I first encountered Pat Dwyer (ASOPA 1956 and 1960) in the Chimbu in 1964 when he was pushing a pedometer from Kundiawa to Chuave. He was a kiap and was extinguishing a minor punishment for some trivial infraction of Kiap Rules. Pat later married one of the belles of 1962-63, Margaret McKenna, but, unlike Margaret, won’t be attending the Brisbane reunion because he claims to “have a dog and seven grandchildren to care for”. We correspond from time to time and I see him on those rare occasions I’m in Perth.

Leafing through the September Mail, Pat came upon two names that summoned up vivid memories and two fading Box Brownie photographs. Let Pat take over the story…..

Bogged. Early 1957. My first venture into the jungles of darkest Papua. I was a clerk at Education HQ in Konedobu and my boss was Dick Ralph, father of Margaret Lyons. Centre with the macho stance is Clarrie Burke (ASOPA 1958-59), then junior clerk at District Education Office, Port Moresby. Clarrie was returning a teacher to Tubusereia. The teacher had been chased out of the village by his wife for fornicating with a Standard 6 girl (or maybe a big Standard 4) and had sought the DEO’s assistance. We didn’t get to Tubusereia. The road was too boggy. I think Clarrie sent the teacher on to face the music by himself.

Socialising. Early 1957. Piss-up in Moresby. Bill Connelly (Forestry) and John ‘Grog’ Groenewegen (ASOPA 1958-59), failed university student. Grog was a member of a group of uni students sent to Moresby at taxpayers’ expense with the idea of conning them into the colonial service. Fellow tourists included a smart arse ex quiz kid and later TV guru, who was deported for misuse of a firearm; an Anglican fundamentalist from Sydney (no drink, no smoke, no dance, no fornicate), who was seduced by a Jewish lass at the Boroko pub and later became a missionary in Japan; and a serious young man and later PNG judge, Bob O’Regan.

Can Grog still remember the words of “the burden, the burden, the white man’s burden in Pa-pu-a” – composed by one of his group and sung ad nauseam in the Boroko pub? Grog stayed on as an Education Department clerk before attending ASOPA to train as a CEO. I last saw him as a serious teacher in Goroka about 1961.