Village cricket, Hood Peninsula, 1965: Robert Grieve
It seemed like a good idea at the time. The teaching staff at Hula Primary ‘T’ School reasoned that the benefits of a village cricket competition far outweighed the problems it might create. We...
Category: Cultural insights
Kevin Murphy—PNGRFL stalwart: Ephaya DSamuel
Kevin came to PNG in the late 1960s as a young kiap and served in the West Sepik Province. He was a contemporary of the late Sir Barry Holloway. He left the kiap service...
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 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...
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...
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 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...
Cry from the heart of an SOQ: Jim Toner
A 50-year-old piece of doggerel from the Southern Highlands. Lois Niall, daughter of District Commissioner, Horrie Niall, had just joined the Welfare Branch of Native Affairs and, in her travels around PNG, was fluttering...
The least is the greatest: Geoffrey Baskett
A poem written for Christmas 2008 Said the Camel to the Donkey as they stood beside the stall, ‘A King chose me, so I must be More honoured than us all.’ Said the Donkey...
New Guinea: Bernard Oberleuter
Bernard wrote this poem in 1956, when he was in Grade 6 at St Mary’s, opposite Lae Bowling Club. I know a verdant island fair With forests ferns and flowers rare Where mountains tower...
Sialum pig calling: Paul Oates
In 1974, Mum and Dad came to visit my wife and me at Sialum Patrol Post. Sialum Patrol Post was situated on the north eastern tip of the Huon Peninsular of the then Morobe...
Derris: Paul Oates
When I was at Sialum, I remember walking along the beach and seeing a bloke from the village (Kwamkwam) nearby, busily pounding two rocks together. I’ll give the gist of what happened next and translate it...
Parades and Station management: Paul Oates
(This is how I remember the TPNG outstation protocols. Other kiaps may have differing recollections.) On a Patrol Post or Sub District Headquarters, the working day in the late 1960s and early 1970s would...
Trials and tribulations: Nancy Johnston
(Published Una Voce, September 1997, page 19 and in Tales of Papua New Guinea, page 112) Nancy Johnston was wife of the late Bill Johnston who began his career in PNG as a Patrol...
Lynore von der Borch: Variety in a slice of life
(Being an account of one day in the life of a house-wife at Wau, New Guinea) Part One “Whatever do you do all day?” is the question I have so frequently been asked since...
