These are personal reminiscences, which to me are the best way to recall past times. They naturally give details of how life was in the past. In the almost sixty-five years of my time here in Fiji life has changed in many ways. Some things for the better, some, sadly, have made life more difficult.
I came to Fiji in 1961 accompanied by my fiancé’s cousin Juliet.
In those days, in UK, social status was very important and as a clergy daughter I did not match up. I was carefully examined by his family over the weeks after we got engaged. Meanwhile, my fiancé, Murray Mackenzie, was due to report to the Fiji authorities in August 1960, as a new recruit for the civil service.
He was almost the last to be appointed to Fiji. When he went to the Colonial Office in London, they were surprised when he chose Fiji. Murray had an aunt who was married to the man then in charge of Lands. This is how Murray asked to come to Fiji. No one in England had heard of Fiji in those ‘pre-rugby fame’ days.
It was now July and I was a teacher in a primary school. We decided that not knowing what the future would bring, I should work out my one term’s notice as a fallback should we return to the UK. One country in Africa had already gained Independence.
Murray therefore arrived six months before me and started work as an Assistant D.O. in Nausori also working on a committee in Suva. He was housed in a government quarter across the river from Nausori town.
Juliet and I came by plane, a big adventure in those days, arriving in Nadi to be met by a Fijian, Ratu Julian Toganivalu, I think it was, who kindly answered Murray’s request. He safely put us on the plane to Nausori where Murray met us at the little airport, not much more than a shed in those days and drove us to Suva to the house of his aunt.
The road to Suva from Nausori was mostly still a dirt road with a stretch of tar sealing at Koronivia and sealed again once one was in Samabula. Little housing on the road, just farmlands and very occasional small groups of houses making a settlement.
Juliet and I had two days with Murray’s aunt to settle and prepare for the wedding on the Saturday 4th. The aunt hustled me off to the hairdresser on the Friday, to my dismay. I dislike hairdressers finding the smell of lotions etc unbearable.
The wedding took place at St Luke’s Church then the fashionable place in Suva for weddings followed by a reception at the Club Hotel, later the National Bank of notoriety in the later years of the century, now Coffee Hub, where we also spent the night. Murray had gathered an assortment of associates, Fijian, Indian and European, for the reception and I was introduced to an array of smiling faces, a few to be met again over the years.
After all the excitement of Saturday we set off on the Sunday morning for the coral coast to stay a few days in a beach house, where I became acquainted with shells and hermit crabs who take up residence in empty shells and hide from enthusiastic collectors like me. Our nights were disturbed by the clatter of them trying to return to the beach! We were invited to dinner one night by the local D.O. and met with the cane toads lying flat on the road like cowpats who could also on the beach we discovered.
Over the years these toads have in-bred and become more normal sized and less scary. Our few days soon past and it was back on the gravel road to Suva, no speeding in those days, just a slow three hour drive or longer and on to the house in Nausori. Murray had bought a car during his first six months enabling him to drive in to Suva for committee meetings.
The house was across the river from the town, built against a rock wall. The wall constantly dripped making everything extra damp. My first six months were of course in the hot, wet season and everyone assured me that the dry season would come soon in May.
That year it did not come. Occasional dry and sunny weekends would be times of relief, when sometimes other civil servant families would encourage us to explore the countryside and picnic together near a waterfall.
Murray had organised a housegirl. All I remember of her is the large pots of dalo I would find cooking on the gas stove that Murray had thoughtfully bought. The gas stove, bought from Fiji Gas, went with us wherever we went and was only replaced when we moved into a house of our own in 1984, when it was placed downstairs for servant’s use. The British continued to pay Murray’s salary and for our accommodation and his pension contribution until August 1984, fourteen years after Fiji gained Independence.
Murray took a local contract. We bought a house and Murray invested his pension rather than use FNPF. I still live in that house built just before the World War II and updated with a good size swimming pool added and a back verandah of good size. I gave up employing anyone once our two sons were grown and left the house. Later the servant quarters were offered to a young Fijian lady who had gained a place at USP and needed accommodation. That gas stove, after later restoration by two wonderful retired men from Fiji Gas, is still working and being used today by that young lady’s younger sister who lives there with her husband and three children. She is my official carer now in my nineties
Back to 1962 and Nausori. The quarters we lived in was equipped with a hot water gas heater commonly known as Beelzebub, very noisy and a little temperamental. After a couple of months it was replaced by the authorities with an electric hot water system which was much more efficient. What no one had told us was that we had to pay for it. Apparently having been a nurse’s quarter, no bill was being sent as nurses did not have to pay. The tank having been installed and switched on, the water was constantly heated day and night. The electricity authority suddenly realised some months later that Murray was not a nurse and a rather large bill arrived. The shock of having to pay so much on his meagre salary taught us to always use the hot water system carefully and never to leave it switched on. This is still the rule, off after ten minutes provides enough for a shower!
Our nearest neighbour was Ravuama, a local civil servant living with his sister to Adi Davila. I rarely saw Adi Davila, but one day she came to tell me in great excitement after a funeral she had attended. In true Fijian fashion at the funeral many people and relationships were mentioned and some exciting relationships had been revealed to her. Our nearest European neighbours were the families at Koronivia Agriculture Station. I became friendly with Jenny Rhodes whose husband, Peter, was involved in banana research as far as I remember.
Every Saturday Murray and I would cross the bridge to the town and explore the local market for vegetables and visit the grocery store for essentials. Occasionally Murray would let me accompany him to Suva and MH to find groceries. Meat we bought from Tebara Meats in Nausori and I learnt about halal meat.
On Sundays there would be a service in the little building used as an Anglican Church given by the CSR. The Dean of Suva, Rev Figgess would come out to celebrate Holy Communion for us. That little church, became a heritage building but was neglected, the church shut down, and became used for selling barbecues during the early years of this century, but I hear the building is now being restored.
In 1960 I was teaching at a primary school in Cowley, a suburb of Oxford and my friend was responsible for organising their Thursday evening open time, for young men doing the one-year Devonshire Course before going out to the colonies. I would attend with a few other girls to provide suitable possible partners for them. As Britain was granting independence to colonies, specially to African countries, many were home in UK within the next few years. Murray and I got engaged in July and we decided I should work out my notice in case we were home again in a short while. Murray had learned Hindi while doing the one year Devonshire course in Oxford before coming out to Fiji. The teacher of Fijian was away in Fiji that year. There was still a sugar mill in Nausori and cane grown in the region. Murray would go out in the cane fields but the local farmers found his Hindustani beyond them and he got introduced to Fiji-batt.
While in Nausori, on Saturday afternoons we would be invited to come up CSR hill to play tennis. My husband enjoyed this but tennis was not a skill of mine. As part of Murray’s Assistant D.O. work, he became well acquainted with the local Chair of the Town Council who became a good friend of his. He also got to know a mechanic who worked at Suva Motors and who would kindly take the car in when it needed attention and return it in the evening. In those days Suva Motors had a big garage along Victoria Pde that now houses the Indian restaurant, Maya Dhaba.
As Assistant D.O. Murray would drive up to Vunidawa to check on the Government Station there, I would accompany him to enjoy the drive and the countryside. Arriving at Vunidawa there was the river to cross and a boat would be sent to pick us up. On one occasion the staff had organised horses to go and inspect something. I was never told what. The staff had thoughtfully provided a horse for me. We all got ready and set off, except for the Assistant D.O. Murray’s horse refused to move. The trip was abandoned for another time.
The rivers were an essential for travel in the upper regions. Bamboo rafts carried passengers and also cargo. Rafts loaded with bananas would be sent down to the packing station, not far up river from Nausori. Here the fruit was packed in boxes to be sent by road to Suva. There were two boats, the Matua and the Tofua which then took the bananas to New Zealand. Later New Zealand started importing fruit from South America and Fiji’s banana trade was abandoned.
Living outside Nausori, at Lakena I think, was the Brown family, part of the family of Derrick who started the Derrick Technical Institute in Suva, designed to train young Fijians in practical skills. Later this was taken over by the National University. The family had two young girls and when their mother came to know that I had been a Brownie and later a Girl Guide, I was roped in to run the Brownies. After nine months in Nausori, Murray was sent to Sigatoka to take over as D.O. there. Murray was told not tell anyone and we were to leave immediately. This was difficult for me, but Murray took the Official Secrets Act, which he had been required to sign on arrival in Fiji, very seriously. Apparently the D.O. had done something disgraceful and was no longer there. So without letting anyone know, abandoning the Brownies, Jenny and friends at Koronivia, and church friends we packed up overnight and left. On Monday at the beginning of October 1961 we set off along the dirt road known as the Queen’s road for the next chapter of our life in Fiji and our life as parents. I had recently visited Dr Lancaster in Suva and just started my first pregnancy.
The next chapter of memories will come as soon as I have had time to relive those years and write up the memories.
