More evidence that my files are in disarray surfaced when out of a Spring 1982 Art and Text magazine , a glum looking photograph of Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser on the cover , slipped the obituary for the retired Anglican Archbishop of Papua New Guinea , The Most Reverend David Hand. It had been written by and emailed to me in 2006 by the Sydney Morning Herald Religious Affairs Reporter , Alan Gill .
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| "Reverend" Alan Gill |
By Peter Simon
I had met Alan at the Herald soon after he arrived from England in l971 . My wife and I called on Alan and his wife, Daisy , who had been born in Egypt ,her parents forced out after the Suez Canal crisis . Softly spoken , with a slight stammer , Alan was deeply interested in the fact that I had worked in Darwin with the British born crusading editor of the Northern Territory News, Jim Bowditch , and had been to Port Moresby , Papua New Guinea , in l962.
Alan , on his mother's side related to Archbishop of Canterbury William Luxtor who administered the last rites to Charles l , told me of an encounter he had while attending a church conference in PNG. In true British explorer fashion , he had walked along a beach early one morning in shirt , shorts and sandals (sox?) and met a friendly topless local girl in a grass skirt . He had politely introduced himself and asked her for her name . She had responded by lifting a breast, revealing a tattooed name. Then she told Alan she had a boyfriend , his name revealed under the other breast .
In the emailed obituary , Alan told me I would find a few interesting PNG stories . The intro read :
The Queen gave him a knighthood ; the post-independence government made him "Grand Chief", and the village headmen offered him trophies and also their daughters in marriage (to which he politely replied he couldn't afford the bride price).
Hand, Gill wrote, was the very model for one of poet John Betjelman's "extreme colonial bishops". A celibate Anglo- Catholic missionary priest, he had spent 60 of his 87 years in PNG , employing lay expatriates "almost as colourful as himself". One was missionary filmmaker and photographer , Lily Best , known as "Tiger Lil ",whose quirks included travelling with a chamber pot , her developing tank, tied to her waist .
The bishop used media exposure to gain staff and money for his struggling diocese . He employed a publicity officer, Susan Young, who smoked cheroots and flew a plane .When she returned to England , he sought Alan's help for a story which appeared in the UK Press Gazette headed " Vacancy-Worst paid job in Journalism "...$25 a month .
A young Englishman , Rowan Callick , "took the bait " and became a Walkley Award winner and Australian Journalist of the Year .
Alan recalled conducting an interview of Bishop David in PNG in devilishly hot conditions . The bishop leaned across and told him the secret of life in the tropics was Johnson's Baby Powder, lots of it . David Hand had been born in Queensland, his father Canon William Hand , born in Yorkshire , was rector at Clermont , Queensland .
Before coming to Australia, Alan made amateur films , hoping to become a professional filmmaker , wrote for the Amateur Cine magazine and became a newspaper reporter .
In l997 Alan Gill had published Orphans of the Empire , described as being about stolen white children , a lost tribe , sent to Australia with dreams of a better life but who , in reality , often suffered cruelty and abuse ; followed in 2004 by Interrupted Journeys, Refugees from Hitler's Reich and the following year , Likely Lads and Lasses , Youth Migration to Australia 1911-1939 , which included stories about some of the hundreds of teenagers who had come to Australia from England under the Dreadnought Scheme to work on farms and play a part in the development of the country .
Gill became a member of the Dreadnought Association, which has its own blog , above , and attended its centenary celebration . He died last year, aged 80 ; he had won a Walkley Award for journalism and was the recipient of the Order of Australia for his contribution to the media .
