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Blast From The Past is a weekly (or somewhere around that timeframe, as I claim ‘Fiji Time’ as my defendant) post of scans from a 1969 Fiji Times paper which also doubled as a 100 year anniversary issue look back at 1869. Every week one page scan will be posted, allowing you to have a read of issues, politics and topics that was the Fiji of the past.

In the previous blast from the past post, the Fiji Times was happily purring along in its news operations based in the original capital of Levuka, content in the knowledge that the capital wasn’t going anywhere. When there was talk of moving to Suva, the company was most against such a thing. But history has said otherwise, and so in 1881 the Fiji Times opened a branch on Renwick Road, after which the two papers kept in touch using both sea mail and in 1884, the pigeon post.

Apparently, pigeon post was the fastest method of news delivery, with pigeons making the journey between both branches in 30 minutes. Hows that for service. They even had lofts built into the buildings to cater for this new form of transport. I’m guessing the IT guy version in those days would be the pigeon keeper.

Since the move, it became apparent that Levuka couldn’t hold its own as well as its new capital, since Suva was fast becoming the main economic powerhouse. Eventually, in 1886, with many a heavy heart, Suva became the defacto headquarters of Fiji Times Ltd. Since then they’ve come a long way, having at one time published their paper at 1 dime (or ten cents), established 3 sister papers (the Shanti Dut, the Hindi paper, the Nai Lalakai, the Fijian paper, and at present, Kaila, the weekly paper for young people) eventually coming under Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp via the Australian The Herald.

Little known fact: Suva’s sister city is Beihai, Guangxi, in China.