Innocence to independence

By Judith Hollinshed

Subjects: Biography, Australians, Social life and customs, Women

Description: It's the story of a couple from Melbourne who spent 25 years in the Western Highlands of PNG, first searching for suitable land and, after obtaining the leasehold, establishing a coffee plantation. Judith and Barry lived in a grass house where they raised two boys, surrounded only by the local people who were so primitive they spoke not even pidgin English and, when the time for it came, had no idea what independence meant. Judith first helped establish Verona Coffee Estates and, when it became necessary for the children to go to school, took a job teaching at the Mount Hagen High School. For the last five years of her time there she was the highlands correspondent for the daily Post Courier. The book tells the story of the unusual and sometimes alarming experiences she encountered under the three different hats she wore in her time there. It describes the increasing lawlesness and outlines the emerging problems faced by the Australian administration in trying to introduce a consumer society and bring the isolated clans to democratic nationhood.