It was one tropical Sunday on the island of Rotuma between Fiji and The Ellice Islands which are now known as Tuvalu. We had walked to another coastal village and I was asked to play a few songs for a bunch of islanders - sitting beneath a breadfruit tree.
It was a happy, carefree afternoon - far from home. Pacific waves crashed upon the rim of the coral reef and coconut palms swayed above the village. Some of the local children danced in laughter.
The island was dreamlike - as though it truly belonged in a work of fiction. What I experienced there, what I saw and felt there have remained with me for the past 53 years. In a sense, it was all quite beyond understanding. It certainly had a big influence upon the character of the man I became.
Anyway, the living island fantasy was battered on October 23rd, 1972 when Hurricane Bebe tracked south from The Ellice Islands. Its eye passed right over Rotuma and I watched houses being torn apart by the raging wind as rain lashed down and the ocean boiled. Incredibly - but only as far as I know - only one person was killed on Rotuma in those terrible twenty four hours.
Wikipedia is amazing. It even has a page for "Cyclone Bebe". For your information, I have copied and pasted the following paragraph:-
During October 23, the system passed over the Fijian Dependency of Rotuma, with hurricane-force wind speeds of around 275 km/h (170 mph) had been recorded on the island. As a result, widespread damage was reported on the island, with various houses and other buildings either destroyed or extensively damaged. The island also lost the majority of its crops, with coconut palms, copra and citrus trees damaged or destroyed. As a result, it was estimated that between 60%-90% of the population would be dependent on relief supplies for the next three to six months.
I have blogged about Bebe before. If you are interested, go here .
we are fortunate that where we live we don't get the destructive storms. I can see why this experience would change your life.
ReplyDeleteBut it wasn't just the hurricane.
DeleteThanks for taking us along on your trip down memory lane!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome ma'am.
DeleteThe photo is beautiful - a young man captured in a happy, carefree moment. It is good that you have never lost the connection with this, and it clearly has had a big influence on your life since.
ReplyDeleteYou say that, as far as you know, nobody was killed on Rotuma in those terrible 24 hours. But in your older post, you wrote: "Quite a few people were injured that day and a woman was killed in a village called Pepjei on the island's southern coast."
Strangely enough, I didn't comment on your older post, although I am pretty sure I was a reader of your blog in 2017.
Memory can play tricks. I think that the first claim is more likely truer.
DeleteYou were quite a "hottie" back then.
ReplyDeleteDon't make me blush Elsie!
DeleteIt's a nice photo and you do look very happy.
ReplyDeleteThanks Andrew.
DeleteI imagine your friend with his head under the black hood, pointing the tripod mounted, accordion bellowed camera toward you.... holding aloft the tray of flash powder..... and asking you to "watch the birdie"..... and you sitting still for five minutes while the still frame was captured...... it's a great photo and i love how photos were more "special" in them days and seem to have much more value and emotion associated with them than a lot of the multiple clicked modern digital images seem to hold.... i am sure that's not exclusively true..... well, not the bit about digital images, anyways!
ReplyDeleteCertainly our relationship with photographs has changed a lot in the last fifty years.
DeleteA good friend of mine was born in the Gilberts; part of the Ellis islands group. The only small exotic island I've stayed on was Grand Cayman. A true paradise island that has now become home to too many unpleasant billionaires!
ReplyDeleteI believe that The Gilberts are now called Kiribati.
DeleteI though that was a type of bread.
DeleteYou look like one of the Beach Boys.
ReplyDeleteWhat? Withernsea beach?
DeleteA happy moment in time, and then the horror of a hurricane for the people, we forget sometimes living in a temperate climate as we do that weather systems round the world can have such devastating affect.
ReplyDeleteRotuma tends to dodge hurricanes. Hurricane Bebe was a rare event.
DeleteWhat a beautiful picture of you. So, you were just out of high school or whatever you guys call it? We are pretty much the same age. What an amazing experience you had and were you ON the island when the storm hit? I'm a little confused.
ReplyDeleteYes. Just out of secondary school. And yes I was on the island when the hurricane hit. Richard and I walked out in the eerie stillness of the eye before the winds picked up once more.
DeleteI was never daring enough to have adventures like that. Now that I am old, I regret that I wasn't a little more courageous in my youth.
ReplyDeleteLife slips away so quickly. Before you know it many opportunities have gone.
DeleteThere are reasons I never wish to live in the hurricane zone again. As idyllic as the climate can be, it can bite. That carefree 19 year old is still inside you.
ReplyDeleteThat he is and I guess that the 19 year old David is in you too. These guys never left - they just went under cover.
DeleteYoung and happy go lucky!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a line from a song Deb.
DeleteYou looked like such a charmer. What happened? Oh, that wasn't nice of me. I've never experienced a hurricane and I suspect I never will, living now where I do.
ReplyDeleteIt was the hard drugs and the whisky that did it Bruce!
DeleteHappy memories and carefree days.
ReplyDelete