But Taylor and I had discovered a common history. As young men in colonial times we had both been broadcasting managers in Papua New Guinea, me having gravitated from teaching and Taylor from the more exotic role of Kiap - a patrol officer. And it is of those distant times that A Kiap’s Story is all about.

Depending on who you’re arguing with, the word ‘Kiap’ is either a derivation of the German word ‘Kapitän’ (Captain) or a simple steal of the indigenous Tolai word for Chief.

Whatever the etymology, in Papua New Guinea it spoke of a government official – a district officer or patrol officer – almost always a young Australian and always male - who had been given the most extraordinary powers to spearhead Australia’s pacification, administration and development of the three million people in the joint colonies of Papua and New Guinea.

When recruited in 1948, Taylor was just 19, which put him among the youngest of his cohort at the Australian School of Pacific Administration in Sydney.

There he trained in addressing the many practical difficulties he would face in Papua New Guinea as well as matters of cultural variance he would need to adjust to. It was telling that both sides of this deal – the physical task and the intellectual challenge - appealed to the young man.

A Kiap’s Story reflects this duality, and shows that Taylor learned his lessons well. The memoir is a lucid and well told history of Australia’s great experiment in colonialism blended with a rollicking and rousing tale of derring-do as Taylor and his colleagues carved their own, and Australia’s, way to fulfil the formidable command to build a nation.

They didn’t always get it right of course – and many died in the process of getting it wrong.

There were patrol officers Szarka and Harris and their two police who, at opposite ends of the Elptamin Valley of the untamed Sepik region, were butchered by warriors who thought the white men had come to visit pestilence upon their food crops.

And later, in New Britain, district commissioner Jack Emanuel was bayoneted to death by a Tolai war party which, despite the danger of which he was aware, he had decided to negotiate with without his police escort.

Taylor himself experienced a near catastrophe on a December 1951 expedition into an uncontrolled area of the Ramu Valley when, on Christmas Eve, his patrol was ambushed by hostile tribesmen, leaving Taylor and some of his police wounded by arrows, clubs and stone axes.

“With a sense of utter disbelief I saw an arrow, maybe a metre long, sticking out of my right shoulder. It had pierced my khaki work shirt and impaled in soft tissue. Held firmly by its tiny barbs, the arrow was now drooping down at an angle of maybe 45 degrees. Blood was starting to ooze through the torn sweaty fabric of my shirt.”

Taylor ordered shots to be fired and – shocked by a deafening volley from the Lee Enfield .303s - the warriors fled into surrounding bush, bar one who again tried his luck only to have his leg pinned to a fallen tree by a police bayonet. Upon Taylor’s instruction he was let go.

At 22, the young patrol officer had undergone a baptism of fire and won a scar he would carry for life. But, in all, it was a fortunate encounter for Taylor – for nobody had been killed.

This spared him from what would have been an unfriendly inquest by his superiors, whose standing instructions included the imperative to “never shoot first – and don’t shoot at all unless your own life is threatened”, an injunction interpreted by hardened Kiaps as ‘don’t shoot until you’re dead’.

Taylor’s patrol was the first post-war foray into this uncontrolled and dangerous area, and he was highly commended for its conduct.

After further service on the Indonesian border, in the Kokoda area and training as a magistrate, Taylor was appointed to headquarters at Konedobu in Port Moresby as supervisor of patrol officer training.

Then, in 1958, after 10 years as a Kiap, Taylor had a major shift in vocation, joining the ABC in Port Moresby to head up its multi-lingual broadcasting service. Thereafter his career progressed steadily before he retired as the ABC’s general manager for South Australia in 1987.

However, his colonial experience remained the defining part of his life, as it did for many of those young Australians who served in Papua New Guinea during its formative years as a nation.

Taylor has written a splendid book in graceful prose. His narrative skilfully and evocatively blends history, adventure and humour with the story of Papua New Guinea’s coming of age.

And as you might expect, it also provides significant insights into the demanding challenges of the Kiap – ‘ol narapela kain man ia’ as they were referred to in Pidgin. A different breed!