"First generation makes it, second generation maintains it, third generation loses it"

 

An advertisement in the PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY from 1977
276 Pitt Street in Sydney today

 

Morris, Hedstrom Ltd, J.C. Godeffroy & Sohn, Deutsche Handels- und Plantagen-Gesellschaft (DHPG), Burns Philp & Company Limited, Steamships Trading Company — witth the exception of the last, all those other conpanies, who at one time dominated trading in the South Pacific, have disappeared, as has Breckwoldt & Co., a trading company headquartered in Hamburg in Germany, which had branches in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, and Samoa.

 

 

Once on everyone's lips, the name 'Breckwoldt' has all but disappeared from memory, and can only be found after some dedicated searches in long-forgotten archives, such as old edition of the PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY, the then 'Bible' of every expatriate living in the islands — which, incidentally, has also disappeared as completely as Breckwoldt.

 

 

Who would have thought at the 50th anniversary of the founding of the comapny that only a few years later there would be nothing left of it? What were the catastrophic events and the tough decisions that led up to this cataclysmic demise of a once so proud South Sea Islands trader?

 

Mr F.W. Breckwoldt and his son, Mr H Breckwoldt (right), talk with the Assistant Administrator, Dr Gunther, and Mr H Jipp, at a cocktail party Mr Breckwoldt gave at the Boroko Hotel, Port Moresby

 

In a last-ditch effort the last of the Breckwoldts, Tim Breckwoldt, of the third generation that usually loses it, has put down his 'stein' and done some heavy thinking instead of drinking to find the best way to preserve the name 'Breckwoldt' for posterity, in both German and English.

 

Tim Breckwoldt, who has never been to the islands but knows a lot about them

 

He promises it to be a no-holds-barred account from start to finish, although he will keep it clean with the help of BREWO toilet soap.

 

 

Stay tuned for an update!

 

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Friends in High Places

 

 

It was early 1976. A few months earlier I had resigned from my post as Chief Accountant in Rangoon with the French oil company TOTAL - Compagnie Française des Pétroles. Twelve months behind the "Teak Curtain" and under the dictatorship of U Ne Win had seemed long enough, and so I took up a posting in Tehran under the dictatorship of the Shah of Iran.

'Out of the frying pan and into the fire' is the best way to describe this particularly ill-fated move and I left Tehran again soon afterwards, but not before I met up again with René Pain-Savanier, graduate of the 'École des hautes études commerciales de Paris', who, as TOTAL's 'chef du service du Contrôle à la Direction Financière' in Tehran, had been highly complimentary of my work during his visits to Rangoon and also in references written some years later.

 

 

M. Pain-Savanier's home in Tehran was pure Parisian elegance and chic and, on the two or three occasions when he and his charming wife Odette entertained me there, he never failed to express his regrets over my decision to leave TOTAL.

As it turned out, the Shah was forced into exile in Egypt in January 1979. Soon thereafter, the Iranian monarchy was formally abolished, and Iran was declared an Islamic republic led by Ayatollah Khomeini. Westerners were forced to leave, and René returned to France from where he once again sent me a flattering reference together with an invitation to visit him in his retirement home in the south of France.

 

 

I reflected on all this when I found a notice of his funeral on the internet. 'Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur' no less, the highest French order! It's good to have had friends in high places, and he's in an even higher place now. Rest in peace, M. Pain-Savanier! My life has been richer for having known you.

 

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P.S. Having had no trouble reading the above two references in French, you should have no trouble counting to five in French and appreciating this little pun: A man had two cats. One was named One Two Three, and the other was named Un Deux Trois. He took them to the park one day and rented a rowboat and took them out for a ride. But a bigger boat came by and swamped the rowboat in its wake. The man and the One Two Three cat made it safely to shore, but the Un Deux Trois cat sank.

 

If watching this video robs you of your will to live, call Lifeline on 13 11 14

 

 

John Anderson sits down with former NSW Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner Mike Newman to examine the culture, size and direction of Australia’s modern public service. While both men acknowledge the vital role of capable public servants, they question whether the system has become bloated, inward-looking and detached from the realities faced by households and businesses. At a time of falling productivity and rising cost-of-living pressures, they ask whether the balance between administration and wealth creation has drifted out of alignment.

The discussion moves beyond numbers to deeper questions of accountability, incentives and institutional culture. From regulatory overreach to major project failures, Newman argues that expansion has too often come without corresponding responsibility. Yet, he also highlights examples where strong leadership and a service-first mindset have delivered genuine reform. It is a serious, practical examination of how Australia governs itself, and what must change to restore discipline, effectiveness and public trust."

 

After having watched this gob-smacking video clip, I was too much lost for words to find my own and simply copied the above text from the YouTube recording; however, on later reflection and drawing on my years living cheek by jowl with both local and federal public servants — whoever came up with the term "public servant" must have had a great sense of humour — and a brief brush with the public service during my time with ATSIC, I can confirm that everything is only oh so true!

In Canberra I lived in a cul-de-sac of fourteen houses in which I was the only one who was not a public servant and who, to put it more bluntly, worked for a living. The rest of them went to work long after I had gone, and by the time I came home again, they were already cutting their lawns within an inch of their lives (the lawns', not their lives'!)

For my six months inside ATSIC I was hired to do the work the others didn't do because they were too busy discussing what colour donut to buy for the next coffee break, and once that was done, to take the lift downstairs to stand outside the office building for a cigarette break — I even heard of people who took up smoking just to get the extra break! — after which it was time again for another discussion about donuts.

Public Service? Give me a break, but not a donut or smoko break!

 

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P.S. For equally brilliant videos from John Anderson Media, click here.

 

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The (articled) year my voice did not break

 

An excursion by the office staff to the head office in Hamburg.
'Yours truly' is at the far right in a shiny new suit and glasses.
Click on image to enlarge.

 

My biggest cock-up in life was to have allowed myself to be born to parents who were so dirt-poor that they packed me off to work as soon as I had reached the minimum school-leaving age of fourteen to become an articled clerk in an insurance company.

For three years, my fellow-articled clerks and I worked a six-day week, practically for nothing, while being force-fed on subjects such as accounting, commercial law, economics, business ethics, and more.

Being much older and better educated, they'd already gone through puberty, dealt with acne, and were shaving daily, while I was still a complete baby face who unsuccessfully tried to fill out his first shiny business suit and was yet to spend his first Deutschmark on razor blades.

 

 

At home I was known as "der Dünne" — "Skinny" — but at work I was already "Herr Görmann" and entrusted with more and more professional work despite the pittance I was paid as an indentured articled clerk. We were cheap labour, the price we paid to get our professional training.

 

 

My reference at the end of the gruelling three years mentions my 'way with words': "Viel Freude bereitete es ihm, den dazugehörigen Schrift-wechsel zu bearbeiten. Wir konnten ihm schon während der Lehrzeit gelegentlich auch schwierigeren Schriftwechsel übertragen." see Google

We were trained to dictate our correspondence, complete with full punctuation and spelling of particularly difficult words, to a typist who took it down in shorthand, or onto a tape with a GRUNDIG Stenorette.

 

 

All the typists knew my age, and were used to my prepubescent voice. Things became a bit more tricky when one client, in answer to one of my written 'masterpieces', called me on the phone. After a lengthy talk concerning his insurance claim, he followed it up with a letter which opened with the very embarrassing salutation, "Dear Miss Görmann ..."

I never lived this down with my fellow-articled clerks. I completed my articles and eventually found a new voice and new home in Australia.

 

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The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

 

 

No, this is not Gregory Peck, but Tim Breckwoldt, last of the Breckwoldts who once operated an empire of branches all over the South Pacific. Where were their branches, you asks? Perhaps it would be easier to answer the question, "Where weren't their branches?" As I wrote in an earlier post, they were everywhere.

Then, suddenly, they were all gone without a trace sometime in 1980, which was too soon for then still nine-year-old Tim Breckwoldt to step into his father's and grandfather's shoes to continue the proud tradition.

There's a German saying that suggests that "Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm". In Tim's case the apple must've kept rolling downhill as he became a public servant in the family's hometown Hamburg, which is the very antithesis of his father's and grandfather's pioneering spirit.

 

 

However, he has decided to keep the history of Breckwoldt alive by publishing, either here or on a separate website yet to be done, lots of archived material that will document the rise and rise and then sudden fall of Breckwoldt & Co. who were once proud South Sea Island traders.

I'll drink to that with a BREWO-BEER!

 

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