Bowditch
formed a
close relationship with two talented
and prodigious compaigners , Cec and Sandra
Le Brun Holmes , early film makers. Each had
an interesting and diverse background
before coming to the Northern
Territory .
Living on a sheep
station in western NSW where her father was a blacksmith, coachbuilder and
wheelwright, Sandra was brought up
with Aborigines and became
interested in their songs and dances. She moved to
WA with her parents due to the
Depression and after serving in the WAAFs
travelled about the west in the l950s, at her own expense, recording Aborigines. Her interest in Aborigines was so great
she even
hired halls and performed their
dances for audiences. Her studies included song ,
modern dance and anthropology .
She , like Miss Pink
of Alice Springs , had
dealings with anthropologist Professor A. P. Elkin of Sydney University . Both Professor Elkin and Dame Mary Gilmore
encouraged her work with Aborigines. In the
mid - l950s she left WA intending to get somebody to make a film about the plight of
Aborigines. Unable to raise money for
the film, she went to Sydney ,
met and worked for Cec Holmes. At her urging, they went to WA and made a
feature film The Flung Spear with the
assistance of Don McLeod who organized Aborigines to run their own ventures . From then on they became a
renowned film making team .
INVOLVED IN EARLY FILM MAKING A New Zealander, Cec was the son of an English born farmer . When he left school he worked for a time in an accountant’s office and enlisted in the Royal New Zealand Air Force during WW11. After being injured in a flying accident he transferred to the Royal Navy , rising to the rank of lieutenant. During his time in the navy he saw action in the English Channel and the North Atlantic . A film enthusiast, he visited studios in London and watched top film makers in action .
Back in NZ after
the war , he worked as a
newsreel editor and documentary
editor with the National Film Unit . The documentaries he made in NZ showed great flair and daring . In one Mail
Run ( l947 )
about the weekly RNZAF flights from Auckland to Japan to supply the occupation force, Holmes injected an
anti-colonialist view to so-
called Asian trouble spots at which the plane stopped. Although his views were not cut from the film , he did receive a warning . In
another film about seamen working on a coastal trader , Holmes incorporated
a commentary written in
alliterative blank verse by poet Dennis
Glover whom he had known in the Royal Navy . Due to his love of movies, he
was also
one of the founders of the NZ
Film Society movement .
CENTRE OF POLITICAL SCANDAL
In l948 Holmes
was the centre of a political scandal
which resulted in the first strike by
government public servants. At the time
there was much union unrest
throughout NZ , as there was in Australia , over pay and conditions . Holmes
was a Public Service
Association delegate who campaigned for
improvements. In a sensational act , his bag was stolen from his car while he was
drinking with friends at parliament house . Documents found inside supposedly
implicating him as a “ communist ” involved in militant union activity
in the PSA were made known
by the acting NZ Prime Minister , Walter Nash. Holmes was sacked. The PSA went on strike . ( In l995
an hour long NZ documentary Seeing Red , produced
and directed by
Annie Goldson, presented the “Red
scare scandal” which
destroyed the NZ career of young film maker Cec Holmes .)
Finding work in
the film industry was hard for Holmes , and at one stage he worked in a tyre factory. Then he became secretary of the NSW Peace
Council. The council was headed by
Methodist minister Reverend Alan
Bond and the treasurer was Dr
Michael Bialoguski who just
happpened to be working for ASIO. Dr
Bialoguski induced the Russian
diplomat Petrov to defect to
Australia .
Holmes set up a film distribution venture, New Dawn Films, which specialised in Russian and European cinema . One of the movies that passed through his hands was Sophie Loren’s first film Too Bad She’s Bad .
In l955 he made his second feature
film , Three In One , a trilogy
about mateship which was introduced by John
McCallum. The film originally
started out as an adaptation of
communist author Frank Hardy’s short story
The Load of Wood. Hardy had provided some money from the sale of his controversial novel Power Without Glory to see his story
on celluloid. After it was made,
Holmes and Hardy decided to include two
other stories, one being an adaptation
of Henry Lawson’s story Joe Wilson’s
Mates which was called The Union Buries Its Dead. Once again
there was a poor response to the film in Australia , major
distributors and exhibitors rejecting the film , probably due to Holmes' left wing commitment and involvement in the film distribution company New Dawn Film . However, overseas, Three In One
was well received by critics , one saying it was an honest and determined attempt to create a
national style and might well
be a landmark in the development of Australian cinema. The film was
screened at the Edinburgh and Karlovy Vary , Czechoslovakia , Festivals in l956
and sold to several European countries
and China. It opened in
London and NZ in
l957 and was only screened in a
few independent theatres in Australia.
Invited to
Perth to give a talk
on the history of the documentary,
Holmes decided to go to Port
Hedland and make the film People of Pindan about
white activist Don McLeod who had organised Aborigines to
strike and set up a cooperative mining venture. Sandra was his
sound recordist .
They worked
as a team on many films , one being a documentary , Lotu, shot in
New Britain . They worked on
several documentaries for the Australian
Institute for Aboriginal Studies (AIAS ) in Canberra , Sandra
doing a variety of work
including sound recording, field research and liaison and supervising mixing.
These included the Aboriginal
mortuary ceremony at Milingimbi in
Arnhemland . Some of the
documentaries were made for
restricted viewing archives .
They also made an historical
documentary for the Methodist
Overseas Missions on mission work
amongst tribal Aborigines and a three part series about tribal
elders facing changing conditions .
I, THE ABORIGINAL
I, THE ABORIGINAL
Cec made
the ABC adaptation of Doug Lockwood’s prize winning book I
,The Aboriginal about Phillip Roberts , a health worker in the NT . Lockwood encouraged
Cec to take on the
editorship of The Territorian magazine which was produced by the NT News
, its then editor , Peter Blake, wanting
to move to Hong Kong . At first Cec had been reluctant , saying he was not a journalist, but Lockwood
insisted that he would be able to
handle the job and urged him to
broaden the target readership
of the publication to other than pastoralists. Holmes did apply for the job and wrote that Rupert Murdoch had provided him with a house and car .
Cec, Sandra and
family moved from Sydney to Darwin
. Cec worked from home and
the job allowed him to do film assignments as well.
He brought flair to the magazine , travelled widely and
was congratulated by Murdoch
. Author/publisher Glenville Pike said his North Australian Monthly could not compete against The Territorian's resources and it folded .
Sandra carried out
anthropological research in the
field. She also compiled long play
records for EMI about the music of
Melanesia and Arnhemland . Another
landmark LP made by her for Festival Records was entitled The Hunter of the Black
which comprised Dame Mary Gilmore’s recollections of Aboriginal massacres during her childhood and Dame Mary
reciting her poems about
Aborigines .
YIRAWALA , DARWIN GALLERY AND MUSEUM
During her travels Sandra came across rare Aboriginal art and artefacts for sale and notified the AIAS in Canberra . She would notify Aboriginal Welfare in the NT of the interest and they would pay the vendors and send the items to Canberra.
Through her work
she saw
and was impressed by bark paintings for sale in a Methodist Overseas
Missions craft shop which had been done by
Yirawala , tribal elder and spiritual leader of the Gunwinggu . She met him and they became very close , she becoming his
mentor and advisor.[ Aboriginal art expert Hetti Perkins mentioned Yirawala during this year's NAIDOC Week ] . In l965 she
established the Arnhemland Art Gallery
and set up a Yirawala Museum in her house. Convinced that Aboriginal artists were
receiving a pittance for their
outstanding work, she agitated for higher payment and in doing so
incurred opposition from missionaries
and others . On one occasion a mission insisted she sign a
document giving an undertaking that she would not give advice to Aboriginal
artists , especially about the marketing and payment for their work.
After she arranged for
Yirawala to receive
advice from lawyer
Dick Ward, he signed a contract
with her
giving his friend
first offer to his paintings so that she could build up a collection of his work based on sacred ceremonial beliefs. The signing of the
contract was written up in the NT News under the heading PAINTER
TAKES INDEPENDENT COURSE .
On several
occasions she arranged for Yirawala to
travel interstate and exhibit
his work . Several paintings were stolen
but the exhibits helped white
Australians better understand the
Aboriginal heritage of the nation.
Under the aegis of the Australian
Council for the Arts, Yirawala and Sandra Holmes went to Papua New Guinea
for the first Festival of the Arts
held there .
Professor Elkin opened a Sydney viewing
of Yirawala’s bark paintings- the first one man exhibition of bark paintings in Australia .
Yirawala , barefooted, was in
attendance. The chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Affairs, “Nugget” Coombs attended the opening. In the l971
Queen’s Birthday Honours List Yirawala was appointed a Member of the Order
of the British Empire. This was
followed by the awarding of the
Medallion by the Committee of International Co-operation in Art.
Sandra Holmes
wrote a book Yirawala , Artist and Man and in the foreword Professor
Elkin spoke of the
white man’s economic flood which
seemed to be overwhelming Yirawala and the Aborigines of Arnhem Land .The
author’s text , he added, enabled the reader not only to
glimpse but also feel something of the distress being experienced
by true Aborigines.
The Holmes
residence in Darwin was regularly visited
by Yirawala and his family. A joint Holmes production
was a documentary for TV Return
to the Dreaming about Yirawala and his sons
visiting their home country. Various delays in dealings with officialdom infuriated them and Bowditch aired the hurdles placed in their way .
Sandra Holmes made the film Yirawala the
Picasso of Arnhemland with
the help of her daughter Amanda . The documentary was a prizewinner
at the Moscow International Film Festival . Another film made by Sandra , The Goddess and the Moon Man , about the Tiwi religion, won the
Prize for Excellence and
Contribution to the Humanities at the Tashkent International Film Festival .
The Holmeses
frequently came up against official opposition and petty mindedness in their valuable
work in the Territory .
Unfortunately , because of their
political views and strong activism , the malevolent mailed fist of officialdom was
used against
them time and time again . Due to her determined championing of causes,
Sandra was once decribed by a
top public servant as “the most dangerous woman in the Northern Territory”
. Bowditch repeatedly covered their battles and made representations on their behalf.
Possessed of
a fine singing voice , Sandra was a noted
Australian folk singer and
sponsored by TAA she made TV and radio show appearances singing songs
she had composed . A regular
entrant in the North Australian
Eisteddfod , she usually won the folk singing section . One of her prize-winning renditions was
a New Guinea mourning song, Lani’s Farewell , which she performed in an authentic costume.
In his film making career Cec Holmes frequently encountered hindrance from people in high places. At Film Australia ,where he was a staff director, he made a mini feature about the problems experienced by Asians in Australia . He spent a year researching and writing the 75 minute film and used a largely non-professional cast . In an act, described by Holmes as “ insidious self censorship” , Film Australia cut 20 minutes from the work . Removed were sections relating to a Chinese student’s involvement in gambling and an Indonesian being exposed to racial hostility in an RSL club .
Another
film he was involved in was about a middle aged metho drinker sentenced to
six weeks’ prison for a minor
offence who ended up in a hospital for the criminally insane . It
was based on an actual case in
Queensland which had raised a political
storm . Holmes was called in to give advice
on the script and shooting . Due to his
expert hand , the film was shot
trouble free and highly
acclaimed. For commercial televison he made a
documentary about the author Tom
Ronan who reminisced
about his wanderings in North Australia. Through his interest in films,
Cec contributed to the development
of film appreciation in Darwin , one of his films appearing in an
early film festival . He also taught
Aborigines how to make films .
In l966
ASIO noted that Cec and Sandra Holmes , along with
Bowditch, were amongst people of
“security interest” at a Darwin Vietnam Action Committee
vigil. Cec was described in the report
as being the editor of The
Territorian and a former C.P.A.
member ; Sandra also was
said to be a former C.P.A. member
and a collector of
Aboriginal art. In 1986 Penguin published Cec's part autobiography One Man's Way . Sandra wrote a passionate , more detailed autobiography, Faces In The Sun , Viking , 1999, reviewed in The Guardian under the heading HOW ABORIGINES ARE ROBBED . NEXT : The epic land rights fight.
