Solomons Seal (45 page)

I have written of Bougainville, and of the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, as I found them on the journeys my wife and I made in 1975. At that time the islands of Bougainville and Buka, though geographically a northern extension of the Solomon Islands group, were administratively a part of Papua New Guinea. This situation has not changed as a result of independence, which came later that same year. But the form of the internal government has changed. Where, before independence, the country was divided into thirteen administrative districts, there are now nineteen provincial governments, each with an elected chamber and a small staff. Port Moresby, the capital, also has provincial government status.

This change is political, intended to meet the needs of a people isolated by a very mountainous terrain and as a result speaking a multiplicity of languages and patois.

In the case of Bougainville District, the new title
of North Solomons Provincial Government gives recognition to the anomalous geographical situation, but the islands have a record of civic disruption, on occasions quite serious, and whether this administrative change will be sufficient to satisfy the political aspirations of the people only time will tell. The training and educational facilities provided by the copper mine, the generally progressive policy of the management, will inevitably over the years have a profound effect upon an island people who, until World War II, had very little contact with the outside world. This, and the wealth generated locally, will make for a changing political climate, something the central government in Port Moresby, 600 miles away, will increasingly need to take into account.

Apart from the very considerable assistance I had in Bougainville and Buka, I was fortunate in the guidance I received with regard to the Solomons Seal ship label, and in particular the cancellations at Port Moresby and Cooktown. It was reasonable that I should turn to Tony Rigo de Righi, the Curator of the National Postal Museum, for expert vetting of the very strange idea I had conceived based on one of the letters in the
Perkins Bacon Records
, but then to find that he was a collector of Australian postal history – this was totally unexpected. There can be very few people in the world who could have given me not only details of the date stamps used at Port Moresby and Cooktown, but also the mail boat routes and sailing schedules. I am deeply grateful for his help and for his kindness in checking the stamp references and putting
me right on certain points. Also for the information that, quite fortuitously, a man named Solomon happened to be Postmaster in Newfoundland in the period immediately prior to the issue of the Seal-on-Icefloe stamp.

KERSEY, 1979

Ralph Hammond Innes was born in Horsham, Sussex in 1914. He was educated at Cranbrook School in Kent, which he left in 1931 to work as a journalist, initially with the Financial Times. He went on to become a prolific author, penning over thirty novels as well as children's and travel books – his first novel, The
Doppelganger
, was published in 1937.

Innes served in the Royal Artillery during WWII, eventually rising to the rank of Major. During the war a number of his books were also published. After being demobbed in 1946 he worked full-time as a writer, achieving a number of early successes. He produced books in a regular pattern: six months travel and research and then six months of writing. With this quick turnover, he had sixteen further novels published before 1960, many of which featured the sea. From the 1960s his rate of work was reduced but was still substantial, and he became more interested in ecological themes. Innes continued writing up until his death in 1998.

Discoverbooks by Hammond Innes published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/Hammond Innes

Medusa
Solomon's Seal
The Conquistadors
The Trojan Horse

For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been
removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain references to missing images.

This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

First published in Great Britain 1993 by Penguin Group

Copyright © 1980 Hammond Innes

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eISBN: 9781448210947

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