Two children; lost plane; torrential rain; soggy suitcases; barefoot trek and a missing husband! Marjorie Kleckham’s father, Geoffrey Sheldon, was a surveyor in PNG. He surveyed the Bulldog Road which eventually became the...
In 1958, as an aspiring family oriented young Kiap concerned about our future well-being in Papua New Guinea, I job-hopped into the ABC. It proved to be an inspired decision. This second career as...
Notes for panel discussion, National Archives, Canberra, 21 November 2010. It must be emphasized that my experiences were shared by many kiaps, and were not in any way unique. I have decided to talk...
“One cannot spend over 27 years in Papua New Guinea and fail to experience sadness and regret when forced to leave it, particularly when the circumstances are beyond one’s control,” writes J. P. Sinclair,...
When I set up a permanent Base Camp at Mindik in the middle of the Huon Peninsula in1970, I arrived with the usual Patrol gear (Kerosene stove, canvas shower bucket and a “bedsail”. The...
So read the heading on one of the pages of a booklet for school-leavers circulated when I was completing my “Intermediate” (Year 4), the year after I had arrived in Melbourne as a Pommie...
(Published in Una Voce, December 1998, page 16) Adrian Geyle was CPO for two years at Lake Murray, Kiunga, Gaima and Daru, Western District; PO OIC Green River, Sepik District; PO H/Q, Madang District....
Like all good stories, this one starts “long, long ago and far, far away” The great bird island to the North of Australia dozed in the tropic seas for millennia until, in the mid-1840s,...
I was interested to read the articles in the latest Una Voce regarding the role of kiaps in pre-independence Papua New Guinea. I was especially interested in the statement that Cadet Patrol Officers were...
Being Queensland born, when I read a Government advertisement for Patrol Officers in PNG, in the Hobart Mercury newspaper (and it was a cold winter in Hobart), I didn’t hesitate to reply. Another incentive...
One of the world police forces’ simplest yet effective form of handcuffs was in use in Papua New Guinea for over half a century. This was about a metre of ordinary brass chain such...
Reading Paul Oates’ article on Communications rekindled memories of Christmas, 1968. I was in Kieta, Bougainville. After many months in the bush (incidentally equipped with an A510 radio), escorting CRA geologists out of Panguna...
National Archives of Australia, 20 November 2010 More than 2000 Australians served as patrol officers (Kiaps) in Papua New Guinea before the nation’s independence in 1975. Ex-Kiaps and others with an interest in Papua...
1952 was not an easy year for Harry West, transferred from Goroka to take over the Kainantu Sub-district, and thrust into responsibility for the road from the Highlands down to Markham valley floor. Highlanders,...
(Published Una Voce, September 2002, page 38) Fitzpatrick, Philip 1997- 2002 – Barracuda Seismic Surveys, Fogoma’iu and Kaiam, Oilsearch, surveys for oil and gas drilling in Western Province PNG. Social mapping Omati, Aure PNG...
