Writer Saved By Girl

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31596, 6 February 1968, Page 16

Writer Saved By Girl

Twice in one week a Dutch free-lance journalist visiting New Zealand was involved in incidents which could have caused death.

While he was at a swimming pool in Auckland, Mr Wilko Bergmans saved two young children from drowning: their father had carried them into the water on his shoulders and had dropped them when rendered helpless by an attack of cramp. But only a day or so later, the debt was repaid, Mr Bergmans, who is aged 50, said in Christchurch. He was taking photographs of a Maori girl at Rotorua, when he stepped backwards on to the rim of a boiling pool. As he teetered helplessly on the brink, the girl leapt forward, seized his arm, and jerked him clear, Mr Bergmans said.

Mr Bergmans, who has left for Australia, was in New Zealand for a week. He gathered material and interviews for 14 articles, which during six months will be printed in several European newspapers with a combined readership of more than three million. “Peaceful,” is the way he sums up New Zealand. Rotorua he found interesting, “. . . but a little artificial,” and not as fascinating as Mount Cook and the alps. New Zealanders he found very friendly and helpful, but

quite different from the British, whom he knew well. He said he found too, that New Zealand was growing away from Britain, and although portraits of the Queen hung on many walls, they meant little to a large nroportion of younger New Zealanders.

Mr Bergmans, who is married and has three children, spends about six months of each year travelling and writing travel and human interest articles, which he illustrates with his own photographs. Occasionally his wife is able to accompany him.

In the last few years he has visited nearly every country, including his favourite, Brazil. He speaks four languages.

He travels light. One small, battered leather container holds his camera. A plastic handbag holds little more than a toothbrush. He takes only the clothes he wears, washing them overnight and buying new items when he needs them.

In Christchurch his one pair of shoes still bore stains from the scalding pool which nearly claimed him. He travels light because often he has to carry everything himself, and wishing through the jungle with two suitcases is rather unpleasant, he says. After a quick visit to Mexico to see the Olympic Games preparations, Mr Bergmans will return to his home to write his . articles. Then, possibly within a few weeks,

he will be away again in search of more material. He was flown to New Zealand and Australia under a scheme organised by Qantas Airways to promote tourism. His articles were contracted for before he left the Netherlands.