May 19, 2008
It was the rhinoceros beetle that took me to the Pacific, though chance and kind friends played their part.
As a topic form my MSc thesis, I had hoped to get something that might help me to find gainful employment somewhere outside Christchurch Tech. The studies of limpets and sea squirts and the like which were popular at the time didn't seem to fill the bill, and insects seemed the best prospect. Prof Percival was kind enough to humour me by assigning me to a large stocky beetle that inhabited the sand dunes and beaches along Pegasus Bay. Pericoptus occupied me for the next couple of years. It is a scarab beetle, related to the sacred scarabs of ancient Egypt, but apart from that, little was known about it, except that you could find it, with a bit of luck, at Spenser park, better known these days as a murder venue.
Fortunately Pericoptus had been noticed by Bruce Given, of Entomology Division of DSIR at Nelson, and he was a very helpful fellow who gave me good advice about an approach to studying it. As it happened he had a fellow entomologist called Ron Cumber, who was at that time on an assignment in Western Samoa, trying to prevent another scarab, the coconut rhinoceros beetle, from flying on to ships in Apia harbour, and thus threatening the coconut palms of all the other Pacific islands.
Ron finished his assignment about the same time as I finished my thesis, and in his final report he recommended that the Government of Western Samoa should appoint an entomologist to its Agriculture Department to continue the work. Bruce told me about the job, I applied for it, and probably with the aid of a good word from him, I got it. So Pam and I took off for Samoa in January 1957.
We took off from Whenuapai, (Mangere wasn't an airport then) and flew to Fiji in a DC4, a sort of enlarged Dakota with four engines instead of two. When we landed at Nadi the humidity struck us like walking into a mattress, and I wondered whether three years of it might be more than I could stand. It didn't look any better when we were introduced to American cockroaches in the shower cabinet at the hotel. However things looked brighter in the morning and we flew from Nadi to Suva on a funny wee plane with three engines.
Then at Laucala Bay we went aboard a Solent flying boat for the flight to Samoa. That was an experience. We were on the lower deck along with ten or so others, seated in enormous armchairs such as might have been provided for British colonial governors on furlough. So we arrived in great style and landed with a swish at Tanumalala. Going through customs, I suppose the quarantine blokes pointed us out to Charlie and he drove us to the Casino Hotel.
The Casino, (since replaced by the Tusi Tala, now renamed the Kitano) was a magnificent two storeyed building built by the former German administration as accommodation for visiting administrative staff and minor diplomats. When we were there it was run by a busty widow called Mary Croudace, a sister of Aggie Grey. The accommodation was big and airy if somewhat spartan, and the meals were simple but good. A feature was the half pawpaw you got served for breakfast each day, and the chance that the chickens who free ranged through the dining room might get started on it before you if you came down late. We were there for about six weeks while they finished building a house for us up the hill near the hospital.
Charlie had been Ron Cumber's driver before he was assigned to me, so although he had no scientific training, he had learnt quite a lot about the rhinoceros beetle and its control, which was just as well since I knew very little. He also had a good grasp of Samoan custom of both the formal and the informal kinds, as well as a knowledge of the character of the local people, whether Samoan or European, for he had been a taxi driver for many years before Ron Cumber found him. He also had some good stories of his experience with the US marines who were based there during the war. For instance he had once been called upon to take a busload of them back to their camp near the airport, and when he got there had got involved in a crap shooting game. Little by little he lost what money he had, and finally was reduced to putting the bus up as his stake, but he lost again. This was getting serious. So he walked up the road to some unfortunate relative who lent him enough money for him to stay in the game, and over the next two days he slowly won the bus back and made a handsome profit.
When he got back, his boss was not pleased to see him, and wanted to know where he had been for two days. Charlie said they had asked him to wait. Naturally the boss wanted to know where the rent for the bus was, and Charlie then slapped a bundle of notes on the counter to cover the hire and the fares, and still had something left for himself.
He also had tales of a technique he developed for opening a bottle of Canadian Club whiskey without breaking the seal. This enabled him to dilute the contents with cold tea, and turn a handsome profit on the resale. There was not much that Charlie didn't know, and he was not as popular with some of the merchants around Apia as he was with me, but I must say he treated me like a dutch uncle, and never once let me down. Racism wasn't a common feature of Samoan culture, but it wasn't entirely absent either, and there were several occasions when Charlie saved me from confrontations that could have turned nasty. He also introduced Pam and me, in return for a share of my liquor ration, to a sly grog club his boss ran, which rejoiced in the title of the Society of Friends. Once a month we would gather with a joyful bunch of his friends and their wives and have an evening of singing and dancing and innocent fun. Good old Charlie. Life would have been much less colourful without him.