When
Jim’s daughter, Sharon , a journalist, married
Col Allan , managing editor of
the Sydney Daily Telegraph, later called
the most feared journalist in Australia ,
now running the New York Post , Bowditch and reporter Jim Oram went
to the Brisbane wedding .
The newlyweds retired
to their honeymoon suite
in an hotel ;
Bowditch left as
a passenger in
a car which
was pulled over for
a breach of
traffic rules. The outcome
was that Bowditch
gave the police a verbal pay, saying they
had ruined a perfect evening ; he
was arrested. The
honeymoon was interrupted
by the police telephoning to say
they had a
Mr Jim Bowditch
in the watchhouse, come and
bail him out.
While
in Sydney , Bowditch called
on longtime friends from Darwin ,
the Freedens , and was sad to see successful businessman Bob suffering from
Alzheimer’s Disease . Bowditch would look at Freeden
and repeatedly say there was
no God. Freeden , he said,
had done nothing wrong in his life , yet
had been afflicted . Bowditch would say of
himself that he had done
terrible things in
his life - including
killing many people during the war - and there was nothing wrong with him
.
At
some stage Bowditch resumed
contact with the the ex-NT News social writer, Joy
Collins, who was living at Mandurah
in WA, and arranged to
visit her . Bowditch subsequently went
to Adelaide by bus and
called on this writer along the way . Jim’s
book manuscript was in
a split cardboard box and the suitcase he had was
damaged. From Adelaide he flew
to Western Australia and
stayed with Joy Collins . There
he met up with Italian friends who had run a restaurant in Darwin, the Donatellis. He also called on Z Force members.
While in WA he applied
through the RSL for a replacement Distinguished Conduct Medal which he had lost in Darwin years previously
.
From WA
he sent a
letter to this writer
and in
it mentioned having “already forgotten” the name of
some people he
had met there
who were from
the Northern Territory.
Later on , Joy Collins
wrote saying Jim showed signs of
losing his memory
while staying with
her in Mandurah .
He
eventually returned to Darwin
and his book Whispers From The North was published by
the Northern Territory University
Press in 1993 ; with a print run of only
500, the book quickly sold out . The
folk singer Ted Egan,
who became NT Administrator , attended the book launch. Others who attended included
Brian Manning, Hilda Muir , Harry
and Nan Giese, former News photographer Joe Karlhuber, minus an arm, and former NT MHR, Sam Calder.Jim hammed it up and made a long speech.
 |
| Karlhuber, Bowditch. Ledwidge Photo. |
Following publication of the book, about 1994, Bowditch
passed through Sydney and made
contact with former
NT News reporter Errol Simper , then on The Australian . It
was arranged they
should meet, and
Bowditch arrived saying he
no longer drank.
However, he said
the night before he had gone
to a pub
and when he
called a taxi
to go home to
his daughter Sharon’s
place, he could
not remember the
address which had been
written down on
a piece of
paper .
He had
instructed the taxi
driver to just
drive around , hoping
to recognise some
landmark . With about
$3O dollars on the meter , the
driver took him to a police station.
There the police had been
helpful and not only got him home but, it is suggested , they may
even have paid the fare.
If so , it was an extraordinary
event for a person
who had been lumbered on
numerous occasions . Recalling that last
meeting with Bowditch , Simper said it seemed as if Jim
was expressly giving him his
life’s details for an obituary .
Back
in Darwin , Bowditch lived on his own in a
unit at Nightcliff,
not far from what had been the Paspalis
drive-in theatre . Betty and
Ngaire kept a close watch on him , taking him home for meals . Although not eating much,
suffering increasing loss of memory, Jim was still
attracted to newspapers and had piles of
them in his unit.
On a visit back to Darwin from South Australia, this writer and wife called on Jim in the unit and were saddened to see his deteriorated physical and mental state. He wore a shirt on back to front and picked up an umbrella with a bent point . While he remembered me , he did not know my wife- despite having given her away at our marriage in Darwin. As we left , he told my wife it had been nice to meet her - "young lady." NEXT : Uncle Sam wants Sergeant Bowditch .
