Now a video record of an historic moment
14 December 2020
MAX UECHTRITZ
SYDNEY - "Without Richard and Phebe Parkinson, we would be strangers in our own land."
These words were spoken by the wonderful Papua New Guinean historian Gideon Kakabin in our first conversation and formed the basis for our enduring friendship and shared passion for history.
My Danish great grandfather Richard Parkinson published his famed tome Thirty Years in the South Seas in 1907.
It was in German (Dreissig Jahre in Der Südsee) because that was the language of then German New Guinea which encompassed a great swathe of the Pacific.
In 1999 ‘Thirty’ was finally published in English after decades of difficult translation effort - and the book was launched in Sydney by Papua New Guinea's Lady Aivu Tauvasa.
For my father - Alfred Max Parkinson Uechtritz - it was a memorable event he'd yearned for all his life.
He was a proud special guest as he put the record straight about how critical to the book were the efforts of his grandmother Phebe.
The book is described as "a magisterial guide to the region", "a massive and authoritative ethnography", "unparalleled in the literature of the Bismarck Archipelago" and "an incomparable picture a time and place now long lost".
This video is a record of that day, a testament to the Parkinsons and my father who left this world on this day in 2008.
For my father - Alfred Max Parkinson Uechtritz - it was a memorable event he'd yearned for all his life.
He was a proud special guest as he put the record straight about how critical to the book were the efforts of his grandmother Phebe.
This video is a record of that day, a testament to the Parkinsons and to honour my father who left this world on this day in 2008.
You can see Max’s video of this event on his Facebook page here
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