Fiji: W.L. Parham at Sigatoka 1932-35

PREFACE : Vuli teitei

Vuli teitei - teaching gardens – began as the project of a junior Agricultural Officer at the government Experimental Farm in the Sigatoka Valley, and during the 1930s blossomed into an innovative scheme with effects branching throughout the western provinces of Viti Levu.

The officer, Wilfrid Laurier Parham, spent the years 1931-1935 travelling between the villages in the valley, instructing, encouraging and living among the people of Colo West. He documented his work in journals, letters, and this album of photographs.

He clearly recognised the value of the photographic record, sending the film to his mother and sisters in Suva with careful instructions for the processor. Several images appeared in the Pacific Islands Monthly, one in a Morris Hedstrom advertisement.

The camera used 116 film (Kodak A) and a lens which WLP felt “ proved superior to most others even in bad weather.”

I have derived captions and comments directly from my father’s notes scribbled on photograph backs, with expansion from the letters and journals. He identified most though not all places, but very few people. Readers are urged to help me fill in the blanks.

Phyllis Parham Reeve

1195 Coats Drive

Gabriola Island, Canada

V0R 1X0

phyllispreeve@gmail.com

September, 2008

Note: The files attached in pdf format are on disk in WORD format, with the photographs as scanned, and other related files, and are being deposited with the Pacifric Manuscripts Bureau in Canberra.