The September issue of The Mail and its item on inspection reports piqued the interest of pikinini kiap turned tisa, Col Booth, who, you may be alarmed to learn, will have the last word at the Brisbane reunion. My article mentioned the name of the great CE (Charlie) Beresford who inspected Col’s teaching methods, such as they were, at Tavui near Rabaul in 1966.

“Mr Beresford was so taken with taking over my class to show what a beaut teacher he was,” says Col, “that he didn’t have time to look at such mundane things as my actual teaching and whether or not a lesson program existed.

“He spent the afternoon “shewing the poopils” his special techniques. He dragged out a moth-eaten piece of cloth into which he proceeded to shove his hand. He wrote on the blackboard the words: ‘Sammy the Puppet’.

"To make sure Standard 5 could read this, he went on to spell it out phonetically: ‘Saaaaaar-mi the Pooooooo-pet’, which he repeated a few times for effect. The kids had no idea what he was on about and fell asleep. ‘So much for motivation and the clear pronunciation of the Queen’s English’, I thought.”