Rob Kelvin was the public relations expert and took care of our travel and accommodation, no mean feat in the highlands of those days.

He later went on to become a journalist and was the Channel Nine newsreader in South Australia for many years.

As the lowly cadet, I handled the messy bits like collecting and cramming all of our ill-gotten gains into the tray of the government LandCruiser we would drive from Hagen to Goroka.

I did manage one contribution however, the ‘WESTERN HIGHLANDS’ sign that would identify our exhibit.

Goroka Show in the 1960s (Stan Moriarty)

To do this I carefully hand-drew letters on a sheet of old plywood, cut them out with a fretsaw and painted them white. The plan was to mount them on the sides of a long-cut Klinki pine log to make them look like they’d been hand-carved.

We duly set off in the Land Cruiser loaded to the gunnels with our Western Highland’s produce and a team of helpers-come-dancers complete with bilas.

When we eventually got to Goroka our helpers adjourned to the accommodation set up for the local tribes and we three kiaps dossed down in the local haus pik, the single kiap’s donga.

Said donga, which I believe was officially tenanted to Taffy Watkins or John Blyth, was overflowing and floor space was at a premium, not that we slept much anyway.

Things were going well with the exhibit until we nearly blew up the whole thing.

I had conned a cut log from a local sawmill for our hand-carved sign and was heading back to the Land Cruiser where our driver, with the help of several hefty assistants, was topping up the fuel by tipping petrol from a 44-gallon drum straight into the vehicle.

It was getting towards dusk and a bit dim, so a passing Papua New Guinean decided it was time to light his kerosene lamp. That he was 20 feet away from an open 44-gallon drum of petrol didn’t seem to occur to him.

Needless to say there was a blue flash and the mouth of the drum lit up. I thought ‘here goes all our hard work and a perfectly good Land Cruiser’.

Fortunately Rob Kelvin had other ideas. He jumped forward, tipped the drum over and gave it a swift boot down the hill.

Thankfully this deadly Catherine Wheel only lit up the gully in which it landed rather than our precious cargo and us bystanders.

Over the next couple of days we worked in the district exhibits hall to get our display ready for the visitors and, ultimately, the team of judges.

It was a close contest but our artfully arranged plywood and silver paper chest spilling tea leaves sprinkled and packets of tea and coffee was pipped at the post by a high-tech exhibit from, I think, Chimbu.

They had rigged up a continually rolling slide show accompanied by a taped commentary and music. The local people, including the judges, were entranced and we had to be satisfied with second place.

Bugger!

I got to the Hagen Show the next year, this time as a visitor, then didn’t see another show until I got to the Daru Show in, I think, 1971.

That one was decidedly different but equally enjoyable. Our Nomad patrol post exhibit included a bunch of Biami (Bedamuni) warriors who gleefully scared the living daylights out of everyone.