PNGAF MAG ISSUE # 10 - B - PNG FOREST EDUCATION Part 2 of 6 Parts. Dr John Davidson's Journey.

FROM FORESTRY CADET TO FORESTRY PROFESSOR

Memories of Youth and Living and Working in

Papua New Guinea

John Davidson

(Part 2)

PART 3

PART 5

FORESTRY CADET

Career-wise I began to pursue two quite different avenues. One was as a pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), the other some occupation in New Guinea. The former stemmed from an interest in the history of flying including aircraft used in WW I and WW II, and a passion for making model aircraft. The latter had firmed up following my dad’s increasing willingness to more openly discuss some of his wartime experiences in New Guinea. In February 1961, I applied for training as a pilot in the RAAF. I was successful in reaching the stages of interview and aptitude testing by RAAF Recruiting in Sydney in early March 1961, but was not among the final few recruits selected for flight training.1

Application for Cadet Forest Officer in the Public Service of Papua and New Guinea

Attention then immediately turned exclusively to New Guinea. An application was made in early March 1961 to the Department of Territories Canberra for one of the several advertised positions of Patrol Officer. By return mail I was advised that new recruitment of Patrol Officers had been suspended indefinitely. I then applied for one of the advertised positions of Assistant Forest Ranger. The Department of Territories replied that applicants for Assistant Forest Ranger positions must be at least 21 years of age but under 26 years, so I was not eligible for consideration on the criterion of age. The same letter however did advise that:

“It is expected that vacancies for Cadet Forest Officers will be advertised about July/August. Applicants to be eligible must be male British subjects, under 24 years of age who are undergraduates of or matriculants to an Australian University.” A careers handbook issued under the authority of the then Australian Minister for Territories the Hon P Hasluck MP was also enclosed, wherein the work of Forest Officers, their training

1 The RAAF was still downsizing after WW II and the Korean War and Australia had not then become involved in Vietnam, so there was only a requirement for a very small number of new pilots and recruitment from a very large number of applicants was highly competitive.

under a Cadetship and opportunities for advancement were explained briefly.

These conditions I was able to meet. Mid–July came and went. Not being aware of any advertisements, I wrote again to the Department of Territories, Canberra on 17 July 1961. The Department replied on 26 July that vacancies would be advertised on 29 July with applications closing 26 August and that my name would be included for consideration. The vacancies for Cadet Forest Officers were indeed advertised as promised, and I made a formal application dated 3 August, which was acknowledged as having been received in a letter dated 8 August from the Secretary of the Department (then C R Lambert).

Almost identical advertisements offering Papua and New Guinea Cadetships appeared in the Australian press in 1961 and 1962. Of particular note for the time were the varying age, gender, marital status and nationality discriminations evident among the different occupations. The Cadetship programme was phased out from 1963. Permanent appointment of expatriates to the Territory Public Service ceased in September 1964.

The Secretary Department of Territories Canberra wrote again on 25 September 1961 stating that I had been selected for interview for the position of Cadet Forest Officer in the Public Service of Papua and New Guinea. I was to report to the Department of Territories, 4th Floor, Commonwealth Offices, 5 Hickson Road (off George Street North), Sydney on Tuesday 10 October at 1.45 PM with a completed Personal Particulars Form and original Birth Certificate and Certificate of Qualifications. A travel warrant was enclosed for the return flight from Kempsey to Sydney. I attended the interview as requested.

While I was in Sydney for my interview in October 1961, there was time to ascend the nearby southeast tower of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to view and photograph an early stage in the controversial construction of the Sydney Opera House. Started in 1959, it was expected to take four years to build and cost $7 million. It ended up taking 14 years to build and cost $102 million, largely funded through an “Opera House Lottery”. Queen Elizabeth II opened it in 1973, ten years later than originally envisaged!

The Secretary wrote on 7 December 1961 informing me that my name had been included on the final panel from which a selection would be made. However, this letter also informed me that the penalty

under the bond applicable to a Cadetship had been raised from a maximum of £1,000 to £1,7502 and I was requested to confirm that I was still interested in being considered for appointment on this new basis, which I did.

On 11 December, the Secretary wrote again, stating that I should undergo a medical and chest x-ray examination and should contact the Postmaster at Kempsey, who would make the necessary arrangements. It was stressed in the letter that a satisfactory report would not necessarily mean that a Cadetship appointment had been approved. The medical was undertaken in mid-December 1961.

Time drifted away. On 24 January 1962 the Secretary wrote to state that a final decision regarding my Cadetship application had not yet been made. It was suggested that an enrolment be made at a university of my choice so that in the event of being selected for appointment there would be no obstacle to undertaking a course.

A handwritten note at the bottom of the letter gave the address of the Registrar, University of Sydney. I immediately sent in enrolment forms for both the University of Sydney and the University of New England, Armidale.3 The latter was favoured because it was closer to home and located in a more familiar rural setting. Since timing was becoming critical, I again wrote to the Department of Territories, Canberra on 13 February 1962 regarding the application for the Cadetship. Coincidently, a telegram

2 This was a huge increase at the time, the new figure being some three times the annual salary being offered to 18-year-old Cadets while training. It was also equivalent then to over one-eighth of the official valuation of all the land and improvements for the farm at Clybucca! Before 1966 the imperial system of monetary units operated in Australia and Papua and New Guinea. One pound (£1) = 20 shillings = 240 pence. On the introduction of decimal currency on 14 February 1966 one Australian pound became 2 Australian dollars ($2).

3 In 1962 there were only 10 universities in Australia: University of Sydney NSW, University of Melbourne Vic , University of Adelaide SA, University of Tasmania Tas , University of Queensland Q, University of Western Australia WA, Australian National University ACT, University of New South Wales NSW, University of New England NSW and Monash University Vic. The University of New England was inaugurated in 1954, so was only eight years old when I started my studies there.

from the Secretary arrived at home in Clybucca later that same day advising me that my application was successful and that the University of New England (UNE) had accepted my enrolment.

At this time the Forestry Cadetship required two years of study in appropriate science subjects at an Australian University, a field year with the Department of Forests in Papua and New Guinea, followed by two years at the Australian Forestry School in Yarralumla, Canberra, at the time administered by the Commonwealth Forestry and Timber Bureau, i.e., a total of five years. The qualifications achieved would be a Bachelor of Science from the university attended, plus a Diploma of Forestry from the Australian Forestry School (that is a BSc Dip For qualification). The universities differed in their level of enthusiasm and support for this arrangement.4

The Secretary wrote on the 19 February 1962 confirming the decision of granting a Cadetship at the University of New England and attached a Letter of Appointment and Cadetship Agreement, which set out the conditions of employment with the Public Service of Papua and New Guinea. These papers were signed by me with my father as Surety and witnessed by the family solicitor in Kempsey on 20 February 1962, then immediately mailed back to Canberra.

Of particular note on page 2 of the Agreement was clause (d):

“the course of training which the cadet is to undergo consists of a period of five years’ training as a Cadet Forest Officer and the passing of certain examinations determined by the Commissioner”.

and, clause (e):

“the Commissioner has determined that the examinations to be passed by the Cadet are examinations for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Forestry and Commonwealth Diploma in Forestry, at the University of New England and the Australian Forestry School in Canberra.”5

These clauses later proved crucial in negotiations to undertake a Science Degree majoring in Botany at the UNE, the conversion from a Forestry Diploma to a Forestry Degree and extending the Forestry Degree by several months to complete an Honours add-on, all without exceeding the five years of training originally set down in the Agreement.

4 Victoria was not a participant, since it had already established a forestry school at Creswick, linked to the University of Melbourne. The other Australian universities, who were associated with the Australian Forestry School, also about this time began to express dissatisfaction with the arrangement whereby they were granting degrees to students over whom the only academic or administrative influence they had in the final two years of the degree was a tenuous one through the Board of Higher Education, particularly as the students spent those two years in a government department (since the Forestry and Timber Bureau, of which the Australian Forestry School formed the Division of Education, was administered as such by the Commonwealth Government).

5 Both these clauses were overtaken later by the then unforeseen introduction of a Department of Forestry at the Australian National University (ANU), which absorbed the Australian Forestry School (AFS). This meant a Diploma of Forestry eventually would not be available, and the future qualification would be a four-year degree of Bachelor of Science (Forestry), with all four years of tertiary study eventually available at the ANU. However, my view was that the Agreement I signed was for a five-year Cadetship overall and for study at two different venues, UNE Armidale and AFS (=Department of Forestry ANU) Canberra and that arrangement should still apply.

The Secretary Department of Territories’ letter of 19 February 1962 approving my appointment as Cadet Forest Officer, with my signed acceptance dated 20 February 1962 (left) and the first of seven pages of the formal Cadetship Agreement of the same date (right)

Pages 2 to 7 of the Agreement dated 20 February 1962. Of note was the higher Security bond of £1,750 and the period served under the bond was to be five years in the Public Service, Territory of Papua and New Guinea from the date of the Cadet’s completion of studies and promotion to Forest Officer.

Brief announcement of my Cadetship was published in the Macleay Argus, Kempsey, 20 February 1962. The reporter referred to the “University of Armidale” rather than the correct title “University of New England”.

Cadetship: The University of New England 1962

Meanwhile, urgent action was required to pack and travel by road to the University of New England in Armidale to enrol, since Orientation Week was scheduled for Monday 26 February to Sunday 4 March 1962.

There were two road routes available to Armidale from Clybucca. One was to proceed south on the Pacific Highway to Kempsey then follow a narrow winding unsealed gravel road up the Macleay River to Walcha on the New England Tablelands. Often, frequent landslides blocked this road. From Walcha a bitumen road led to Uralla then in to Armidale from the south on the New England Highway. The other route was to proceed north on the Pacific Highway to Raleigh just past Urunga, then turn inland through Bellingen and follow the steep and winding road up the Dorrigo Mountain to Dorrigo, then on to Ebor and in to Armidale from the east. The road up the Dorrigo Mountain was also prone to blockages by landslides, and the then low-level bridge across the Bellinger River at Thora at the base of the climb was also often covered by floodwater. The road from just southwest of Dorrigo was at the time mainly unsealed and included several single-lane bridges, but progressive upgrading to bitumen and two-lane bridges was underway.6 The latter route was chosen, with a refueling and rest stop at Ebor.

I was duly delivered by road to the UNE by my dad in the family’s Ford Customline on Sunday 25 February 1962. He then had to turn around immediately and head back to Clybucca in time for evening milking, leaving me, and my luggage, in the care of Allan Spinaze, a student Co-Director of Orientation. Later Adrian Allen organized my transport with my luggage into town.

6 This road upgrade continued throughout the time I attended the University of New England and was not completed until the late 1960s. Nevertheless, each of the 18 road trips to and from the University in Armidale over the three years 1962 – 1964 inclusive was undertaken over more and more upgraded and sealed road and more new two-lane bridges that replaced the old single-lane ones

I was assigned to Room “K” in “Beta” one of the Robb College town houses which was located at 158 Beardy Street. This Street was then part of the New England Highway through Armidale and was busy and noisy. Jim McAlpine, a resident postgraduate student and tutor was in charge of the house.

The north face of “Beta House” in Beardy Street Armidale, and my study desk in Room “K” in 1962, a relatively large room which also contained a bed and wardrobe. The room had an open fireplace that was forbidden to use. There were several communal toilet/bathroom areas located elsewhere in the house, which had a rather rambling floor plan.

At the time the UNE Chancellor was Dr P A Wright and the ViceChancellor was Mr R B Madgwick. There were four residential colleges at the UNE at the beginning of 1962. Two, Mary White and Duval, were womens’ colleges and two, Robb and Wright, were mens’ colleges. Robb College comprised an accommodation block on campus plus a number of “town houses” leased by the University in Armidale city. Meals were provided at The Bevery, a kitchen and dining block located on the main campus just north of Booloominbah and about 50 m west of the entrance to the then relatively new Dixon Library. For residents of the town houses to take their meals in The Bevery there was a free bus service contracted to Edwards Bus Service before breakfast and after dinner on weekdays and before and after breakfast lunch and dinner during the weekend and public holidays.

Ready for the start of my University days, March 1962.

For the student residents of the town houses to attend lectures on campus, a free bus service circulated around the town houses and departed through a stop in the city centre at a quarter to the hour every hour to arrive at the University on the hour from 9.00 AM to 5.00 PM on weekdays during term time.

From the morning of 26 February, I joined in the Orientation Programme. First item was the purchase from the Student Representative Council of a second-hand green academic gown for £4 ($8). Next was to learn of the subjects required for the first year of the course. These were Chemistry IB, Physics I (Elementary), Botany I and Zoology I. Text books required were the next consideration. The necessary Physics book was purchased second hand for 75 shillings ($7.50). A third hand Organic Chemistry book was bought for 6 shillings (60 cents). A College Chemistry book that I had during high school and kept coincidently was the prescribed book for Chemistry. An essential Willis’ Dictionary of Flowering Plants and Ferns was bought new for 49/9 (about $5).

Orientation lasted through to Sunday 4 March. Lectures were to start on Monday 5 March 1962, which therefore became the commencement date for the Cadetship Agreement and the seniority and service start date for my subsequent career in the Public Service of Papua and New Guinea.

The starting salary, according to the Secretary’s letter of 4 April 1962 (left), was £878 ($1,756) gross. The same letter also advised that the Department of Territories was trying to implement a scheme whereby cadets were to be issued with a warrant to pay for the fees for which the Department was responsible. Although the UNE had accepted this scheme, not all other universities had done so, so the scheme could not be implemented in 1962. First Term fees therefore had to be paid by the Cadet and immediate reimbursement sought from the Department.

All UNE students back then were required to join a private health fund as a condition of enrolment

Dixon Library (left) and Student Union building (right) at the UNE in 1962. The Union building had a shop at the left hand end run by Richardsons of Armidale. Adjacent was a Servery, leased to Lloyd Menzies, which provided refreshments for Union members, and a general common room where films were screened on Saturday nights. I helped out as projectionist on those nights.

(Medicare did not start in Australia until 1 February 1984).

Orientation Week Programme at UNE for Monday 26 February to Sunday 4 March 1962.

Freshers versus Freshettes Orientation Football Match March 1962. The Match experienced several interruptions for dunkings in the adjacent creek. There were liberal applications of flour, coloured dye, lipstick and boot polish to players of both sides during the game, which eventually seemed to come to an end without a winner, or loser!

Left: Lake Madgwick in the foreground, and Mary White College, UNE in 1962. Right: Feeding a deer in Deer Park on the University campus 1962

First year students travelled on an excursion to the Blue Hole for a swim and barbecue on Thursday afternoon and evening of 1 March 1962.

The academic year comprised three Terms with Annual Examinations conducted at the end of Third Term. There was a saying that a student should have started intensive study for the examinations by the time the wisteria came into bloom (September) and, when the roses flowered (early November), it was too late!

The academic day started at 9.05 am, lunch was from 1-2 PM. Lectures were 55 minutes long, starting at five minutes past the hour and ending on the hour, mostly in the morning. Laboratory practical sessions were usually in the afternoon from 2-6 PM. The Forestry course requirements meant there were laboratory sessions four afternoons each week (Physics, Chemistry, Botany and Zoology). Because of the generally large first year classes the laboratory sessions were held in a common laboratory in a weatherboard building up the hill from the Union. An assigned bench place for each student had a lockable cupboard, which held a binocular microscope, a monocular microscope with a three-lens turret, a lamp and some other basic equipment and glassware, which was used across all subjects. Students were required to have their own basic dissection kit to be used for Botany and Zoology. Similarly, a large general lecture theatre was used for lectures. Zoology practical sessions mainly comprised dissections, one during each Semester, of a cockroach, a frog (actually a cane toad) and a rat.

Geology Department at the UNE in 1962.

Left: Botany Department. Right: Faculty of Rural Science at the UNE in 1962.

The University in the early sixties had a strict academic dress code. Green gowns had to worn by all to lectures, seminars, interviews with staff and formal meals. Men students were required to wear a coat and tie with the gown. A gold coloured bar was worn on the left lapel of the gown to identify a first year student. An additional bar was added for each subsequent year of studies. White lab coats were compulsory for laboratory sessions.

I was involved in parachuting with the University Parachuting Club and helped show the University Union’s Saturday night films as a projectionist. For the latter I received a small honorarium from the Union.

In May 1962 Australia announced its first military participation in the war in Vietnam with the commitment of 30 military advisers.

A letter from the Secretary Department of Territories informed me that the Department’s Senior Training Officer Mr T R Rossall would be visiting Armidale on Friday 17 August 1962. A meeting took place with Mr Rossall. I was informed of a number of changes being made to both Forestry and Agriculture Cadetships. One was that there would no longer be a field year spent in the Territory. Second, Cadet Forest Officers would not be sent to the Territory for vacation employment at the end of their first year.

Mr Rossall hosted a film evening from 7.30 PM in the Union when films on Papua and New Guinea were screened for the Cadets and friends.

On 6 September 1962 I received a letter from the Secretary of the Department of Territories informing me that after the first six months of my probationary service, I would be required to contribute to the Superannuation Fund based on 17 units of pension at a rate for age 19 next birthday and a retiring age of 60 years. At that time each unit of pension was worth £45.10.0 ($91) per annum.

On 11 September I wrote to the Secretary about the decision not to send Cadet Forest Officers to the Territory at the end of their first year. The case was put that such fieldwork was essential, especially since the field year at the end of second year also had been deleted. The Secretary wrote back to me on 25 September reiterating the new position on vacation employment, but that my letter would be referred to the Public Service Commissioner for his consideration.

All this was around the time of the Cuban missile crisis!

On 15 October the Secretary wrote again to notify that the Public Service Commissioner advised as follows:

“Mr Davidson can be gainfully employed by the Department of Forests during the vacation period, however, the cost of fares to and from the Territory will be his own responsibility.”

Since the airfares Kempsey – Sydney – Port Moresby and return were more than what was left over from the Cadetship after living expenses had been paid to the University, I was unable to finance the trip to Papua and New Guinea and so advised the Secretary. Instead, I approached the Forest Office of the NSW Forestry Commission at West Kempsey to arrange alternative vacation employment.

The Secretary wrote on 3 December 1962 that the arrangements made were “very satisfactory” and that he had sent a letter to the Forest Office West Kempsey confirming that the employment with them was approved and that my salary would be paid by the Department of Territories. The bottom half of the Secretary’s letter was in fact erroneous, seemingly part of a standard form letter that would be sent to a person proceeding to Port Moresby. There was however interesting information given in it on the then costs of living

in the Territory: staying in an Administration hostel in a main centre £5.2.6 ($5.25) per week for full board and lodging, and on outstations as a guest of a resident Administration officer one would be expected to pay a minimum of 35 shillings ($3.50) per day plus 2 to 10 shillings (20c to $1) per day to cover an air freight allowance, depending on the locality. In addition, there was mention of a permit to enter the Territory being enclosed, but it was not. The Secretary wrote again on 7 December enclosing the permit, which, given the circumstances, was not required.

Cadetship: Vacation Employment 1962-63

The West Kempsey Forest Office assigned me to work on TSI (Timber Stand Improvement) in Tamban State Forest not far from my home in Clybucca (map at left).

At the time, TSI involved thinning eucalypt regrowth to favour future timber trees and cutting out competing understorey species such as Casuarina spp and Acacia spp and poisoning the stumps to prevent regrowth.

I passed my four first-year subjects (Chemistry IB, Physics I (Elementary), Botany I and Zoology I).

I wrote to the Secretary about payment for this period of vacation employment and was pleased to note in the Secretary’s reply of 27 February 1963 that an age increment had become due on my 19th birthday (in December 1962) and that, on my return to UNE for the 1963 academic year, and including recreation leave credit taken, my cadetship salary would be resumed without a break in continuity of service.

Cadetship: The University of New England 1963

1963 was a significant year in Australia. It marked the official celebrations for the 175th Anniversary of Australia. Queen Elizabeth II visited Australia from 18 February to 27 March and officiated at the Canberra Jubilee celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the naming of Canberra as the Nation’s capital.

On return to UNE I was assigned to a different town house called “Esrom” at 164 Mann Street Armidale. This house had a resident housekeeper. Meanwhile, the University mens’ town houses had been incorporated into a new Earle Page College, with Mr Albert Bussel as Master.

photographs

In late March 1963, just after beginning my second year at UNE (left, with a second bar for my gown), I met Gloria Burgess 18 (right), who at the time had just graduated from TAFE Armidale and recently was assigned to the Botany Department as Departmental Secretary.7 The Professor of Botany at the time was Prof N C W

7 Though I did not know it at the time, Gloria was to become my future wife! The following almost three-year-long romance between Gloria and I before our marriage was in essence a workplace courtship between a student and a staff member of the UNE Botany Department. Work place romantic associations now seem out of favour among politicians and society at large, to be avoided at all costs,

Beadle.

Top left and right: “Esrom”, 164 Mann Street, Armidale, 1963. Bottom left and right: My room in “Esrom” that was shared with another student in the other half of the room to the right of these

Second year courses for forestry at UNE in the beginning of 1963 comprised Science Botany II, Agronomy (Forestry) and Mycology & Microbiology.

The annual Armidale Festival was celebrated 24-30 March 1963. A special slogan was used on Armidale Post Office stamp franking machines. The cost of posting an ordinary letter at the time was 5 pence (less than 5 cents!).

University students participated in a street parade of floats on flatbed trucks and other entries on foot.

UNE students participate in the Armidale Festival Parade in 1963. Top left: “CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS”, Top right: “UNITED NATIONS PEACE MISSION TO NEW ENGLAND, Fresh from the Congo”, Bottom left: “COUNTRY PARTY YOUNGER SET”, Bottom right: “BLUE ARGUS, BUTTS and GREEN THUMBS”, caricatures of notable locals. “2BAD” refers to the local radio station “2AD”!

and be deplored when they occur! Nevertheless, it was the start of an enduring relationship for us that has lasted over 57 years. We probably never would have met each other outside the Botany Department at the UNE!

Mr P G Lonsdale a member of the Department of Territories Training Staff in Canberra visited UNE in May 1963. He met with me at 10.30 AM in a room near the Registrar’s office. The voucher scheme for direct university fee payment was still not in operation. However, a cheque for £36 ($72) for reimbursement of First Term fees had been received.

The Minister for Territories Mr Paul Hasluck wrote on 6 June 1963 informing me that, following the successful completion of my probationary period, my appointment to the Public Service of Papua and New Guinea had been confirmed. Mr W R Suttie, then Director, Department of Forests, followed this up with a letter dated 16 July 1963 in similar vein.

In late July 1963, I became unwell with an infection in an existing sebaceous cyst on the back of my neck. In a doctor’s surgery on Friday 26 July, under local anesthetic, an incision was made to insert a gauze plug to drain the affected site. A course of antibiotics was started. This all happened at a critical time during the University year, but I managed to sit a three-hour Botany practical exam on the following

morning, Saturday. The gauze plug was removed on the Monday 29 July, but the eventually healed-over benign cyst remained hidden under a layer of skin.8

Winter 1963 was particularly cold in Armidale. A significant fall of snow occurred over three days in July. Earlier, down at Clybucca in the Macleay Valley, there was another “minor” flood.

8 A second operation was performed in Canberra seven years later to completely remove all traces of the cyst.

Left: Armidale city under a carpet of snow in July 1963, viewed looking south from the North Hill Lookout. Right: Snow on the same day at the Burgess property “Harewood”, about 4 miles (6.5 km) west of Armidale, along the Bundarra Road.

The Lower Macleay flood of 1963, though classed as “minor”, caused significant inundation (light blue on the map at left) that was not contained by the flood mitigation measures in place at the time (also shown on the map). The photographs on the previous page show the Clybucca family home and nearby areas just short of the flood peak.

Above: The University Co-operative Bookshop Ltd headquartered at the University of Sydney opened a branch at the UNE in 1963, enabling good discounts on new textbooks.

On 6 August 1963 Mr Rossall wrote that he would be visiting UNE again at the end of Term 2 to discuss study progress and answer any questions. He met with me at 2.00 PM on 12 August just prior to my departure on a major Botany excursion to the north coast of NSW during 16-19 August. Mr Rossall informed that the new system for payment of Cadets’ university fees direct to the University was ready to be introduced at last (letters on bottom of previous page). Films on Papua and New Guinea again were screened in the Union from 7.30 PM.

The new system for payment was formally notified by the Secretary Department of Territories in a letter dated 15 August 1963.

A Botany II Excursion was undertaken 16-19 August 1963. The aim was to:

“Illustrate and explain the altitudinal sequence of vegetation and soils in North-Eastern New South Wales”.

Also, students were to take the opportunity to collect and press plant specimens to add to their personal herbarium. A herbarium collection of at least 40 correctly pressed, dried, mounted and identified specimens submitted at the end of the year was a requirement of the Botany II course. I submitted an illustrated 55-page report on the excursion on 1 September, and added 75 specimens, including 20 eucalypts, to my herbarium collection.

Botany II Excursion, 16-19 August 1963. Above: The route taken (distances shown in miles: 1 mile = 1.61 km). Two nights were spent in an Urunga Motel. Right: The students in the rainforest at Dorrigo. Paul Ryan in dark top and light trousers is at the centre rear of the group. Just over Paul’s right shoulder is the Lecturer in charge of the excursion, J B Williams.

The issue of employment in Papua and New Guinea for the upcoming long vacation was raised again with the Secretary, Department of Territories. The reply was the same as for the previous year: Cadets would be required to pay their own fares to and from the Territory. I again commenced enquiries to work instead with the Forestry Commission of NSW Office in Kempsey to which the Secretary agreed in his letter of 26 August 1963.

However, an Officer from the Department of Forests, Konedobu, contacted me by telegram informing me that the Director of the Department insisted that I come to the Territory for the long vacation and that my fares would be paid. I wrote to the Secretary, Department of Territories on 2 September informing him of the advice received from Forests Headquarters in Papua and New Guinea and that the proposed vacation placement in the Forestry Commission of NSW, Kempsey District was therefore no longer required.

Six weeks later I wrote again on 12 November about my impending vacation employment in the Territory requesting information on what arrangements should be made from my end. I filled out and sent to Canberra a Department of Territories questionnaire on vacation employment arrangements.

A booking had been made by the Department of Territories Canberra for me to travel by air from Sydney to Port Moresby departing on the evening of Tuesday 3 December 1963.

My year’s end examinations at UNE were on Wednesday 23 and Thursday 31 October, Monday 18 November and Friday 22 November. Then packing up for the trip home was started. I travelled home to Clybucca by road on Saturday 23 November, the day that Australians heard that the President of the United States John F Kennedy had been assassinated on 22 November (the actual date in the USA was a day earlier because Australia lies west of the International Date Line). I quickly packed for the trip to the Territory and flew from Kempsey to Sydney on Monday 25 November to stay at my grandmother’s place at 6 Bellbrook Avenue Hornsby, where my air tickets and Entry Permit had been sent, there not having been time to post them to Clybucca.

Cadetship: Vacation employment in Papua and New Guinea December 1963 to February 1964

On the day of my departure from Sydney, Gloria sent me the news by telegram that I had achieved first place in the Science Botany II examinations at UNE.

About 10 PM on Tuesday 3 December 1963, I left Sydney for Port Moresby on an Ansett-ANA DC6B.9

An Ansett-ANA DC-6B “Skymaster”, a fourengined, propeller-driven aircraft that operated the Sydney - Brisbane - Port Moresby - Lae and return route in the early 1960s.

9 From August 26 1965, four-engined prop-jet Lockheed Electras replaced the DC-6Bs with five services a week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday) shaving nearly two hours off the journey, but leaving Sydney later to arrive in Port Moresby at about the same time in the morning: Dep SYD 11.45 PM, Arr BRI 1.15 AM, Dep BRI 2.00 AM, Arr POM 6.05 AM, Dep POM 6.50 AM, Arr LAE 7.35 AM. After about one-hour turnaround in Lae, the return journey was made back to Sydney in daylight.

After a brief stopover in Brisbane in the middle of the night, the flight took off again and headed north up the coast of Queensland. Out of a right hand window I could see the Whitsunday Islands far below in the moonlight.

The descent began in the early morning light and the aircraft passed from the ocean to cross the coast east of Port Moresby. There was seemingly endless grassland and scattered eucalypt woodland below. At first I thought the flight must have been diverted to northern Queensland during the night, as I was until then unaware of the distinctly non-jungle-like appearance of much of the vegetation around Port Moresby, a similar reaction to that of my soldier father arriving in Port Moresby by ship some 20 years earlier. I landed at 6.30 AM local time, Wednesday 4 December at Jackson’s International Airport.

I was taken by road to downtown Port Moresby and booked into the Hotel Moresby. The room was not air-conditioned, but it did have a fan to stir the hot and humid air around. Solid tin flaps that could be propped open with wooden battens covered the window openings. I found the heat and humidity so

oppressive that I had three cold showers while trying to rest during that first afternoon. Also, a new experience was the convention in the hotel dining room of ordering from the set menu by numbers.

In 1963, the Department of Forests headquarters (HQ) was in timber buildings in Konedobu. The Director was W R (“Bill”) Suttie. The Department was organized into four divisions: Management, Silviculture, Utilisation and Botany. Management and Silviculture Divisions, administrative staff and services such as library and drafting office were housed at Konedobu, while Utilisation was in Hohola and Botany in the grounds of the Botanical Gardens in Lae. Operationally, the Department was organized into three Regions, each administered by a Regional Forest Officer (RFO):

Papuan Region (RFO based in Port Moresby) with main activities in Mt Lawes Territorial Forest and Brown River Forest Station and with the main planted species Teak;

Port Moresby in 1963. Main intersection downtown with policeman on point duty directing traffic.

Mainland Region (RFO based in Lae) with the primary activities at Bulolo and secondary at Wau, with the main planted species Hoop Pine and Klinkii Pine (The Commonwealth New Guinea Timbers plywood mill/factory in Bulolo was then the largest commercial forest-based operation in the Territory); and,

Island Region (RFO based in Rabaul) with the principal activities at Keravat, with the main planted species Kamarere and Teak, and some Balsa.

Most of the Forest Officers and technical staff were assigned to support operations at Brown River, Bulolo and Keravat. They, like me and Paul Ryan, mostly had been recruited as Cadets and graduated from the Australian Forestry School in Canberra.10

At the Department of Forests headquarters (HQ) on the day after I had arrived, Thursday 5 December, it was learned that myself, and Paul Ryan, would be sent to Bulolo in Morobe Province. Briefing continued at HQ, Konedobu, on the morning of Friday 6 December and arrangements made to travel to Bulolo. After lunch there was an opportunity to take some photographs around town and to do some shopping.

One fascination at the time was that a Burns Philp cargo ship was in port, and for most of the time I was in the Hotel Moresby I could see a continual stream of thousands of cardboard boxes containing empty stubby bottles for South Pacific Lager being unloaded individually by hand and fed down a narrow conveyor belt on to trucks waiting on the wharf.

More of Port Moresby in 1963. Left: Hotel Moresby, also called “The Bottom Pub”, where I spent my first few nights in the Territory. Right: Commonwealth Bank corner. The then Commonwealth Bank is on the corner on the right.

10 Under Paul Hasluck, Minister for Territories in the Menzies Government, there was an accelerated effort to recruit Cadets across a number of professional disciplines from 1961 through 1963, during and following a United Nations Trusteeship Council Mission to TP&NG headed by Sir Hugh Foot to examine the economic, social and political development in the then Trust Territory of New Guinea. The 1962 Report of that Mission (the “Foot Report”) recommended that the Australian Government move immediately to prepare the Territory for “self-determination”. Among the other recommendations was one to assess the TP&NG forest resources to determine the contribution that they might make to national economic development.

I had dinner with Paul Ryan and his parents on the Saturday evening. On Sunday, Paul and I travelled to Rouna Falls, Sirinumu Dam and Sogeri. I was able to visit a site near where my father had camped some 20 years earlier during WW II. Later, a visit was made also to the Bomana War Cemetery (photographs next page).

construction of the Sirinumu Dam on the Upper Laloki River was completed in 1963. The eucalypts died progressively soon after their root systems were inundated. There was no attempt in advance to harvest this resource for fuelwood which at the time was in short supply in Port Moresby. Water was piped down the Rouna Gorge to provide hydro-electricity and town water to Port Moresby.

A publication handed to me during my initial briefing meeting with the Director of Forests “Bill” Suttie at Konedobu in December 1963. This 1962 address by him to the Papua and New Guinea Scientific Society was the first contemporary reading material I had seen on the forests and forestry in Papua and New Guinea.

Left: In December 1963 with Paul Ryan I visited the site close to where Donadobu Army Camp was located near present-day Sogeri in 1943 and where my father and other members of the 6 MGB carried out their “jungle training” soon after their arrival in New Guinea. Right: Sirinumu Lake, south of Sogeri, still filling after the

On Monday 9 December, it was time to move to Bulolo. There was no direct flight from Port Moresby into Bulolo on that day of the week. Paul and I were booked to fly into Wau. After takeoff from Jacksons Airport in an Ansett DC3, we flew northeast through a gap in the Owen Stanley Range to the north coast near Popondetta where a left hand turn was made to run up the coast to a point about east of Wau then a sharp turn taken inland. Soon, through the open cockpit door and out through the pilots’ windscreens, a light green clearing could be seen ahead seemingly standing up in front of the aircraft and with a line of little white dots down each side. The aircraft seemed to fly straight at this clearing and at the last minute the wheels touched the grass, sky became visible through the pilots’ windscreens and the tail sank lower and lower as speed was quickly lost. The tail seemed unusually low, even for a tail-wheeled aircraft, as full power was applied to both engines for the last few metres to the end of the strip, and then power applied only to one engine to swing the aircraft through 90 degrees for parking. Only on disembarking, did I learn that the grassed Wau airstrip has a slope of about 10 degrees, could only be landed on in the uphill direction, and the aircraft was parked at the top end facing across the slope to help prevent it rolling away!

Bomana War Cemetery, Port Moresby, 1963.

We Cadets were met by a Landrover and driver sent from Bulolo. From Wau we took the narrow, winding, and somewhat precarious unsealed road down the narrow Bulolo River Gorge, which eventually opened into the wide Bulolo Valley. On the side of the Gorge opposite the road on the way was a near pristine reserve of dense forest with tall emergent Araucaria. This 2,076 ha area had been reserved a year earlier (1962) and was the first nature reserve in the Territory. It was named after a former Director of Forests, J B McAdam.11

Bulolo was, and largely still is, a privatelyowned Company town with full amenities, originally built by Bulolo Gold Dredging Ltd, then a subsidiary of Placer Development. There was an airport, bank, retail stores including Burns Philp and Steamships, bakery, swimming pool, tennis courts, golf, rifle and bowls clubs, a hotel-motel and a picture theatre (screening one night a week).

11 This reserve is now known as the J B McAdam National Park. It features wildlife such as echidnas, cuscuses (large marsupials), cassowaries, birds of paradise and virgin stands of Hoop and Klinkii Pine.

The wide Bulolo Valley in 1963 looking towards Bulolo town and airstrip in the middle distance. Some Hoop and Klinkii Pine plantations are in the foreground, with a thinning operation underway in one of the compartments at middle right

The sloping grass airstrip (left) and town of Wau in 1963, located some 35 km southeast of Bulolo. Towards the bottom right of the photograph, the narrow, unsealed road descends into the Bulolo River Gorge and thence downstream towards Bulolo.

The town had been built to support alluvial gold dredging in the valley. In its heyday seven dredges were in operation, but only one was still operating in 1963 (“No 5”), with one recently retired and still almost intact sitting on dry land (“No. 7”). The last operational dredge was reworking the sediments to a greater depth in selected areas to extract the last of the gold. The coarse detritus thrown up by the dredges formed barren waves along the valley bottom locally referred to as the “rock pile”. The town and the dredges were run by hydroelectricity generated on the nearby Baiune River, which flowed into the Bulolo River downstream of Bulolo.

With the decline in gold mining in the Valley, the Company turned its attention to sawmilling and making plywood from the considerable Hoop and Klinkii Pine resource in the area after forming a new entity called Commonwealth New Guinea Timbers Ltd (CNGT).12 Cattle were also raised by CNGT.

12 Since 1980, PNG Forest Products Pty Ltd.

The last operating dredge in Bulolo in 1963 (“No. 5”). The intake buckets are on the right, the coarse tailings are being discharged by the conveyer to the left producing the characteristic piles of rocks visible behind the dredge. The whole structure floated in a progressively advancing pond and was driven by electricity.

The main street in Bulolo in 1963. Back then the road surface was gravel except for a short bitumen section on a steep grade. Oil was used periodically to suppress dust. In the left photograph is a typical three-bedroom house, in the right a single-officers’ barracks.

The Commonwealth New Guinea Timbers Ltd plywood mill/factory at Bulolo in the1960s. Behind the mill to the left is a prominent Bulolo topographic feature called the “Susus” in Pidgin English (which translates as “a woman’s breasts”). The large Klinkii trees on these hills were not harvested because they contained too much metal shrapnel. Allied pilots on their way back from attacking Japanese positions around Lae and Salamaua used this easily identifiable feature for course correction, target practice, and a safe place to jettison any undelivered bombs before climbing over the gap in the Owen Stanley Range on the way to return to their base in Port Moresby during WW II.

The Officer-in-Charge Bulolo in 1963-64 was Elliot Tuckwell. One notable observation by me was the collection of singed and burnt headware on the wall of the map room in the old office, each exhibit accompanied by the name of the officer who had supervised the annual main compartment burn. Compartment size at the time averaged about 1,000 acres (about 400 ha). I was sent each day to the then current intended planting area to supervise bunking and burning operations.13 When these operations were finished, I supervised the planting of Hoop and Klinkii Pine seedlings in the field for the remainder of my posting. My mentor in the field was Technical Assistant Bert Gloynes, and the government vehicle used in the field in those days was a long wheel base pale blue-grey Landrover. 1963 marked the establishment by the Department of Forests of a Forestry School in Bulolo, beginning with a two-year Certificate course with 13 students. Also at the School, training in six-month long courses for up to 30 students was being provided for Forestry Assistants.

13 “Bunking and burning”: the cutting, gathering and piling up by hand of un-burnt coarse woody debris left after the main broadcast burn and lighting up the piles usually at the end of the working day. The aim was to provide better access for planting. After the burns, sticks of gelignite and “homemade” explosives made from ammonium nitrate fertilizer and diesel fuel were used to blow any remaining large stumps that were infested with termites out of the ground to reduce the chance of termite attack on the freshly planted araucaria seedlings.

On the job, Bulolo, Wednesday 18 December 1963, a few days before my 20th birthday.

Top left: Part of the 1963-64 planting area at Bulolo after bunking and burning. Top right: Planting Klinkii Pine seedlings, which had been raised in metal tubes in a nursery near the Station. Left: Delivery of rations by tip-truck to the cookhouse in the Chimbu labour line camp located in the 1963 planting area. In the background is part of the area shown immediately after bunking and burning and ready for planting. At the top of the photograph is an internal access road with large cut and fill sections. A dormitory block with a corrugated iron roof for the 30 or so labour line, is off to the left.

Given that this was my first Christmas away from home, the posting back to Australia of numerous Christmas Greeting cards with a local theme seemed mandatory.

Two of the Greeting cards I sent home from Bulolo for Christmas 1963.

Pine Lodge Hotel-Motel at Bulolo in 1963. Top left: Main hotel building with reception, dining room, lounges and bars. Top right: Motel style accommodation comprising pairs of units with undercover car parking in the middle of each pair. Left: Haus Win Bar and Lounge in 1963. A feature of the Hotel was the extensive use of decorative plywood paneling and timber flooring of several local tree species. Here the wall behind the bar was New Guinea Walnut (Dracontomelun mangiferum). (The main hotel building shown in the top left photograph was destroyed by fire in the early 1970s.)

The house in which I was billeted as a Cadet in Bulolo late 1963 to early 1964 was occupied by John Travers who was employed by the Forest Station. It was a typical three-bedroom “Company donga”, noted for their monotonous almost identical appearance throughout the town.

At the end of February 1964, I travelled from Bulolo to Port Moresby for debriefing and to prepare a report on my vacation employment with the Department of Forests.

I made one visit from Bulolo to Lae by road in early 1964. These three photographs are of the main street. In the top right hand photograph on the right side at the far end was the Burns Philp store, and in the middle the Theatre Lae. Below I am standing outside the Lae office of the then English and Pidgin language newspapers.

Cadetship: Australian Forestry School (Part 1)

I flew from Port Moresby to Canberra via Brisbane and Sydney on 1 March 1964 ready to start at the Australian Forestry School, Yarralumla, by Monday 2 March, as directed by the Secretary Department of Territories in a letter dated 12 February. However, I ended up never living in the mentioned “Forestry House”.

On arrival at the Forestry School, I was assigned a room in “The Waldorf”, a weatherboard building comprising ten rooms, five each side of a central corridor with toilets and bathroom at one end. This arrangement was necessary to take the overflow from Forestry House, with each batch of up to ten students meant to take a turn for one semester. The Waldorf was in Solander Place, Yarralumla, about a kilometer from the School.

Right: “The Waldorf”, in Solander Place, Yarralumla, in March 1964. This was used to house the overflow of new students that could not be accommodated in Forestry House. Below: My “room”, a very small space containing a bunk and a desk. The walls were caneite, a sugar cane bagasse product about a centimetre thick meant for insulation, above plywood sheeting on the lower half.

Various initiations were inflicted on the new students by the final year students. One was to find one’s way from the Waldorf and across the oval to the pond in front of Forestry House while blindfolded. Because the Waldorf residents already had some sense of the direction and where gaps were in the hedges in front of the oval, the senior students did their best to camouflage the gaps and mislead the new students. On the way hidden coins had to be found.

From the Waldorf to the School blindfolded, an initiation task for new students at the Forestry School in March 1964. Top left: In Solander Place, Paul Ryan shirtless on the right, Top right: Me (left) trying to find a way through the hedge, misdirected by a branch waved in front of me, Middle left: Paul and me (both on the right) still trying to find a way through the hedge, Middle right: The search for coins under one of the sprinklers on the Oval. Bottom left: The search continues under another sprinkler, Bottom right: The end, seated on the edge of the lily pond in front of Forestry House, I search for the last of the hidden coins.

At this time, it was announced formally that the Australian Forestry School would become a Department of Forestry in the Australian National University (ANU). The forestry students immediately set about making a float for the upcoming 1964 Canberra Day procession depicting a “Trojan Horse”, representing the Australian Forestry School, at the “Gate” of the ANU.

complete the construction of the “Trojan Horse” on the tray of a flatbed truck in the car park at the rear of the Forestry School in March 1964. Other four photographs: Float No. 27 “Australian Forestry School” on parade in Civic with the Trojan Horse being pulled into the gate of the ANU by teams of forestry students on two long ropes, encouraged by members of the “Wood Nymphs Society” carrying large wands with a star on the end. Signage included “ANU goes FORESTRY” and “TROY TROY AGAIN” as well as the school latin motto “Mihi Cura Futori” variously translated as “I Care for Posterity” as shown here, but more correctly as “To me the care of the future”.

Top left: Me (on top) and Paul Ryan (underneath) help

March 1964 saw Canberra’s Lake Burley Griffin filling, and soon it was no longer possible to drive directly from the city centre to the Canberra Hospital on Acton Peninsula. The slow filling of the Lake caused much discussion in the local press, including questions asked of the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) that perhaps there were undiscovered fissures in the underlying rock formations that were allowing the water to leak away. When the lake was about three quarters full in March 1964, a regatta featuring power speedboats was held, the last time powerboats (other than water police launches and a slow tourist launch) were allowed on the Lake. The Lake was declared “full” on 29 April 1964. Earlier (reportedly in 1960), Dr Max Jacobs had been called as an expert witness on climatology before the NCDC at an Enquiry into the effects of the then-under-construction Lake Burley Griffin on the microclimate of Canberra. The Judge, somewhat hard of hearing, asked what some of the effects might be, to which Dr Jacobs replied, “There will be more fogs”. The response from the Judge was “Frogs Dr Jacobs?” “No, fogs, Your Honour”!14

Left: In early 1964 much of the area to be occupied by Lake Burly Griffin was still dry. Right: On the day of the regatta in March, the high ground off the tip of Blue Gum Point, now a small island, was still joined to the mainland in front of Stirling Park (the area of trees in the background). The double ended arrows in both photographs mark the planned final water level.

The last time speedboat racing was permitted on Lake Burly Griffin when it was about three quarters full in March 1964. Right: Black Mountain Peninsula and Black Mountain are in the background.

14 Related by Ian Bevege (2010) during The Maxwell Ralph Jacobs Memorial Oration in 2009. See Australian Forestry, 73:3:140-155. According to this same source, Max Jacobs also had a strong interest in forest botany. As a measure of his dedication to this subject, when Captain Jacobs of 1 Command, Royal Australian Engineers, was posted to New Guinea during WW II to join the embryonic forest service under Major James Banister (Jim) McAdam (after the War, the first Director of the Department of Forests, Territories of Papua and New Guinea), he had room in his kit for only one reference book: J C Willis’ Dictionary of Flowering Plants and Ferns, Sixth Edition 1931, Cambridge University Press. This was the same reference book used by me throughout my undergraduate botany studies, and still used by me today, albeit a fifth reprint made of that same Sixth Edition and published in 1960!

March 1964 also threw up a dilemma for me. I was notified of gaining a Distinction in Botany II at UNE, and formally advised in a letter dated 10 March from the Registrar of the UNE, T C Lamble, that I had been awarded the Professor Beadle Prize for Botany II on the basis of the annual examinations in 1963. At the same time, on the back of this excellent result, the Botany Department of the UNE offered me a fast track Bachelor of Science Degree from the UNE if I would immediately undertake a double major in Botany (Botany IIIA and Botany III – Special) in 1964, with the balance of points required for the Degree made up with Agricultural Geology and Soil Science, a second year course offered in the Faculty of Rural Science.

The dilemma was that if I accepted the University offer, I would have to leave the Australian Forestry School to go to the UNE forthwith, with the certainty that by the next year (1965) when I returned to Canberra and with the prospect of not graduating from there until the end of 1966, the Diploma in Forestry would be no longer available. Also, the extra year in Armidale would be on study leave without pay, though continuity of service would not be affected, the year being deemed by the Public Service Commissioner at my request a replacement of the field year specified in the five-year Cadetship Agreement. As well, at the time, the Division of Botany of the Papua and New Guinea Forestry Department in Lae was actively seeking to recruit qualified botanists, offering a path for me to complete a Bachelor of Science Degree majoring in Botany from the UNE at the end of 1964, then to proceed

Left: Black Mountain Peninsula in the background, and where the spectators are sitting and standing on the knoll became a small island off Blue Gum Point after the Lake filled. Right: Regatta spectators.

immediately after to Papua and New Guinea, without returning to the Australian Forestry School in 1965. I opted to leave Canberra just after classes began there in 1964 and just after the Canberra Day Parade featuring the “Trojan Horse”, and returned to Armidale via Sydney by (steam) train.

Cadetship: University of New England 1964

Although classes were already underway in Armidale, my late enrolments in Botany IIIA (the “A” standing for “Advanced”), and Botany III – Special, were accepted by the Faculty of Science, UNE.

During 1964, I was housed in yet another “town house” called “Kendall” at 88 Beardy Street, near the eastern end of the main east-west street in Armidale. The College was still Earle Page. The bus arrangement was as before. The main component of the Botany III – Special course was the requirement to complete a piece of original research over the course of the year and submit a “mini-thesis” at the end of it. At the end of Term 1 a topic had been decided: “The Effect of Certain Eucalypt Species on the ReDistribution of Nutrients in the Poorer Surface Soils of the Pilliga Region”. The work was to be undertaken under the supervision of Dr Jim Charley. Soils analyses were to be carried out by me in the Botany Department soils laboratory.

The thesis project was started on 9 April 1964. The working hypothesis was that a pattern of soil properties under single forest trees developed over time with radial symmetry to the tree, and varying with distance from the trunk. Over time there would develop a systematic change in pH, exchangeable bases, exchange capacity, nitrogen and phosphorus content according to how far away from the trunk the property was measured. Further, it was expected that this pattern could best be demonstrated among widely spaced eucalypt trees on poor sandy surface soils.

The Pilliga Forest Region was chosen for the study. This area is located between Narrabri and Coonabarabran in western NSW (map). The effect of Eucalyptus rossii, E. sideroxylon, E. trachyphloia

Students enrolled in Botany IIIA and Botany III –Special in front of the Botany Department at the UNE in 1964. I am seated centre front.

and E. albens trees on the redistribution of nutrients and the development of the postulated pattern of soil properties was chosen for study on some areas of sandy solodised and solonised soils of the Pilliga. A field trip was undertaken over several days, accompanied by Dr Charley, and working from a base in Narrabri. Surface (0 - 10 cm depth) soil samples were collected along a number of transects starting at the trunk of an isolated tree and radiating outwards into the open space among trees. After comprehensive analyses on these soils for total nitrogen, exchangeable calcium, exchangeable potassium, exchangeable sodium, exchangeable magnesium and total phosphorus, it was concluded that the eucalypts on these soils are able to accumulate nutrients from substantial distances because of a high root to top ratio. Nutrients are cycled from below open spaces to the leaves and bark, thence to the soil directly below the canopy by deposition and decomposition of bark and leaf litter. Pot and solution culture trials using seedlings grown in a glasshouse at the UNE Botany Department Armidale, and conducted over three months, found E. albens and E. trachyphloia were more vigorous than the other species and accumulated mineral ions in the soil below their canopies to a greater extent probably as a result of their different genetic makeup.

Left: Eucalyptus rossii in the Pilliga area. Right: Transect from the base of an E. sideroxylon tree in the Pilliga area for locating the position of surface soil samples to be used in my Special Botany III research project.

Trees with low mineral requirements appeared to be permanently excluded from the more fertile soils in the region because of their inability to compete with the more vigorous species native to those soils.

Memories from 1964 include the Beatles visit to Australia and Donald Campbell in “Bluebird” setting a world land speed record on Lake Eyre, South Australia, and later, a world water speed record at Dumbleyung, Western Australia.

On 8 June 1964, The Papua and New Guinea House of Assembly was opened by Governor-General of Australia Lord De L’Isle. It comprised 64 members, 54 elected from a common roll, and 10 from special electorates representing the main centres.

On 14 July 1964, the Senior Training Officer of the Department of Territories Canberra (T R Rossall) wrote informing me of an impending interview. I wrote back to clarify that my address in Armidale had changed. The interview included a discussion on whether or not the “course of studies” required by the Cadetship Agreement would be completed at the end of the year. The Department of Territories was of the opinion that graduation with a BSc from UNE fulfilled the terms of the Agreement and they had proceeded with arrangements to send me to the Territory as a qualified Botanist. Such intentions were reinforced with a letter from the Department of Territories dated 27 July (above).15 I immediately wrote

15 Although the Department of Forests did not recruit me as a qualified Botanist in 1964, it continued efforts to find other candidates to address the shortage of Botanists in the Lae Herbarium. When Don Foreman also graduated from UNE five years later in 1969 with majors in Botany and Zoology, he immediately accepted an offer of employment in the Department as a Forest Botanist based in Lae.

back in an attempt to clarify my position, pointing out that the Cadetship Agreement was for five years including two years still to be taken up at the Australian Forestry School. On 8 September the Secretary Department of Territories (then S. G Thomas) wrote requiring me to complete a personal particulars form and subscribe to an Oath of Office to which I complied.

On 21 September 1964, for the third year in a row, a letter was received from the Department that, if I desired to undertake vacation employment in the Territory, I would have to pay the cost of the return airfare. A variation this time however was a promise to reimburse the fares, but only after successful completion of examinations.

To proceed to the Territory immediately after the final examinations were sat in late November without knowing the results meant there was a risk that a Cadet could pay the return airfare up front, be notified of failing the examinations in mid to late December and thus not qualify to be reimbursed. I wrote back on 24 September that I was unable to risk funding the trip to the Territory up front. I suggested instead vacation employment through the State of NSW Forestry Office at Kempsey, under a similar arrangement what was agreed on and undertaken previously in 1962.

The Pilliga soils study was completed and a mini-thesis with the title “The Effect of Certain Eucalypt Species on the Re-distribution of Nutrients in the Poorer Surface Soils of the Pilliga Region” was submitted on 1 November 1964. Final third year examinations began on 11 November and continued

through to 27 November 1964. The Department of Territories waited for the examination results before taking any further action on vacation employment. Unofficial results became known by mid-December. Credits were obtained in all three units undertaken.

This hiatus at least allowed me to be home in Clybucca to celebrate my 21st Birthday in December 1964 and spend Christmas 1964 with family.

A telephone conversion between the Department of Forests Konedobu and Department of Territories Canberra at the end of December 1964 evidently required that I be sent to the Territory for vacation employment and the Department of Forests would cover the fare. This prompted an immediate response out of Canberra by telegram to me on the evening of 29 December 1964 informing me that I would be going to the Territory forthwith. A letter quickly followed, dated the next day, 30 December, from the Secretary Department of Territories (T R Rossall, signed on his behalf by A G Gidley-Baird), without further consultation about travel plans with me. This letter stated air travel bookings had been made for the journey Kempsey – Sydney – Port Moresby to arrive on the morning of Friday 8 January 1965. The Public Service Commissioner in Port Moresby had been advised of these arrangements.

Gloria Burgess at Clybucca, Christmas Eve, Thursday 24 December 1964. Gloria and I were fortunate to be able to spend Christmas together before my departure for Papua and New Guinea on vacation employment in early 1965.

Left: My 21st Birthday, December 1964 celebrated at Clybucca. From left: my mother Reba, grandmother Emily Plummer (Reba’s mother), me, brother Robert, my dad, and brother Philip. Right: Lunch at Clybucca Christmas Day, Friday 25 December 1964. Left front to rear: My girlfriend Gloria Burgess, my dad, my uncle William Plummer (obscured). Right front to rear: my grandmother Emily Plummer, brothers Robert and Philip (I was behind the camera and Reba had moved back from the table, accounting for the two unattended place settings).

Meanwhile, on 5 January 1965, the Registrar, UNE, wrote to me certifying my exam results in the ten courses that I undertook and confirming that I had satisfied all the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science in the UNE. My success at UNE and my impending posting to Papua and New Guinea featured in jottings about local people in the local Macleay press in late December 1964 and early January 1965.

Left: Column in the Macleay Argus, Kempsey Wednesday 23 December 1964. Right: Another column published in the same paper on 7 January 1965

Cadetship: Vacation employment in Papua and New Guinea January 1965

The trip started out from Kempsey on Airlines of NSW DC-3 Flight 1047 which departed at 4.30 PM and arrived in Sydney just after 6.00 PM on Thursday 7 January. My onwards air tickets and Entry Permit were waiting with the airline desk in Sydney. Ansett/ANA DC-6B Flight 902 left Sydney on time at 9.45 PM, and via a brief stopover in Brisbane, arrived in Port Moresby at 6.45 AM on Friday 8 January 1965. There was a charge of 17/- ($1.70) for excess baggage Kempsey – Sydney and £7/3/0 ($14.30) excess baggage Sydney – Port Moresby. I was met at Jackson’s Airport, Port Moresby and taken immediately by road to Brown River Forest Station in the Mount Lawes Territorial Forest.

The following day, Saturday, was an opportunity to take a trip into Port Moresby, a distance of about 42 km, to purchase groceries and other supplies.

The Officer-in Charge was Alan White who lived on station with his wife “Sandy” and young child. An Equipment Operator and his family (away on leave) and two Technical Officers (one away on duty travel) made up the remaining expatriate staff. I was temporarily billeted with the Technical Officer until the other returned, I then moved to the temporarily vacant Equipment Operator’s house for the remainder of my time at Brown River. Alan White had to be a person of many talents: from medical officer at sick parade dispensing malarial tablets and injections to stand-in bulldozer operator!

The principal danger in the Mt Lawes savannah bushland was the Papuan Black Snake, easily trod on in the long grass. Alan frequently had to treat workers’ snakebites with anti-venom injections and hastily dispatch them to a hospital in Port Moresby. Despite doing a lot of work in the grassy eucalypt savannah, I managed to avoid being bitten. The unofficial advice was to never walk through tall grass at the back

Air travel Kempsey – Sydney 1965. Left: A DC-3 21-seat passenger aircraft of the type used on the Kempsey

Sydney run. Right: Kempsey’s airport at Aldavilla in 1965, with the Macleay River in the background.

of a line of workers because the front men stirred the snakes up and the ones further back down the line tread on the fleeing reptiles!

Brown River Forest Station photographed in early 1965. This was one of the last Stations to be established by the Department of Forests, and perhaps the most modern and picturesque. Top left: Brown River adjacent to the Station. Top right: The large Teak nursery. The main road beyond the nursery in the distance led to Port Moresby, a distance of about 42 km. Middle left: Extensive parkland between the Station and the River. Ian Grundy, an earlier OIC, started development of this park from the front of the Station to the River in the early 1960s. The park attracted large numbers of mainly expatriate day-trippers from Port Moresby for picnics and barbecues, especially on weekends and holidays. Middle right and bottom left and right: Near-new houses on the Brown River Station back then for expatriate staff.

One recreational pastime was towing a small aluminium dinghy upstream by hand in the shallow water along the river’s edge and after one or two kilometers jump in and push it out into the fast-flowing current and take the leisurely ride drifting back downriver towards the Station.

I had two main tasks during my time at Brown River. One was to complete the construction of a nursery shed in the Station nursery. This had a concrete floor already in place but still needed a wooden frame built, a partly transparent roof added and bamboo thatch wall cladding attached.

The second task of over three weeks duration was to mark trees for removal as fuelwood in parts of the mature eucalypt woodlands of the Mount Lawes Territorial Forest. Kevin White provided the marking rules on what to remove and what to retain and made a day trip to Brown River to demonstrate to me what was required.

There was an opportunity to learn about Teak (Tectona grandis) establishment silviculture. Especially noted was the technique of alternate soaking of the seeds in a hessian sack in a drum of water and drying in the sun to soften the seed coat and enhance germination.16 The seed was planted directly into beds and when half to one metre tall were lifted and “stumped”. This meant decapitating the shoot just above the root collar and pruning the roots to produce a carrot-like organ for planting in the field.

16 Teak “seed” is actually a fruit or nut, usually containing up to four viable seeds. The repeated soaking in fresh water probably also helped leach out a germination inhibitor. In its native area Teak germination is aided by fire rupturing the hard coat around the nut.

Construction of the nursery shed in the Brown River Station nursery supervised by me in January 1965.

I also made a collection of insect specimens from the Brown River Station and Mount Lawes Forest because the submission of an identified preserved insect collection would be part of the requirements for the Forest Entomology unit to be undertaken at the Australian Forestry School.

Some of the insects collected by me at Brown River then taken back to Australia in February 1965.

The Department of Territories wrote in January and February 1965 concerning a couple of administrative arrangements. One was to seek confirmation that I actually had travelled to the Territory on vacation employment. The second was that, after three years, the Department had finally managed to put in place a voucher system for the direct payment of university fees on behalf of Cadets.

During February 1965, Heinar Streimann stayed with me at Brown River for about three weeks while he made several botanical collections in the Mt Lawes Forest area.

At the end of February, I flew out of Port Moresby for Kempsey via Brisbane and Sydney. I declared my insect collection to Quarantine in Sydney, but after a casual check by an Inspector to determine that the insects were in fact all dead and impaled on pins, the collection was immediately allowed entry. At Clybucca I packed and proceeded to Canberra via Sydney to restart at the Australian Forestry School at the beginning of March 1965. I travelled by air but sent on a tea box of personal effects to Canberra railway station to avoid excess baggage charges. I duly arrived in Canberra with my mandatory axe and home-made Biltmore Stick.