Voices From a Lost World

I had a feeling I'd read this book before! Searching my blog reveals that I bought Jan Roberts' Voices From a Lost World for the first time from the local library book sale in 2010 -- and I've now bought it again from Brotherhood Books at four times the price (still cheap). I can't find it on my shelves, though; perhaps it's in the box of PNG resources in the attic that I stashed there after I finished writing New Guinea Moon.

ANYWAY it's still a fascinating book. Published in 1996, it features interviews and stories from Australian women and children who lived in Papua New Guinea before the outbreak of WWII. Though some returned to live there after the fighting, a certain way of life vanished forever. In some ways it was a very hard life -- little medical care, isolation, few mod cons, tinned food, malaria and blackwater fever. In some ways it was incredibly privileged, compared with the lives of the local people. Despite the colonial exploitation, close personal relationships did form between individual families and their house staff, the cooks and 'boys' and nannies, and most white children of the era recalled a carefree and happy childhood.

Whether government administrators, gold prospectors, traders or hotel owners, the colonial life came to an abrupt end with the invasion of the Japanese. All white women and children were swiftly evacuated, but most of the men remained behind, many losing their lives in the sinking of the prisoner ship Montevideo Maru, a tragedy communicated to their families only long after the event.

Voices From a Lost World will go on my bookshelf and I'll try not to lose it this time (and I'll try not to buy it all over again).