Brisbane for a very long lunch involving shared experiences and many good-natured character assassinations of some of our peers. A couple of years ago Bob flew down to Adelaide on a nostalgic bent to crew for me in my 32 ft Lexcen yacht competing in one of the major offshore yacht races in the Gulf.

I chatted with Bob on the phone just a few days before his death. He was his usual cheerful self. I was shattered to hear of his passing. He was a dedicated conscientious Kiap. He made an important contribution to the post-WW2 administration of Papua New Guinea. He was a dear friend and great companion. Sadly his death is a grim reminder of the tolling bells. Graham Taylor

John Curtis (Jack) BAKER (29 Dec 2012, aged 84)

Jack was born in Preston, Victoria, on 22 August 1928. Part of Jack’s growing up was on Thursday Island from 1940 where his father was a lighthouse keeper. Jack qualified as a teacher in Victoria and, after teaching for about five years, went to Papua New Guinea in 1951 as a Cadet Patrol Officer. He served in the Western, Eastern Highlands, Central and Gulf Districts. After completing the Long Course at ASOPA, Mosman, NSW, in 1956, he was posted to Okapa in the Eastern Highlands where he became involved with the team researching the “kuru” disease. Here he met his wife Lois Larkin. Jack’s involvement with the research team resulted in them spending 12 months in the USA at the National Institute of Health, Maryland, where Jack worked as a consultant.

He was a co-author in a publication Patterns of Kuru Incidences. He returned to Kerowagi in the Eastern Highlands before postings to Central and Gulf Districts. In 1963 he was selected as one of four field team leaders in the training of field officers from all departments in mass communications in preparation for the massive political education campaign preceding the first Papua New Guinea general elections in 1964. Following the elections he was involved in an educational team which conducted a three day workshop to develop understandings of parliamentary and legislative procedures among the newly elected members of the first generally elected PNG Parliament.

In 1965, as an external student of the University of Queensland and a final year as a full-time student in Brisbane, Jack graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in Political Science and History. From 1967 to 1971 Jack was promoted to Principal Staff Development Officer in the Department of District Administration responsible for all aspects of training of local and expatriate officers, both field and outstation clerical, as localisation and preparation for Independence assumed major priority. Also, redirection of the Local Government advisory role of field staff towards a more supportive, less directive approach was part of the training. The job also involved departmental training courses as well as teaching in training courses at the International Training Institute, Mosman, NSW (formerly ASOPA) and the Administrative College of Papua New Guinea. In 1971 Jack was promoted to Senior Inspector (Localisation) Public Service Commission of PNG. This carried the responsibility for the planning and implementation of accelerated localisation of the Public Service during the lead-in to Independence and during the post-independence period. This was a massive accelerated staff development exercise.

In 1978 the Baker family left PNG to live on Bribie Island, north of Brisbane. In 1972 Jack had suffered a serious leg injury in a vehicle accident which left him with a permanent and painful impairment. In 1974, while on an official overseas trip, he was hospitalised in Nairobi, Kenya, following a serious heart attack. He never allowed these setbacks to get in the way of whatever he was doing in his official and personal life. For about seven years from 1979, he was a manager/part owner of a caravan park on Bribie Island. He also was involved with his son in a prawn trawler operation. His academic qualifications enabled him to be a relief high school teacher.

He unsuccessfully stood for election as a councillor in the local Council. His interest in environmental matters resulted in him being the leading light in a successful appeal against a council-approved development application over a large tract of land on Bribie Island. He conducted the appeal in person to such good effect that not only was the Council approval overturned, but the land was declared a National Park; an outcome which was rare, if not unique, in Australia. Sadly, Jack’s physical and mental health deteriorated in recent years and he died at home on Bribie Island, with his family around him.

Jack will long be remembered by all of us who knew him, as someone with a great intellect, a quick wit, and a great capacity to bond with people. He never took himself, or life, too seriously. His legacy in Papua New Guinea must be the results he achieved because of his remarkable rapport with the up-and-coming generation of Papua New Guineans who were at the forefront of the public service and the body politic at and following Independence in the 1970s.

He is survived by his wife Lois and children Wahgi and Marion and his four grandchildren. Graham Hardy

Robert Gordon BURGESS (17 May 2013, aged 68)

Robert died at Cobargo, NSW, on 17 May 2013 after a long illness. He is survived by his wife Pam and five adult children.

After serving in the NSW Police from 20 February 1967 to 23 November 1969, he was sworn into RPNGC on 2 December 1969 after completing a short course at Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA) at Mosman, NSW. His first posting was as a HQ officer under the late departed Raymond Wells Whitrod before being transferred to Panguna, Bougainville. He resigned from RPNGC on 13 April 1971 and took up employment with Bechtel WKE. Towards the end of 1971, with his wife and family, he sailed his yacht on a seven months cruise to Sydney. He re-joined the NSW Police in 1972 and for some years worked in Internal Affairs, retiring in 2000. In recent years with his wife, Pam, he ran a bed and breakfast in Cobargo (near Bega, NSW). M.R. Hayes

Laurie CROWLEY (12 June 2013, aged 93)

Laurie Crowley arrived in Papua New Guinea in October 1948 and for more than twenty years would leave an indelible mark on civil aviation in New Guinea, from the establishment of a solitary Tiger Moth operation in Lae through to becoming one of the biggest light aircraft charter operators in the Territory. Before he retired and returned to Australia in the early 1970s, Mr Crowley not only operated a fleet of single and twin engined aircraft and a brace of helicopters but had spread his wings beyond the border of Papua New Guinea to form a charter service in the Solomons. That service, Megapode Airlines, would be the forerunner of today’s Solomon Island Airlines.

Struggling through those early years from the late 1940s, Mr Crowley not only opened up some of the Territory’s most isolated mountain reaches to the aeroplane and therefore administration and trade with the rest of the country, but also fought a continuous battle with an aviation bureaucracy which tended to favour services by the larger, well established airlines. Mr Crowley on the other hand, along with others like Bobby Gibbes, firmly believed that while safety was paramount, the peculiarly unique PNG aviation environment called for some of the more stringent rules to be slightly ‘bent’ if country’s outposts were to be served.

Much of his work saw him operating out of Boana, up the Markham Valley from Lae, a village which would become one of his busiest centres. Years later when asked how many times he’d flown in and out of Boana he confessed he had lost count after six thousand!

In many ways, his background was ideal for Papua New Guinea at the time. After wartime service as a mechanic for the RAAF’s No. 458 Squadron and working on both Wellington bombers and US Air Force B-24 Liberators in England, North Africa, Malta, Italy and Gibraltar, he arrived back in Australia intent on gaining a pilot’s licence and looking for an opportunity to fly.

He achieved the licence alright but found himself just one of the hundreds of former wartime pilots looking for jobs after the cessation of hostilities. So he took a job working again as an aircraft mechanic at Coffs Harbour, which, unknown to him at the time, would become his stepping stone to Papua New Guinea.

Asked to fix a transiting Avro Anson, its owner was so impressed he offered him a job with Guinea Air Traders and after a short stint in Sydney he arrived in Lae with wife Betty to work for the company.

Crowley recognised early on that, in aviation terms, Papua New Guinea was not for the faint hearted and watched as a battling Guinea Air Traders finally packed up and flew its aircraft back to Australia.

Crowley however, now the holder of a Commercial Pilot’s licence, decided to stay on, bought a half share in a Tiger Moth and started his own charter operation.

In the years that followed Crowley Airways branched out first with a Curtis Robin then into single engine Cessnas and a Piper Aztec. Helicopters would follow later.

While he opened the way into scores of the isolated airstrips in Papua and New Guinea’s mountains, over the years he also expanded his interests into trade stores, earth moving, a vegetable shop, bus tours, and tea and coffee, along with mineral exploration.

In the process he also mentored many pilots who would move on to other areas of aviation throughout Australia.

While he experienced his own occasional accident, he developed his own timeworn techniques in introducing new pilots to his operations, emphasising that they must always fly within safety margins while he in turn would ensure that their aircraft were properly maintained and would do all that was asked of them.

He had a healthy disregard for maps of the day which he considered inadequate and misleading in terms of terrain and altitude. When one new employee pulled out a map to gauge the height of an approaching gap in the ridgeline Crowley barked: “Put that bloody map away, son or you’ll be dead in a week. Use your eyes.”

Mind you, legend has it there were times when he stretched his own safety envelope! Once when asked to fly into an airstrip inland from Wewak and lift out a pilot who had wrecked his machine on landing, Crowley arrived to find not only the pilot but his passenger as well. No room left in the Moth, Crowley handed the controls over to the pilot and the limited room left to the passenger. Crowley flew out on the wing.

But while the company grew and wife Betty held the business side together, it was always a struggle to keep abreast of the prodigious amount of paperwork and the continuing threat posed by the larger Australian-backed airlines and their own light aircraft charter operations.

By the early 1970s, after his expansion into the Solomon Islands, Crowley had had enough and retired first to the Gold Coast, where he operated a flying school and became a Cessna distributor, before finally moving to his family property at Junee in southern NSW.

Even recently into his nineties he was out on the tractor daily and, just for old times’ sake perhaps, although he no longer flew, there was still a Cessna in the farm’s hangar.

Recognising his service to the country, in the 2006 Queen’s Birthday Honours, the Papua New Guinea Government appointed him an Officer of the Order of the Logohu, the equivalent of the OBE.

Only last year Solomon Island Airlines invited him and Betty to the 50th anniversary of the founding of the original airline.

In typical Crowley humour he later told an interviewer he’d met the Solomon’s Prime Minister, Gordon Darcy Lilo: “He treated me like a king. A month before they’d had Prince William there. They treated him like a prince!!” he joked. Jim Eames

Robyn Susane DUNBAR-REID (née Redgrave) (25 May 2013, aged 72)

Robyn passed away only 10 weeks after being diagnosed as suffering from an incurable form of cancer. She passed away peacefully in the presence of her family at Greenwich Hospital, Sydney.

Robyn first visited Rabaul in 1963, after meeting Dick Dunbar-Reid at a Bachelors and Spinsters’ Ball at Walgett in New South Wales. During her visit she decided that she liked Rabaul and she and Dick decided to become engaged. Robyn returned to Rabaul in late 1964 and was married.

She and Dick lived at Kabanga Plantation in Kokopo until 1990 when they moved to Port Moresby to start a new life there.

They remained in Port Moresby until 2004 when they returned to Sydney to care for Robyn’s aged Mother until she passed away in 2012.

Robyn is survived by her husband, Dick, daughters Kirsty and Meredith and her Brother Warwick and wife Leone and in-laws, Dawn and David Beattie. Dick Dunbar-Reid

Terence Edward DAW (24 May 2013, aged 87)

Born into an Indian Army family at Simla he was, after primary school, enrolled at the prestigious Lawrence Royal Military School founded in 1847 for sons of the Raj. In 1943, he duly joined the Army and the following year was commissioned into the Gurkha Rifles stationed on the North-West Frontier. Subsequently he served in Burma, Malaya, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and was Mentioned in Dispatches. Retiring as a Captain in 1951 he then joined the Malaya Police Force.

By 1957, with Malayan Independence looming and having spent years as Commander of a Jungle Company or of a Police District, he joined the tide of British expats who liked the look of Perth. There he immediately found work as a prison warder but with four children sought to do better and was attracted by a vacancy in PNG for an Assistant Superintendent of Corrective Institutions. After some time at Bomana he was appointed to a post better able to utilize his all-round capabilities, that of Welfare Officer in the Department of Native Affairs.

For the next twenty years he was based in Rabaul dealing with the problems of not only the Tolais but ‘foreign natives’, as they were amusingly called, from all other districts, and also the Chinese, out of luck Europeans and the quite large mixed race community. For the latter he worked hard to keep their valuable Kombiu Club operating on an even keel. Consequently he became well known to Rabaul/Kokopo people. At one point in the sixties it being learned that he could interpret Bahasa Malay, he was co-opted to the Highlands to listen in to Indonesian radio from across the West Papua border.

Terry was pleased to be selected together with his wife Jean for ‘Presentation to the Queen’ during her visit to Rabaul in 1974. He wore his regimental tie with the crossed kukris which was remarked upon by Prince Philip. Unsurprising since the tie was that of the 7th (Duke of Edinburgh’s Own) Gurkha Rifles.

By 1977 all children were now living ‘South’ so it was back to Perth. Before succumbing to medical problems, Terry was able to take Jean on a grey nomad caravan tour of Australia and even to revisit Simla. He had a great sense of humour, very useful if you were based at the Sub-District Office, Rabaul, and he leaves behind Jean, Leslie, Lauren, Terence, Kevin and their progeny. Jim Toner

Richard Broun Hamilton (Dick) DOYLE (14 July 2013, aged 74)

Born and bred in PNG, Dick Doyle was a professional plantation manager and a dedicated and thoughtful agricultural producer. He continually researched and experimented with crops and production methods. He strived to improve the outcomes and prosperity of the communities and the industry in which he lived and worked.

He was a very well-read and erudite student of history which, along with his wit, wisdom and skill as a raconteur kept his life buzzing along to the very end. He had a fine group of mutually supportive friends. Throughout his life Dick made an impact on all he met, including many visitors to PNG and Witu Island. His manner of passing may become the stuff of legend.

Dick had come overnight from Witu on the MV Octopus, owned by Microsoft’s Paul Allen, to Max and Cecilie Benjamin’s Walindi Plantation Resort. He passed away on the walk from the wharf.

His death was sudden and immediate. His going will be sorely felt by his many friends and family, in Witu, Papua New Guinea and across the world. This abbreviated quote from Chris Gug summarises the loss of Dick Doyle.

I’d get the most entertaining, knowledgeable, charismatic company imaginable. He advised me in all things PNG, gave me a great laugh when no one else could, and made more of an impact on the world from an isolated speck of an island than most people could ever hope to do from the big city…Dicky was without a doubt one of the coolest characters I ever had the pleasure of knowing….

Dick was born in Rabaul on 26 July 1939, the son of Cyril Richard Williamson Doyle and his wife Nancy Alice (née Broun) Doyle. Cyril managed Aropa plantation near Kieta, Bougainville. They had been in PNG since 1932. When war loomed and Dick and his mother left PNG for Sydney in May 1941, Dick’s first language was Tok Pisin, apparently deeply disconcerting to his grandmothers and aunts.

Post war Dick and his family returned to PNG to Isu Isu plantation, Milne Bay Province. In 1948/9 they moved to Tokua, near Kokopo. Cyril died in 1952 and Nancy ran Tokua for a while then moved to Rainau until 1956, when she married Eric Hill, Manager of the bank of New South Wales in Rabaul and moved south.

Dick boarded from age nine at Shore School in North Sydney, as did his father, uncles, brother and nephews, going home once a year for Christmas. He was a very good sportsman, in cricket, athletics and rugby. He worked on the school magazine and he was a renowned cartoonist. He was appointed a house and school prefect. Dick was also a very good scholar. However, when Dick left school in 1956 he headed straight back to New Guinea and life as a plantation manager.

He was on Ulatawa plantation, near Kokopo, New Britain, until 1964 when he joined Bali Plantations, working on Stockholm, New Ireland, and Londolovit on Lihir Is. Londolovit is now a major settlement for Lihir gold mining activities.

In 1965 Dick came to Langu Plantation, on the remote Garove (Witu) Island, in the Witu group, off the coast of West New Britain, 120Km N/W of Kimbe. Dick initially managed the plantation and then bought it in 1993. Langu plantation had a long history, being the centre of Emma Coe’s (Queen Emma) New Guinea islands plantation empire.

He found his true home, marrying Tau Justina of Witu and producing three wonderful daughters of whom he was extremely proud. His daughter Tania was crowned Miss Papua New Guinea in 1994. His daughters Melissa, Tania and Nancy have inherited the intelligence, strength and charm of their parents as well educated, competent young business women. He was delighted with his grandchildren. Nancy is married to Harry Brock, General Manager of West New Britain for West New Britain Palm Oil Ltd.

As economic conditions tightened for labour, transport and copra and cocoa prices, Dick used creative means to ensure an ongoing level of relative prosperity in the local villages through share farming the plantation. As transport became more difficult he came to rely on passing friends for passage to and from Kimbe.

In his later years he was in great demand as a guide, interpreter and historian to tours, expeditions and the scuba diving community around PNG and the islands. He had an encyclopedic knowledge on PNG and world affairs as well as USA baseball, all of which helped entertain many visitors over the years.

Dick traveled extensively during his leaves, traversing the world, attending Olympic Games and other world renowned sporting events amongst other things. Later he took his young family on overseas trips. On one of his trips Dick acquired a Harley Davidson, reputedly after a run of luck in Las Vegas. It was great fun on the airstrip at Witu.

During his early days in Kokopo he was active in sports with a great love for baseball and was influential in the foundation of the Kokopo rugby league team, open to all races. He was a foundation member of the Ralum Club in Kokopo, a ground-breaking multiracial club in the area. He was made a Life Member of the Club in 2000. He made many long term friends, many of whom rose to positions of prominence in PNG.

Dick became a PNG citizen in September 1977. He was a member of the Australian Navy Coastwatch Service (RAN Reserve), 1966-75. He was awarded the PNG Independence Medal (Defence Forces), 1975 and the WNB Community Service Award, 1985.

Dick was appointed to the West New Britain Advisory Council in 1967 and was involved in the decision to name the town of Kimbe. He was nominated to the Copra Board to represent WNB growers in 1979 and served on the Cocoa Board from 1998 to 2001. He was nominated Chairman of the Bali/Witu Integration Steering Committee.

Dick’s funeral service was in the church in Kimbe, where the heavenly massed voices of Witu singers were simply uplifting. Some had made a twelve-hour overnight boat trip from Witu to be there. Following the funeral service Dick was taken back to Witu for a traditional burial ceremony.

Dick knew the value of education and worked to ensure that there were opportunities for young people to reach their potential. At his island burial ceremony speakers reflected on their experience of his care and concern for the proper education of young Witu people. It was generally agreed by the speakers that Dick had been a very good man as the owner manager of Langu plantation.

Experiencing the funeral and burial of Dick it can be truthfully said that Dick was not an Australian working and living in PNG but a Papua New Guinean who went to school in Australia. Dick istap long ples tru long en.

Dick Doyle is survived by his daughters, Melissa, Nancy and Tania, their children and his brother, Dennis. His wife, Tau Justina predeceased Dick in 2004.

A very informative tribute to Dick can be found here | . Further tributes and stories of his more recent doings can be found on the internet by googling Dick Doyle PNG and/or Dickie Doyle PNG.

Biographical notes

Dick’s parents, Cyril and Nancy Doyle, had come to PNG in 1932, to manage plantations, including Put Put, on the south coast of New Britain. Nancy and Dick went to Sydney in 1941 for the birth of Dick’s brother and did not return until after the war. When Rabaul fell Cyril left Kieta by boat, making it to Port Moresby via Woodlark Is and Samarai. Cyril was with ANGAU for the duration of the war, mostly in the Milne Bay area.

Cyril’s brother Harry (Tiki) and his wife Mardi had come to the islands at the same time, first to Tulagi in the Solomons then Selapiu near Kavieng, New Ireland. When the Pacific war started Mardi was on the last boat out of Rabaul and Tiki was lost on the Montevideo Maru, being captured near Kavieng with others in a small group of boats.

Dick’s parents, Cyril and Nancy, both came from rural agricultural backgrounds. Cyril was born in Suva Fiji and brought up on a sugar plantation. Cyril was a fine cricketer, athlete, rugby union and rugby league player. He attended Shore School at North Sydney.

Nancy was born in Gunnedah, NSW, to Reginald and Alice (Tot) Broun and was brought up on Colstoun, a grazing property near Gunnedah. She loved horse riding and was a good athlete. She attended PLC Pymble in Sydney.

Cyril’s father, John Doyle, went to Fiji as a surveyor with CSR and became a sugar planter at Nandi. The family returned to Australia in the 1920s and bought a grazing property near Gunnedah. Cyril’s mother, Elizabeth’s family was also in sugar in Fiji. Her father, Cyril Hamilton Irvine, barrister and sugar planter was born in Agra, India, to Robert Hamilton Irvine, a Scottish doctor in the Indian civil service.

Cyril’s grandfather, Michael Doyle, came from Ireland to Bingara NSW in the1850s as the Senior Constable. He later built the Gwyder Hotel in Bingara. It is still there today.

Nancy’s grandfather, Sir William Broun (10th Baronet of Haddington and Nova Scotia), was a grazier in Northern NSW. The Broun’s ancestral home is Colstoun in East Lothian, Scotland. Sir William married Alice, the daughter of James Peters, a former sea captain and a wine and spirits merchant who was active in the incorporation of the municipality of Manly, NSW. Sir William Broun and his son in law Leslie Sprague built the Dungowan flats on the beachfront of south Manly beach. The flats remain today. Dennis Doyle

Marie Therese FRY (née Molan) (17 July 2013, aged 77)

Marie was born on 13 January 1936 at Koroit in Victoria, the youngest daughter of Maurice and Molly and the sister of Pat, Mick, Kathleen, Mary, Margaret and Jack.

The family lived in a farming homestead in Southern Cross and Marie attended St Columbus in Illowa until, at fifteen, she left school and commenced employment with a motor vehicle company in Warrnambool.

She was a popular member of the staff, and it was there that she met Brian. A close friendship ensued and, in January 1965, Marie Molan and Brian Fry became husband and wife. This lead to a wonderful marriage that lasted 48 years.

Within days of their marriage, life changed dramatically when Marie and Brian flew to Port Moresby to start 34-year tenure as residents of PNG.

Marie adapted to life in Port Moresby with enthusiasm and was first employed by the Australian Department of Army. As a result of Marie’s legendary hospitality, Brian and Marie entertained a lot and became close friends with the first Prime Minister of PNG, Sir Michael Somare. Brian has been comforted by the messages of support he has recently received from the Somare family and his many friends.

Marie then moved on to the Australian High Commission where she quickly gained the respect of fellow staff as a competent and hardworking employee.

Marie was also a very talented squash player and played A grade squash in the local Port Moresby competition for many years. She often handed out a lesson to many unsuspecting “young guns”.

In 1999, Marie and Brian “went finish” from Port Moresby and returned to their beloved Warrnambool, where they enjoyed the company and friendship of their extended family, mainly nephews and nieces. Christmas mornings, hosted by Marie and Brian, brought the family together, and everyone always enjoyed excellent food and cold beer and wine.

Marie will always be remembered for her kind hospitality, her wit, her enthusiasm, her fondness of high heels together with her uncompromising sense of style. She will be sadly missed by all who knew her, most of all her husband, Brian. Ted Godden

Karl Rudolph HOERLER (12 April 2013, aged 63)

Karl died unexpectedly at Korgua Plantation, WHP. He was born at Seraigi Plantation (with his identical twin brother Emil), in the Bainings, East New Britain.

After finishing school at Oakhill College in Castle Hill, NSW, he returned to work in PNG starting as shipping clerk with Burns Philp Rabaul, then on the family plantation until he left for the Highlands in 1972 where he became part of the big Dan Leahy’s clan.

In the early 80s while at Clarence Plantation, Karl and his dear late friend, David Lloyd, started the now well-known Nori Kori Cup, a fun-filled touch footy weekend that is enjoyed by many. It has since become a tradition in Goroka.

Karl loved to listen to BBC world service on his short wave transistor radio broadcasting test cricket, wherever he went carrying the ABC cricket book with all the information.

He was a coffee planter, coffee buyer and entrepreneur in various endeavours. Karl had a pure heart, compassion, respect for all people and integrity. He travelled the world, had a zest for knowledge, and always kept in touch with friends and acquaintances throughout his life. He cultivated and valued friendship deeply.

Karl was buried at Rebiamul Catholic Mission in Mt Hagen right next to his beloved Old Dan Leahy!

He is survived by wife Joyce, daughter Tamara, twin brother Emil and Elsa, sister Mary, eldest brother Ernest and Janice, nephews, nieces, cousins and so many friends. Emil J. Hoerler

Christopher JOHNSTON (22 June 2013, aged 55)

Chris was born on 23 August 1957, the youngest of five children to Bill and Nancy Johnston. He had a wonderful childhood growing up in Papua New Guinea where his early schooling was in a small thatched hut, one teacher teaching all grades.

At the age of twelve he attended Newington College in Sydney where, as an A student, he excelled at sports. He played in the school’s 1st XV rugby side and toured England representing the school. He also played in the school’s 1st V basketball team and gained selection in the state team in his final year at school. Chris was a caring and honest person devoted to every member in his family and a true friend to many. We admire his courage and the way he never gave up the fight for his life.

Much loved husband to Melissa, father to Natalie and James, father-in law to Michael and proud grandfather to twins Lucas and Kaitlyn. Son to Bill (deceased) and Nancy Johnston, brother to Alan, Gary and Margaret. Chris was a former committee member of PNGAA. Nancy Johnston

Patricia Audrey MURRAY (7 May 2013, aged 90)

See the tribute from Anne Peters | in the library.

Arthur Edward BAKER (16 Dec 2012, aged 79)

Arthur was born Lewisham, London, UK, on 13 July 1933. He died in Scarborough, Queensland, after a long illness. After British Army service of 3 years in the Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers, followed by 13 years in the Metropolitan Police, London, he migrated to Tasmania where he served in Tasmania Police from 14 January 1966 to 15 April 1967. He was sworn into RP&NGC on a six year contract on 8 May 1967. He served in Port Moresby, Rabaul and Kokopo and was in Rabaul at the time of the Matanguan uprising and was one of the officers who investigated the murder of District Commissioner John Errol (Jack) Emanuel. He received two Commissioner’s Letters of Commendation. and separated at the rank of Inspector 3/class under the Employment Security Scheme (A.S.A.G.) on 20 May 1973. After PNG he worked in the security industry and in later years was a taxi proprietor. He is survived by Irene and two adult children. M.R. Hayes

Jenifer Mary Quinlan (09 September 2012)

No further details available – advice received from Erin Quinlan

William Willock THOMSON (15 June 2013, aged 83)

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he served in Malaya on National Service with the RAMC British Army before coming to PNG. Like several others of the era without previous police experience, he was a direct entry to RP&NGC on 5 September 1953. He served at Moresby, Lae, Bulolo, Wewak, Mumeng, Rabaul, Manus, Kavieng, Sohano and Bulolo. He resigned as an Inspector (1st class) on 21 September 1966. Following this he returned to Sydney where he became a newsagent, and later became a lucerne grower at Gunbower, Victoria. He died after a long illness at Echuca, Victoria. He brought his bride to be from Scotland to Rabaul and married Shirley Goldspink in 1961. He leaves Shirley and two daughters to survive him. Always a canny Scot with a shilling, Bill won a £1.0.0 bet from equally canny Englishman, Inspector John Herbert. Bill submitted a report that the Rabaul Police Station needed a “clerkess”. John sent the report back to Bill saying there was no such word as “clerkess”. Bill, who never lost his strong accent, produced a Scottish dictionary and had much pleasure in collecting the bet. M.R. Hayes