In memory of Brian Elliot

   With Brian (left) in Wakefield in 2004

                                        
It is not often that students get their school assignments handed back to them - 25 years after they had handed them in.

That was what happened to me in 2004 after I met up again with my former teacher, the late Brian Elliot who taught me at Sogeri National High School. Former students of Sogeri, Port Moresby Grammar and those he taught earlier in Southern Highlands and Bougainville will remember him. He taught English and was popular amongst students. Some will also remember him as a kind hearted soul who has helped pay for their education.

With Marge and Albert.

It was at Sogeri in 1978 that I first met Elliot. He used to read to us selections from the popular English classics, a favorite being The Little House on the Prairie featuring the main character named Almanzo. His vivid descriptions of the delicious dishes of pancakes, puddings, apple pies, roasts topped with cream and jelly that Almanzo’s mum prepared would have our stomachs rumbling with hunger. Alas, when we turned up at the mess at lunch time, we would be greeted with brown rice and boiled tinned fish and cabbages that grew abundantly in the school gardens.

But Elliot knew that as teenagers we were always hungry. At times he would invite a group of us over for dinner and we loved the beef casserole and the vegetables he prepared.

In 1979 for our major English assignment, Elliot asked us to write essays and short stories. English was a favorite subject and I decided to attempt two major papers. Once was easily achievable; a short story based on my experiences of walking the Kokoda trail that year. The second project however, as I look back, was overly ambitious. But then his influence must have been enough to inspire me to attempt to write a novel! I completed my assignments and handed them in for marking, and at the end of the year graduated and left. I did not see Brian again after Sogeri. Nor did I ever get the urge to write another novel since!

Twenty years later I moved back home to Madang with my family in 2000 and enrolled at Divine Word University to complete my undergraduate degree. In Madang I heard people talking about an expatriate man working at the nearby Madang bakery. One day as I was driving along Nabasa road to the campus, I saw a familiar looking figure of an expatriate man walking along the road in the scorching heat, his head covered under a large shady hat. I glanced at him as I drove past and it was Elliot. We met soon after when he came to visit yet another student whose studies at DWU he was sponsoring. And so our paths crossed one more time.

One morning, Brian came to visit me. He was leaving in a few days to return home to United Kingdom and had a large envelope for me. I opened the envelope and pulled out an old worn out manila folder. Inside the folder, pinned neatly together were my Kokoda trail story and my novel, assignments I had handed to him 25 years ago. As I studied my faded handwriting, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia and memories came flooding back as I flipped through the pages. I was 18 then. Brian said he had planned to publish my work together with others he had selected from students over the years but had never got around to it and so was returning them. He left for UK soon after.

Coincidently, that year I had applied for a European Union scholarship to do journalism studies in UK and my application was successful. I left for Cardiff University in Wales to study at the Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies School (JOMEC). One day, as I rang home to speak with my family, my wife told me of another parcel Brian had sent from UK. Inside was all the memorabilia of the Jesus Christ Superstar musical opera that we had performed in Sogeri in 1978. Brian and I were on the cast – he as high priest Annas and I as a disciple. I asked her to e-mail me Brian’s address and I wrote him a letter. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that I was in Wales and invited me to visit him in his home town in Wakefield.

On my first break in Easter, I boarded the National Express for the day trip to Wakefield in Yorkshire. Brian lived alone on the top floor of a three storey apartment on a hill at 111 Howden Way overlooking a railway track and stretches of undulating grassland lined with giant power generating windmills. We would spend hours reminiscing about our Sogeri days trying to work out where all the former students and staff were. I learnt that Brian was still in touch with another former teacher, Marge Walker in Australia and at the end of the year, Marge and partner Alfred who also taught at University of PNG, visited us in UK.

 

After completing my studies, I returned to Madang and Brian told me that he would follow me shortly. Sure enough, soon he was back in Madang in his harbor side flat overlooking the Binnen Harbor. We would visit him regularly and he would spoil my children who were on bubu terms with him, with gifts of chocolates.

As he was in his 80s, his health was ailing and had to return to England for medical treatment. We kept in touch over the years, first by letters, then e-mail when he got himself a computer. Since renewing our contact, Brian had been sending me hard cover copies of English classics published by Readers Digest which have grown into quite a collection. He always wanted to return to the PNG tropical climate, but his poor health prevented him. Still he would sign off his e-mails saying he wished he was in the flat by the Madang harbor enjoying the warm tropical breeze.

 

In December last year, I e-mailed him to tell him that I had met yet another Sogeri school mate David Sode – chief executive of PNG Sustainable Development Project. David and Brian had acted as Pharisees in Jesus Christ and David had wanted to contact Brian again. However, Brian did not reply as he would promptly do which I found to be unusual. I began to worry and waited patiently for a reply. I received nothing and there was no way to contact him. It was not until February this year, when an e-mail came through from his lawyers saying he had passed away on February 26 after being in Wakefield hospital. We mourned him quietly, a teacher, gentleman and true friend of PNG.