Sometimes you strike it lucky when you are doing the rounds in the never ending hunt for interesting books , ephemera and oddities . Trawling through one of the op shops in the Queensland town of Charters Towers , a 90 minute drive from Townsville, this blogger, twitching with nervous expectation , came across a stack of books which had only just come in and had not yet been priced .
Discovered in the pile was a specially autographed 1962 copy of I,The Aboriginal , by journalist Douglas Lockwood, who was the Darwin based Melbourne Herald reporter over many years , actually there the day it was bombed by the Japanese.
Specially presented to a Mrs D. Sanders in 1963 , it was a rarity not only because it was signed by Lockwood but because the Aboriginal subject of the award winning book, Phillip Roberts , who worked for the Health Department , had signed his Aboriginal name in full .
Back home with a backpack heavy with finds after the trip , each volume was examined closely. Mrs Sanders-wonder who she was? At first there was a strong feeling that she may have been the wife of the ABC manager in Darwin , Don Sanders , whose voice was heard issuing warnings the night of Cyclone Tracy and emerged in the morning to say Darwin looked like Hiroshima after the atomic bomb had been dropped .
However, loosely inserted in the book was a May 1963 folded newsletter from the United Service Institution , Swan Barracks , Perth , Western Australia .
Could Mrs Sanders have been connected with the military , her husband a Serviceman perhaps ? On a wild hunch , another book bought in Charters Towers , a hefty volume entitled CHURCHILL AND AUSTRALIA by Graham Freudenberg, deeply involved with the Australian Labor Party as an adviser and speechwriter for two prime ministers and three NSW premiers, was examined for possible clues.
Glancing through the index, there was SANDERS , Bruce . Could he have been related to the mystery woman ? Sanders was present when the famous cigar smoking British wartime leader Winston Churchill ," Winnie the War Winner" , came out to the Middle East and, dressed in a pale lilac suit and wearing a topee , inspected Allied troops at Alamein.
Going on the book , he got a mixed reception , a military historian noting that , to great amusement , an Australian gunner called out :"When are you going to send us home , you fat old bastard ? "
After discussing the book with Kim Lockwood , Doug's son, in Melbourne , we came to the conclusion that it was likely to have been presented to Mrs Don Sanders, wife of the Darwin ABC chief . If I remember correctly , she may have conducted an early children's radio show in Darwin .
