FAREWELL BILL W. FROM THE QUEENSLAND ASOPA GROUP

ASOPA stands for the Australian School for Pacific Administration, which operated during the 50's, 60's and 70's to train people to work in the Australian Territories especially Papua/New Guinea. Some of us were Cadet Education Officers, (yes we were called CEO's) but we were really student teachers. In 2007 a group of us ex CEO's from Brisbane organised a 3 day reunion for all ex CEO's in Australia and from around the world. It took us a year to organise the reunion activities and in that time the Queensland group had many meetings and became a group of very good friends. From then on we have continued to have meetings without having a meeting, we just have lunch and a good time. However one of our group, Bill W., is leaving us to move to Victoria. So what a good excuse to have a lunch together. We had it at our place. Bill W. (on the right) is a wonderful guy. He is one of the fittest 70 year olds I know. He has always been an athlete and has won many gold medals in a variety of world wide competitions for hurdling and running. He spent most of the last 10 years caring for his sick wife, who sadly passed away some months ago. He looked happy to be with us yesterday, even though he has to have surgery on his knee today.

Bill was the chef...a Swiss chef cooking an Australian barbecue.

The QLD ASOPA group from L.to R. Josephine, Richard, Colin, Denis, Ros and Bill W. ( Henry, Joe and Kathryn couldn't make it today). Everyone is enjoying Bill's delicious menu.

Garlic Prawn Kebabs on a bed of rice with tarragon.

Rib fillet steak, beef sausages, Potato Salad, Bean Salad, Greek Salad, Pumpkin Salad and Russian Salad.

Apricot pie and ice cream, you can see it is still hot weather here.

Colin enjoying his pie.

Ros entertained us with some historic nostalgia. She found some letters, that Denis had written home to his mother when he had been posted to a remote island off the coast of Papua. He was only 19 years old in a primitive island village, with no stores. He waited for supplies and letters to come on a boat once a month. He asked his parents to number the letters on the back of the envelope so he knew which one to open first. He did the same with the letters he sent home. Ros read some to us. The stories these people can tell of their lives as young people living in the wilds of P/NG are gob smacking. My stories are not so exotic as I was posted to Pt Moresby, which was like a country town.

Colin saying goodbye to Bill, who is looking forward to a new life in Victoria with a special friend, who is also and ex CEO from ASOPA.