Madang Airport 1973: Bruce O’Reilly
A PATAIR DC3, on charter to TAA, registration VH PNB, left Madang for Mendi on a government charter with building materials (no passengers) and on approach to land discovered it had no brakes and so...
Author: president
Beating the odds at Aseki: Ben Dannecker
Following a telephone approach by a retired senior air safety journalist, the author was prompted to come forward and share this remarkable tale of survival in an aviation incident that occurred in the pre-independence...
Last flight: Bob Cleland
As related by Julia Lesley Cleland Our second daughter Kathryn was born at home at Balimo in the remote Western District of PNG on my birthday, 8 February 1959. I had planned to go...
Insurance, PNG style: Phil Latz
With reference to Rod Noble’s story in the March 2014 edition of Una Voce about the ‘mighty’ Sepik river and Bam Island, here is another regarding that area. In March 1987, prior to Shell...
The times they began a’changing: Clarrie Burke – UV Sept 2012
The time: 3.00 pm; date: August 14; year: 1960. Anyone living in or visiting Port Moresby in the hours leading up to that time would have reckoned with the endless unbroken lines of cars...
The night Cinemascope came to Kerema: Graham Egan
Every Monday I would post my freezer order to Steamships and then rejoice in the arrival of that order, by faithful “K” boat, the following Thursday week. Thus I marked the days of my...
The history of judo in PNG: Charles Betteridge
It was a beautiful Sunday morning in June 1961 and I was at Ela Beach in Port Moresby having my usual dip in the ocean and admiring the surrounding beauty (especially the two-legged female...
The annexation of New Guinea
Expansion of colonial interests in the Pacific – Queensland Govt Gazette – 1876. A refusal by the Crown to support Queensland in its quest for annexation of PNG. A reflection of interests and attitudes of...
The Library Institute Hall and Arts Theatre: Ray Kelly
A brief history preamble: 1914-1950 The Library Institute Hall on the eastern side of the Library Institute in Douglas Street had been the major centre of community social life for the residents of Port...
A taxing time: Bob Piper
The tax office for Papua New Guinea in the mid-1960s was located adjacent to the main wharf at Port Moresby. For the staff downstairs it was hot and often dusty but the assessors, upstairs,...
The Hagen Country Club: Chips MacKellar
(Published in Una Voce, September 1998, page 5) Malcolm (Chips) MacKellar 1953-1955 CPO Daru and Lake Murray (Western District) 1955-1956 P.O. Mount Hagen (Western Highlands District) 1957 ASOPA Long Course 1958-1964 PO at Madang...
Moresby school sports newspaper reports: Richard Jones
Reporting school sports activities in Port Moresby and from other Central Province locations was well advanced in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The South Pacific Post and then the daily Post-Courier regularly ran...
The beginnings of Rugby Union in PNG: Dennis Bradney, MBE
Dennis Bradney was educated in Sydney and Brisbane (Sydney Grammar, Sydney Technical College and Brisbane Central Technical College) and worked for several Australian architectural firms before joining Comworks Port Moresby in 1964. He later...
The die was cast! Peter Goerman
Perhaps it is the result of having read Coral Island and Somerset Maugham at an impressionable age, but the South Pacific islands have always evoked a powerfully romantic image with me. Mention the South...
A Mexican writes Rugby League in Port Moresby: Richard Jones
Rugby League has long been the pre-eminent sport in Papua New Guinea, a fact rugby union, Aussie Rules and soccer fans have just had to stomach. So it should come as no surprise to...
