Tony Creighton, 67, is biology master at "Churchie" Grammar in Brisbane. He met his wife Doriga, 60, in her isolated PNG village at a time when mixed-race marriages were rare. Their love survived a freak accident that left her a paraplegic and him burdened by years of remorse.
Doriga: Tony came to our village of Porebada as the schoolteacher in 1960, when I was 15. The first time I saw him, something just went click. He was tall and handsome and very elegant-looking in his white shorts and socks. But nothing happened between us - except for looks - until I finished school that year. I sensed his reelings for me, but I was scared. I felt I was in love with him, but I didn't know what to do about it. It was agony.
My girlfriends told me Tony was interested in me. But I said, 'Oh, don't say it! I'm frightened!' I was just a little girl from the village who'd fallen in love with a beautiful young man. Then school finished and Tony was due to return to his home in Sydney for the summer. He was leaving the next day. I knew he was down at the trade store, so I went there to see him. He told me then of his feelings for me, and I did the same.
A bit later, I found out he'd cancelled his flight to Sydney. Then the word went out: Tony is going to ask Doriga's parents if they can be married! So all the families gathered, all the uncles and big chiefs. My parents didn't want me to marry outside the village, but I told them I knew my life should be with Tony from the moment I saw him. They liked him, too, and the way he'd been so correct about everything - so they agreed. All Tony could raise for my bride price was £78, which meant he had threepence left in the bank. So I didn't marry a white man for his fortune! We got married in our native custom at my home, then a bit later in Port Moresby.
We got married in our native custom at my home then later in Port Moresby. I was so young then, I knew nothing of the world. Once, we stayed with a friend of Tony's in Moresby, and the two of them went out to get some beer. Then this thing started ringing on the table. It was the phone, but to me it was just a thing, ringing. When I picked the top up, Tony's voice said 'Hello' - so I threw it away!
Tony taught me the things I wanted to learn. We were like a team at all the places where he was posted to teach. Then, on Manus Island [off Papua New Guinea's north coast], we were hunting flying foxes to eat and the accident happened. I had the flashlight to spot with, and he had his .22 rifle. But he tripped in a hole and the rifle went off. The bullet went through my arm and into my spine.
In the hospital at Rabaul, Tony was almost out of his mind with worry. When they told me I wouldn't walk again, I cried all through the night. And I didn't want to be with Tony any more. I told him to take our daughter Elizabeth and go back to Sydney. I said, I love you, but I want to go home to my family. ' At that moment, I blamed him for taking away my legs and the life that I had planned. He was devastated.
But I soon got over those feelings. And once I accepted it as a freak accident, I never wanted to be apart from Tony again. But he still felt guilty, so we both had that thing as a burden in different ways for a very long time. When I was flown out to hospital in Sydney I had to have police protection because my family was outraged at Tony, and wanted to do payback.
Later, in Australia, I was amazed when a doctor said we could have another baby. Caroline was born in 1970, when Tony taught at Blue Mountains Grammar School. He's a brilliant teacher, and I love him for encouraging me with my life. From our despair, we grew stronger by helping one another.
Tony is my husband and my lover, but best of all - going right back to the start of it - he's always been my friend.
Tony: When I started as her teacher, I knew mv feelings for Doriga were simply not on. At the end of each day I'd run for miles so I could come back and go to sleep and not think of her. I was besotted. And every day I had to see her there in the classroom. I could not say anything, or touch her, and this lasted a whole bloody year.
When the marriage was arranged, I was in heaven. But I still wondered: was it really love, or just lust through me being isolated so long? I'd gonr to Papua New Guinea because my father went broke and I had to abandon my medical degree. I figured I'd earn some money, then come back and finish Uni. To be sure about my feelings for Doriga, I returned to Sydney and took out a couple of my old girlfriends. I told my parents about Doriga, and my mother was appalled - for her, it was even worse than marrying a Catholic. After just six days, I tore back to Doriga. I was certain then.
We were married in the Port Moresby registry office in 1961. Doriga had a borrowed dress and bare feet; I was in my best whites. Also present were the registrar, the district commissioner and the malarial health control officer. Boy, did we shake up that town. From the registry, we went to the Moresby Hotel where they told us, 'Sorry, we can't serve a native person here.' I said, 'We don't want a drink for a native, but for my wife.' And they served us. After that, we became the first mixed-race couple to walk hand in hand through Moresby; the first to enter the Burns Philp store; the first to sit in the back stalls at the picture theatre.
We busted the rules through the simple strength of our bond as husband and wife. I'd make the openings, and Doriga - with her naivety and beauty and charm - well, she just won everybody, even my mother in the end. I loved everything about her, even the tattoos, which were quite bright back then.
And once you get that sort of unity, it makes it very difficult for bigots to say anything about one half of the relationship.
The shooting accident was one chance in 10 million. How do you feel when you know that, regardless of why and how, you have destroyed the most wonderful thing in your life? I can't describe that feeling. I kept myself going until I got Doriga to hospital in Sydney. Then it all sunk in, and I hit the booze. I never had a problem with my work, but when I was on the booze I didn't know who I was. I went down in a heap.
While I was sitting around hating myself, Doriga left hospital and joined the NSW paraplegic team. She did javelin and archery. She had accepted her situation, even then. It took a long while for me to get through that, and consequently I didn't push her wheelchair or make a fuss of her. Which may have been for the best. Because when we appeared as a couple, and there was no fuss, people actually forgot she was in a wheelchair. Again, the unit that we had become was what made it work.
We had some terrible times, just the same. You can imagine the recriminations. But never from her. It was always me with my masochistic self-whipping, and because I couldn't hurt myself I hurt the one I loved.
But that ended, finally, and life went on. People always ask the secret of long marriages, but don't ask me how ours works. I really think it's just her - you know, the way she is. It's her.