During my short time in Rabaul in 1970, I spent all my time either at or walking to and from work because I had no money for a car, let alone money to spend on a social life, which meant I never met Fritz Herscheid, one of the many colourful local characters.
Decades later, he found me through my Bougainville website when he sought permission to copy some photos from it for a book he was writing. One thing led to another and before I'd realised it, I had volunteered to proof-read "The Last New Guinea Salvage Pirate".
Which is how I got a mention on page 488 under 'Acknowledgements' - "Peter Goerman, Nelligen NSW. Its no wonder they call you 'Mr Bougainville' I would never have been able to do it without you, the contacts, the help and the photos and for the painful task of proof reading the book" - , and as close as I will ever get of seeing my name in print. (I never proof-read the acknowledgements, or else I would've inserted a few missing punctuation marks.)
