Yesterday the phone rang and a stranger's voice wanted to know, "Are you Peter Goerman?" Expecting another nasty marketing call, I cageyly asked, "Who wants to know?" The stranger's voice replied, "My name is David Bretherton. The former District Commissioner for Bougainville, Bill Brown, gave me your number. I worked with Bill on Bougainville and now live at nearby Moruya Heads, so perhaps we could meet and talk about old times."
Which is what we did: we talked and talked and then we talked some more when we met for lunch today at the Moruya Bowling Club. I took along my Papua New Guinea desk flag so that he would recognise us, and surprised him with a copy of his Sydney Airport arrival card from 1968 when he had already been in New Guinea for more than ten years.
At the end of a long lunch of roast pork, followed by dessert and drinks - the dining room closed at 2 o'clock and we were the last to leave - we followed him out to his HAUS KIAP to put right some more wrongs in the world, and to promise to meet up again soon for more of the same.
A little later, David had dozed off in front of the television set. We put a warm blanket over him and let ourselves out. Lukim yu bihain, David!
P.S. All of a sudden, David disappeared off the face of the earth, and his house at Moruya Heads sold in March 2025 - click here. (I almost added, "Will someone else write the same about me one day?" — but I didn't.)
