A FORMER roaming diplomat from Northumberland has received a prestigious medal for his service.

Robert Foster, from Rochester, has been awarded the Australian Police Overseas Medal for his work as a kiap in Papua New Guinea in the 1960s and 70s.

Kiaps, known formally as district officers and patrol officers, were travelling representatives of the British and Australian governments with wide-ranging authority in pre-independence Papua New Guinea.

From 1949 until 1974, around 2,000 kiaps served in the South Pacific country, and the Australian government wanted to recognise their service.

Robert’s career journey started after he was accepted by the London-based Voluntary Service Overseas organisation in 1968 and was posted to supervise work at a sawmill in the Bismarck Highlands, at the heart of the Papua New Guinea rain forest.

After travelling to Australia to enrol on a kiap course, he returned to Papua New Guinea in 1972, with his new bride Paula, as Her Majesty’s representative in the mountain district of Minj.

Robert spent much of his 20s working in Papua New Guinea as it struggled to throw off the trappings of European influence and establish itself as an independent nation.

“We were posted to areas where there were social pressures and required to do a great deal of peace making,” he said.

“The people of Papua New Guinea had engaged in perpetual inter-clan warfare. Once we arrived, the suspension of fighting and building of roads was key to the country’s development.”

Robert’s newly-published book The Northumbrian Kiap offers a valuable insight into the problems faced by both the village people and their civil service during the less well-documented approach to independence in 1975.

And he now has plans to publish his book in two universities in Papua New Guinea.

“I reconnected with ex-kiaps two years ago and used this book as a way of telling my story,” said Robert.