THE DARWIN STAR MEDIA WARS , Part 3 .

( Little Darwin's gonzo series -REWIND THE PRESS !-which reveals the NT's fabulous media past.)

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As The Star grew in popularity,various groups,including the government, tried to influence its content. At first, it was not realised how big an impact the paper was having on the Darwin establishment. Because the paper often took the NT government to task, it was wrongly labelled an ALP paper.

In the minds of government members and their media minders, however, it was so regarded. The fact that John Waters,QC, an ALP stalwart , handled the legal side of the paper , including threats of legal action , of which there were a goodly number, added weight to the conviction that it was a Labor paper.

Kerry Byrnes recalled an occasion at a function in the Victoria Hotel when he was “bailed up “ by Chief Minister , Paul “Porky” Everingham, accompanied by his press secretary , Peter Murphy , a former Star editor , and berated because the paper never had anything good to say about his government. Over and over , Everingham drawled , “Why don’t you like us? ” Byrnes replied that it was not a matter of liking the government - it was all talk and no action. The paper was taking the government to task for that inaction. (In a taped interview, Kerry recently said the situation changed. Everingham did become a good CM and things did happen for the betterment of Darwin . )

The animosity towards The Star from some in the big end of town became evident at an unusual encounter during a polocrosse day at Fred’s Pass Reserve one weekend . Kerry was sitting -“knee deep in horse shit and empty white cans “- when a group of prominent businessmen , one a large , gruff millionaire , drew nigh.

The corpulent fellow , who later suicided, bellowed at Kerry and went on about his " fucking, pinko, commie " newspaper . He demanded to know how you could get anything positive in the double expletive newspaper . Responding in kind, Kerry told him he could buy The Star and would then have to contend with the editor . (The editor at the time was Peter Blake who, Kerry said, would tell any proprietor who performed like the millionaire where to go in no uncertain way .)

The juiced up businessman enthusiastically embraced the suggestion to buy the offending publication and emphatically stated he would call round at 9 am on Monday and purchase the despicable rag . Returning home from the rowdier than usual equestrian event , Kerry related the surprising news to Sandra. They spent the weekend “ on cloud nine,” spending the money they had not yet received on European cruises, new cars, paying off debt. There would be no more creditors ringing up-like the banks which “ went ballistic ” from the first day of the paper .

On the Monday , Kerry rushed in early and got the staff to spruce up the place to make it look a glittering prize for the new owner. Someone was sent up the road to get fresh coffee and cakes. At the appointed hour, the tycoon did not arrive ; by 10.30 it was evident that he was not going to show, so everybody got stuck into the coffee and cakes.

Two weeks later, again at polocrosse , Kerry saw the well-heeled fellow, a little tired and emotional, and asked him why he had not kept the appointment to buy The Star . He responded by saying he had no recollection of the episode. The Star blithely proceeded along its merry way .

The Star had regular columnists and contributors like activists, agronomist Rob Wesley – Smith and welfare officer John Tomlinson, deeply involved in the Freedom for East Timor movement, civil liberties and the Gurindjis ,to name a few issues . Wes received a letter from US President –Elect, Jimmy Carter , re Timor. A 1976 fishing column by E.M. O’Neil included a picture of the pollution at the Gove wharf ore loading facilities , which is still going on today, according to a recent report in the NT News, which quoted Alcan as saying it may cost up to $100milllion to overcome.

One of Kerry Byrnes’s many tasks was virtually that of a bagman to make sure there was enough money in the kitty to pay the workforce , that grew to 35, each week and meet the monthly overheads , which kept him racing about like a doped greyhound.

A representative of the Printing and Kindred Industries Employees' Union (PKIEU) rang Kerry and said he wanted to inspect the newspaper , enrol members and check conditions. Keeping the whole operation running fairly smoothly without any unforeseen disruptions was a major concern in those early days. The thought of a union coming in and somehow throwing a spanner in the works caused alarm bells to ring. Kerry told the PKIEU man that all the staff were paid above award rates and fringe benefits included cartons of beer for regular piss ups , free party tucker- cakes, biscuits , garlic bread and garlic prawns . Our employees just luv us , mate , the union rep was told .

The fact that a green frog in the ladies toilet tickled the girls, causing them to scream , was not made known to the PKIEU in case a black ban was placed on the dunny or , worse still, the entire premises placed in quarantine until deloused .

Nevertheless , the union official insisted that he would visit. Kerry went into the factory and broke the news to a German printer , who immediately reacted angrily , shouting fuck several times in an aggressive Prussian way. On hearing his outburst , other staff wanted to know what was wrong . The angry German said Kerry was sooling the union onto everybody . Something of a League of Nations , the staff included nationals of France, New Zealand , Scandinavia and Britain , who responded in a similar fashion as the German,whose surname, oddly enough , gave the impression he was a Pommie . The emphatic consensus was that they did not want any union dues deducted from their pay.

Fearing an insurrection in the factory and disruption to the harmonious running of the business, Kerry spoke to a right wing union official in Sussex Street, Sydney,about the union situation. As a result of that conversation, Kerry was surprised to receive a number of telephone calls from the Catholic Action leader, B. A. Santamaria, who warned about the danger of allowing “Communist unions” into the workplace. During one of those conversations, Santamaria addressed him as “son”, and asked Kerry , a Catholic, where he had been educated . On stating Marcellin College , Camberwell , Melbourne, run by the Marist Brothers, Santamaria said he knew it well.

A small business started to take out a full page advertisement which, Kerry said , was like a tiny corner shop running a six page advert. The owner invited Kerry and Sandra to a dinner party at his home , a fortress like building , with steel shutters and a generator , where you could imagine a drawbridge being drawn up to protect it from invasion by an unwashed horde at a time of revolution .

As the evening progressed , disparaging comments were made about blackfellows, Asians, Vietnamese refugees and what they were doing to Australia. Sandra took umbrage at what was being said ,saying they sounded like a nest of Aryan goosesteppers , and they left . Thereafter, the fellow from the extreme right wing group ,which included several doctors, pulled his advert and scowled at Kerry whenever he saw him in the street.

Kerry and Sandra had an unusual experience at a function for Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. Kerry was approached by the PM’s security men who said they wanted to eject The Star photographer because he was drunk. Kerry issued an invitation to be his guest, and the snapper was given the bum’s rush. We hasten to point out that photographer was not Barry Ledwidge . At another political dinner , an exhausted scribe fell face first into a plate of potatoes . His wife was informed that her husband was embedded in the tatties, and resignedly said he was always doing things like that .

A much read regular column, SCURRILOUS ,contained snappy ,short items, often upset some in high places. Several late night telephone calls were received by an editor from a prominent man who not only applauded the paper for its stance against the NT government in a certain contentious matter , but urged a continuation of the campaign . One item , probably more, resulted in phone taps.

Surprising indeed were the legion of people who wanted to provide news tips , supply interesting scuttlebutt and arrange documents to fall from the back of trucks. Alleged drug dealers were named and details of odd behaviour by well to do people were provided. The walls of The Star, including the ladies loo with its girl- eating frog, would have been papered with writs had they published all the juicy bits.

Another lively column , Star Spots, also stirred up the town . From time to time ,the columns took a shot at the News and the paper became incredibly sensitive . Several complaints were made to the Australian Press Council by the News about comments made about it in The Star. As these complaints had to be made in writing , a copy was duly forwarded to The Star for a response, which caused much mirth as the details were read out to all and sundry .

The Star gave these complaints a run in the paper, with additional comment , further stirring the possum. The Press Council became puzzled about the complaints , and one of its members actually rang The Star and expressed surprise at the attitude of the News. After all , this was an exchange between journos who at times went in hard on members of the public , yet seemed to cry foul when subjected to banter by their own kind.

After leaving The Star, veteran photographer and graphic artist , Barry Ledwidge, applied for a job at the News. Editor John Hogan , a Kiwi rugger bugger , marched out of his office, pointed at him, and said he would never get a job on the paper because he had worked at The Star.

However, other ex -Star photographers who did get work at the News were Clive Hyde, recently retired chief photographer at the NT News, and the peripatetic Beat Errisman ,who is attracted back to Darwin from Europe like a bee to honey.

Yet another lively column, From the Longgrass , featured a drawing by an artist called Wicking -now a popular cartoonist at the NT News.

Through the newspaper’s portals passed a stream of journos – Andy Bruyn , now the Channel Nine ,Darwin, chief; Rex Clark , government media adviser, Channel 7, Queensland ,high flyer ; American Toni Gragg (Kelly) , who had covered the Cuban missile crisis for the US Navy , an all rounder , PR , government media advisor , later spent a time in the Hong Kong Department of Monuments and Antiquities. Val Smith , experienced in many aspects of printing, went on to run her own rural newspaper in Darwin .

Of the many editors who passed through The Star, John Loizou was the best one from the management’s point of view in that he was able to keep the costs down. A former NT News reporter who had been forced out of Darwin by Cyclone Tracy, he found it hard to get back onto the paper, probably because he had played an active part in the strike over the editor appointed to replace Jim Bowditch. On his return to Darwin , he was forced to work as a council employee . Later taken back by the News, he became the productive editor of the Sunday Territorian and was recently praised by NT News reporter Nigel Adlam for his performance there . From Vietnam , where he now works, Louizou this month wondered what the capitalist Byrnes team thought when he wrote in The Star that his heroes had been Lenin and Marx

The wardrobe of one reporter who often slept on the premises ran to two shirts only . Each day he would take off the crumpled shirt he had slept in, open a drawer and take out the other shirt, in similar condition ,which he had stuffed in the previous morning , slip it on and go forth to face a crisp newsy world.

A reporter was knocked down and kicked by men at night over a story . During the thumping the assailants said the reporter would not write any more stories about a well known Darwin person as he would receive another bashing. Silly fellows-the man they mentioned got another big run in the very next edition, despite the fact that the reporter had an arm in a sling .

Kerry and Sandra were included in a trade mission to Hong Kong and had an interesting discussion with representatives of the Hong Kong Star who had strong memories of the legion of Australian journalists who had worked on the paper. Apart from their involvement with the newspaper, Sandra and Kerry had dealings with David Astley,who started a nursery supply business ,Tropigro , in Darwin and got them to print a tropical gardening magazine . After two issues , he left to become manager of Channel 8, later Channel 9.

Kerry and Sandra enthusiastically continued production of the magazine, becoming deeply interested in tropical gardening in the process. . The magazine attracted national advertisers and there was widespread readership in northern Australia and some enthusiastic overseas readers. Through the magazine they made many contacts with nurserymen, horticulturists and enthusiasts. Sandra ,Kerry and family once travelled from Cairns as far south as Sydney selling the magazine to newsagents and other outlets .

Other magazines they produced were the monthly Darwin Visitor ,which promoted tourism , and separate ones for hockey with the enthusiastic support of businessman Keith Kemp and rugby league with the involvement of Aldo Roscetto and Bob Elix, into which they put a lot of time and effort. NEXT EDITION –The King and Rupert Murdoch lock horns.

ANTS IN DARWIN HOSPITAL

It is a matter of record that the Royal Darwin Hospital had a cockroach problem. A visitor to the hospital recently noticed that while talking to a patient there was a conga line of ants zigzagging about the ward from what was obviously a nest underneath the window frame . As it was the third floor, one wonders if they were flying ants. As you loll back in bed in that ward , it would be inadvisable to drop some biscuit crumbs into your shortie pyjamas and go to sleep as you could wake up with a terrible itch in the nether regions . Worse still, your gizonkas could be detached and be seen disappearing or hanging under the window screen like a bunch of mistletoe . NURSE!!!!-in a high pitched , squeaky voice.

HOW TO DIE LAUGHING

Should I die afore Boxing Day or the Chinese New Year ,I have given my wife firm instructions to forward the funeral demand for payment , which will include an expensive Melbourne gangland casket(coffin) and a wake for all and sundry where Milo will be dispensed in vast quantities, to God’s gift to Seventh Day Adventists, Australian literature, film making and political speechwriting ,Bob Ellis . Why so ?

While recovering from a cardiac operation performed at Adelaide’s Flinders Medical Centre , this decaying person read Suddenly, Last Winter ,another Ellis masterpiece, in the form of an election diary centred around the removal of Kevin O7 and the rise of Julia Gillard. Reading the book caused gales of laughter , blindness due to the frosting up of my useless trifocal new spectacles and insane giggling-on just about every page . My wife said it was fortunate that the cardiac operation had not involved stitches as they surely would have burst due to all my guffawing ,causing spittle to spray and a bit of snot.

Taking shelter from Adelaide's cold weather, I climbed into bed with the book and bombarded my wife with demands to listen to yet another extraordinary passage ,thus ruining it for her when I finally, reluctantly allow the book out of my hands.


I would surely have died laughing had this brilliant book come my way when I was recovering from a triple bypass on Magnetic Island seven years ago . Stitched from ankle almost to the right testicle and the subject of extensive embroidery on the chest , I lay in bed at the time, weak, sore ,clutching a World War 11 Department of Defence whistle with an attached lanyard , once the property of a soldier who built sewerage systems in Malaya before the Japanese pulled the chain on the British and other colonial empires.

The whistle was to be blown when I needed something or felt I was going to cark it. One night I slipped down the bed and could not move, so blew the whistle and my youngest son, Craig, known as Mad Max on the football field, who had come down from Darwin to help , came to my aid , picked me up like a toy,clutched me close to his hairy chest ,and put me on the pillow, in what was described by his brother,Peter, as a trademark crash tackle.

Suddenly Last Winter -an ideal Christmas present – for yourself. If you are tempted to buy John Howard’s book,wait until next year as it will soon end up in the remainder bin reduced to a song and come complete with a free , pre -loved Akubra

KENNEDY ASSASSINATION ODDITY

The 47th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas has revived discussion of the grim event and all the theories about who shot him in 1963 . The Little Darwin library has a somewhat unusual book, Who Killed Kennedy, by Thomas G. Buchanan,G.P.Putnam’s Sons, New York,1964, a special edition printed for the friends of Petersen Engineering Inc.,California, producer of Pengo products –earth boring augers ,earth digging teeth ,tension stringing equipment.

There is a 10 page pictorial catalogue of its equipment, along with an illustration of penguins ,at the front of the book. In a foreword , the company’s president , Gerald Petersen , said when he toured Europe and the Near East in 1964 the assassination of President Kennedy was still an active subject of discussion.


While most Americans believed Lee Harvey Oswald had shot the president, this seemed completely illogical to the rest of the world . Petersen had discussed the subject with 130 people overseas and with one lone exception, every one was convinced the assassination had been planned, directed and executed by a powerful organisation and that one man could not have done it alone. Could the newspaper stories in the US be inaccurate , he asked. During his readings he had come across this book by Buchanan and felt its contents should be known throughout the world, copies distributed to libraries and friends. The author had worked for the French weekly, L'Express

QANTAS UP , UP AND AWAY

Gove seems to be the new capital of the Northern Territory, seeing Qantas is closing its Darwin office in early December, ending more than 40 years’ association with the city . NT government departments have been informed that as from tomorrow (19th) bookings can only be made online or through a new Gove office. Little Darwin understands the Spirit of Australia airline bookings in the Territory are now handled by American Express.

GREAT NEWS FOR ALICE-KABOOM!

MURUROA ATOLL : Coalition leader Tony Abbott today announced that a nuclear bomb testing range like the French one here will be built on the rejected Angela-Pamela uranium mine site south of Alice Springs , if his Split Enz Party seizes power.

Wearing a beret and riding a contaminated rissole delivery trike used in the many French nuclear bomb tests which showered the Pacific with fallout, “ call me Antoine ” Abbott, said the tests had caused an economic boom in French Tahiti . Strontium 90 fallout from the tests had ended up in milk and caused Australian babies to glow in the dark, making it easier for parents to find their infants in power blackouts, especially in Darwin.

Similar tests south of Alice, he predicted, would cause a double digit spurt in the Centre’s desert mirage industry and lead to a new breed of mutated camel, built like greyhounds, which would break all records at the Camel Cup. Abbott flayed the Henderson government for pulling the pin on the Angela-Pamela project . When it was pointed out his Northern Territory love children ,the Country Liberals, had also given the thumbs down on the venture, he responded with a typical Gallic oath, usually used when the French describe the British.

Centralians , he said, had nothing to fear from a nuclear bomb testing range- if they regularly ate homogenised peanut butter sandwiches. The famous film star Mickey Rooney proved this when he stumbled into a nuclear testing range during count down and ate an homogenised peanut butter sandwich just as the township was nuked. Apart from sounding like one of the singing chipmunks for a month , he survived , went on to have amazing luck with the pokies at Las Vegas and had to beat off admiring women with a big glowing stick which looked like Darth Vader’s light sabre. Rooney married 26 times and was finally buried in a lead lined coffin

DARWIN SPY STORY

A young woman called at the Darwin office of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) on an unusual mission. At the direction of the editor of the Northern Territory News, Jim Bowditch, she presented an envelope containing three letters. One was for the Director General of ASIO ,Colonel Spry, and the other two were copies for the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, and the Minister for Immigration, Hubert Opperman .

Bowditch had contacted ASIO on April 15 ,1965 and told them that the mail was coming . Colonel Spry was alerted at ASIO headquarters in Canberra. Bowditch , as usual, had another scoop, the looming deportation from Darwin of a British man who claimed Russians in Beirut had asked him to spy for them in Australia. The man,who had written the letters , may have been a double agent while working for the French during the Algerian war. In Singapore and Darwin , he had told Australian security representatives about the request by the “bears “-the Russians-to spy in Australia .

In his letter , perused by Little Darwin ,the man spoke of “ difficulties” with the High Court of England . The veracity of the Russian spy story, he wrote,could be “easily checked” by him setting up at least one contact “with Russian intelligence in your public service.”

ASIO reported that Bowditch rang the Darwin office on April 24 saying the man had written a story "about his espionage activities " and it would be either published in the NT News or sent south for publication . The News, ASIO noted, was owned by the Murdoch group. Bowditch had "intimated "that ASIO was mentioned in the story.

The author of the ASIO report went on to discredit Bowditch , saying that while he was a good journalist , he regarded him as "completely untrustworthy and unscrupulous. " Bowditch , he continued, was not well respected in the Darwin community , an odd comment for a man held in high regard by so many in the Territory and down south . It was further claimed Bowditch had “numerous convictions for drunken and irresponsible behaviour”-which was no so . A recent documentary revealed Colonel Spry himself knocked back the Scotch with gusto. The Darwin ASIO officer wrote the deportee's highly colourful ,"imaginative narrative "appealed to Bowditch’s “literary senses.”

LAST OF THE FIGHTING EDITORS , Part 7 .

The"BIG JIM" BOWDITCH SAGA
ESCAPE FROM LONDON

Jim's passage to Australia in 1937 may have been arranged through the Anglican Big Brother organisation, his mother using her church connections to assist him. The day he was supposed to board the vessel , Port Dunedin , sister Mary , upset at him going , put her head under the blanket when he entered her bedroom to say goodbye. His mother was emotional and tearful at the idea of her young son leaving home and going far away . His father gave him a hearty slap on the back.

Jim felt lonely and was secretly fearful of the voyage ahead of him because he suffered from sea sickness . Not only that , he suffered from motion sickness . Sitting in the back of a car made him ill and facing towards the back of transport also had dire consequences.

Eventually he departed carrying a kitbag - but was back in half an hour . Word came through that the ship’s departure had been delayed and there was no need for him to come aboard . The following day there was another farewell. This time there was no return and he never saw his parents again, his father supposedly dying of a heart attack in the arms of his secretary during “a dirty weekend”.

Aboard ship, Jim was put to work under the chief steward, a tired-eyed homosexual . The steward grabbed him by the hair , made comments about his arse and tried to rape Jim . However , his boxing experience and fitness enabled him to fight off the man . The tussle took place in a cabin and they crashed about for five minutes until the steward gave up . The early part of the voyage was a nightmare because of Jim’s seasickness and the fear of further attack by the steward

He and another young lad also working passage polished brass , washed dishes, prepared vegetables , chipped at rust and painted. There was a short stopover in Cape Town , South Africa, where Jim bought souvenir postcards and sent them home. Magnificent albatrosses glided alongside the ship and Jim threw them tidbits. Sailors regailed him with stories about what happened to people who shot the birds

New Zealand, he felt, seemed the desirable destination for him. Crewmen backed his desire to go to NZ, saying it was more British than Britain. However, when the ship passed through Sydney Heads he knew Australia was the country for him . Besides, he had been given the name of a man in a Sydney suburb , Enmore, as a contact.

Because it was his job to clean up , Jim was one of the last to leave the ship ; he found that officials on the wharf did not seem to care where he was going. Nobody asked him if he had the six pounds which had been so hard to raise . With his kitbag slung over his shoulder, he went looking for the contact, only to find the man had moved on . Not only had the man moved , but the residence had been replaced by a baker’s shop owned by a Frenchman. The Frenchman, amused by Jim’s story, gave him a job as a dough stirrer and provided accommodation. The hospitable Frenchman showed him around Sydney and helped him look for jobs on hearing of Jim’s desire to go on the land.

The State government advertised for young people to work on an experimental farm at Glen Innes , in the New England area. No pay was offered but the rudiments of farming were taught and free dormitory accommodation and food were provided. This was a dream come true for Jim , and off he went to Glen Innes where he ploughed fields, rode horses , ripped out lantana , milked cows, looked after sheep and cattle dogs and learned how to use farm machinery. It was paradise in his estimation. He played rugby league as scrum half and five eighth for the Glen Innes team in what was a fierce competition.

After working at the farm he got casual work at Inverell and Warialda where he was a wheat lumper, lifting bags in excess of 150lb . This hard work contributed further to his physical development and capacity to toil for long periods. He discovered by working on various farms that Pommies got paid less than Australians . On one farm where he and an Australian lad worked looking after 80 cows, Jim got 10 shillings ($1) a week and the other fellow got one pound. From then on Jim disguised his English accent and said he came from Queensland . Cow cockies, he found, led a dour , hard existence, even though they were better off from the tucker point of view.

On a trip to Brisbane he read of a job paying 32/6 a week and keep at Gamarren Station , owned by the King family . He applied , got the job and caught the train to the station. The position mainly entailed killing and dressing sheep , clearing trees and even helping the laundry maid. Feeding 14 dogs was another chore. One of the stockmen on the station, Mick Kane, owned a superb Kelpie bitch which was outstanding rounding up sheep. Named Toy, the dog would only obey Kane’s instructions. An event took place involving Toy and his master which left an indelible mark on Jim’s memory.

Some sheep were being mustered and several of them kept on breaking away , sending up a large cloud of dust in the process. . The dog was working hard to round up the sheep , but they would break away . Kane , normally patient, was weary and lost his temper with the dog. For some reason, the “magic combination ” between the man and dog finally failed. In a towering rage , Kane lept from his horse, grabbed Toy by the back legs, swung her round and round his head and smashed her against the main gate post. She lay whimpering on the ground. Kane immediately sat alongside her and burst into tears. Nobody was game to interfere ; he was a tough egg , Mick. “ We just left him there,” said Jim. That man sat there for many days and nights with Toy, nursing it back to health . In a remarkably short time she was back on deck again . And our regard for this man hadn’t lessened at all . It was a relationship between animal and man that taught me a great deal. Their’s was a truly remarkable relationship .”

Jim clashed with a contract horse breaker, Joe Copel , over the way he ill-treated horses. Copel , according to Jim, hated horses and was paid 30 shillings ($3) a head to break them in . “The way he walked and moved , you could see he had suffered much from his horse breaking. Many bones had been broken over the years . He was bent and battered. His whole body was distorted . Joe would start off breaking a horse by hitting it in the head with a bag , choking it down and pouring water in its ears . Before mounting , he would go to a corner of the yard and urinate.

After getting the saddle on, he would stamp around the yard and steel himself for the task . You could feel the horse quiver as Joe mounted. We opened the gate, and the animal pig-rooted , bucked and spun. Joe suffered many falls. He was a great rider and could break in eight or 10 a day. When he was thrown off he would urinate again and climb back on. ”

At a dance , Jim told Joe that he did not like the way he broke horses and a fight broke out. Joe fought like a wild horse . Some 10 months after Jim joined the hired hands on the station another young stockman , Jack Green, from the Miles area of Queensland , was engaged .Tall, strong and raw-boned, he and Jim got along well .

After a time they came to the common conclusion that working long hours and being treated “ like shit ” was not much of a life . They decided to go gold prospecting at Wellington , NSW, and seek their fortune. Jim had a pushbike and Jack went to Cunnamulla and bought himself one . They then made up swags, gave notice, and pedalled off for Eldorado.

When they arrived in Wellington they went to the pub and store and asked for instructions about how to prospect for gold. An old resident showed them how to make a sluice box from timber , with ripple irons and coconut matting. The oldtimer kindly gave them his own coconut matting to put in the sluice box as long as they promised to give it back when they decided to leave. Fair enough. Eager and fit, the two began digging and soon had the sluice box working. Because funds were low, they shot rabbits which were in abundance for food . Rabbits were boiled, fried and even fricaseed when there was enough money from prospecting to afford potatoes and onions. So many rabbits did they eat that they began to smell like them .The publican - storekeeper bought whatever gold they found and provided them with tea, flour, tinned meat and vegetables . Though he was grubstaking them, they were going out backwards because little gold was being won .

One day they decided to pull down their tents, pack their swags and pedal off . Before departure the coconut matting was returned with thanks to its kindly owner. Days later they were told by another prospector that matting held about 50 percent of the fine gold put through a sluice and the only way of getting it out was to burn it. Jim and Jack realised that they had probably been set up by the helpful prospector who, no doubt, had burned the matting when they returned it to him. You live and learn as you pedal through life.

WHITE HAND GANG

A gang of teenage Aboriginals wearing white gloves has been active in the Palmerston area . A resident, home alone last week , went to the kitchen and noticed an Aboriginal boy ,about l5, walking by the window. When she asked him what he wanted ,he yelled “Go!” to a group of other boys ,three or four in number ,in a line , no shoes, all wearing white gloves like those worn in libraries when handling old or valuable items. They ran off . Police were called and a vehicle was seen driving away at speed , with dogs barking . It appears several houses had been broken into that morning in the same area. The fact that they wore gloves raises the possibility that they may have form.

DARWIN HOSPITAL HORROR MOVIE

Any budding local film maker after a location for a 3D movie about the end of the world or another Dr Strangelove thriller should inspect , with the aid of an exorcist, the spooky tunnel linking the Darwin Private Hospital with the Royal Darwin Hospital.

Cyclops , lost and fearing an attack by Count Yorga , scampered down this dark wombat hideaway , clutching a stolen Gideon’s bible from a waiting room to ward off evil spirits. In one part , both sides of the walkway had thick clumps of accumulated plant matter blown in through the louvres . A drain cover was almost completely jam packed with the same matter and had obviously been that way for some time . A furtive fag could ignite this tinder dry rubbish.

Some walls appeared to be suffering from salt damp and paint on several doors were faded and grotty looking. One scabrous swinging yellow door in particular looked like a study in Golden Staph and Sunflowers by that deranged artist bloke who slashed off an ear, Vincent van Goggomobil .

Stumbling out into the open , blinking in the bright sun , still lost, but glad not to have been mugged or eviscerated , Cyclops found himself near the top secret hospital nuclear waste dump. All about were bunches of mutated weeds , plastic cups, cigarette butts , other assorted litter , and somebody seemed to be giving mouth to mouth to one of the Marlboro Man’s products , and I don’t mean a frankfurter.

To find the front entrance of the Royal Darwin Hospital, I was told to go back inside the catacombs and turn left. Rather than run the gauntlet of vampire bats , serial killers armed with scalpels , Lady Ga Ga in drag or the Health Minister on bedpan duty , I galloped up an outside flight of steel stairs , clutching my dodgy ticker , which reminded me of a scene from the movie, Escape from Alcatraz .

As I tottered up the stairs , I espied what looked Like the famed Hanging Gardens of Babylon , but sprayed with Agent Orange . A familiar trail of cigarette butts, blobs of black chewing gum and assorted paper litter pointed the way to the main entrance, with its ebola breeding telephone booths and unsightly splashes up against the wall .

THE DARWIN STAR MEDIA WARS , Part 2.

Adventurous proprietors of the independent Darwin Star newspaper , Sandra ( above) and Kerry Byrnes . Sandra is holding the framed and autographed first edition of The Star which made the Darwin newspaper world rock and roll when it took on the NT News . Today they run the popular Arnhem Nursery at Humpty Doo where on November 28 the Rural Potters' Association will hold its annual Christmas fair .

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The first souvenir edition of The Darwin Star hit the streets July 1, 1976, a compact 24 A4 pages. It contained strong political comment from the outset.

Independent MLA Dawn Lawrie , called a witch and a few other fairytale characters by the CLP , wrote a regular column , Dawn Weekly . A good political operator , quick on her feet because her Boxer roamed Nightcliff byways at times, resulting in a trip to the pound, she went on to have her own paper and become the Queen of a tropical island which would have been invaded by hordes of dehydrated journalists on rafts seeking a calypso lifestyle if it had been closer to Darwin.

As the name implied, a column called Beating the Bulldust , by Pandanus , did not pull any punches and Roger Ryan , MLA, attacked the rubbish served up each week by the anonymous writer . Pandanus also got up the nose of Majority Leader , Goff Letts. Pandanus , he wrote, should change his sobriquet. Pandanus was a prickly denizen of swamps and bogs . Ricinus ,the castor oil plant, seemed more apt. Little Darwin is aware of the identity of the irksome Pandanus , but nothing will induce us to reveal it- unless a large sum is deposited in our Swiss bank account .

Social news was supplied by Darwin's answer to Hollywood’s Hedda Hopper, Joy Collins, who had worked at the NT News back in the 1950s. In those not politically correct days , Joy spent weekends at Batchelor, where her eventual partner, Ron, worked at Rum Jungle. One Monday she rang editor Jim Bowditch from there and said she would not be coming to work as she was in bed with a wog . Bowditch asked what nationality. It became an anecdote Joy freely repeated, even in genteel company, such as Quota Club meetings . As a result of her extensive connections, Joy often picked up many news tips which provided both the News and The Star with scoop stories.

Founding photographer, Barry Ledwidge ,who had worked for the Australian News and Information Bureau , operated out of a tiny darkroom in which the airconditioner almost sat on his shoulder. Ledwidge recalls one of his unusual assignments for The Star included stumbling around a pastoral property at night looking for graves in a major story. Bazza also had to shed his gear to cover the official opening of Darwin's nudist beach, of which more will be revealed later on .

Rugby League notes were provided by Frank McPherson, author of the history of rugby in the NT, who was kicked out of play by the Grim Reaper last year.

The August 5 1976 edition of the paper announced that Ken MacAulay had resigned as editor and would be replaced by Peter Blake. It was stated that MacAulay intended to establish himself in fulltime creative writing . He would continue writing features for the paper while researching material for a novel set in Darwin. His first novel, Black Anna, written with the assistance of a Commonwealth Fellowship, was to be published in November. At the time of the announcement , Ken told how a leading businessman had said the smart money in town maintained The Star would not last more than four issues; now six editions had been printed.

MacAulay wrote profiles, all skilfully penned, one about mining magnate Lang Hancock, interviewed as he was preparing to climb into a hot bath . HOW A PEA PUT LIZ INTO POLITICS , another brilliant profile, was about CLP MLA Liz Andrew , tragically taken by cancer . If only there were political writers of MacAulay’s calibre in Darwin today. Without knocking was another bright column he wrote , admitting in one that he had been suspended from the Journalists' Club in Sydney. Sadly , Ken drowned during a Sydney flashflood while trying to ford a crossing to get to a pub , from which he had departed a few hours earlier .

Discharged from hospital, Sandra Byrnes , started working back at the newspaper office after two weeks , going home early in the afternoon. Her father, Ted Hurst , and mother, Iris, moved , up from Melbourne to help. Ted Hurst was businesslike , analytical , with a time and motion approach to the running of the often chaotic , very boisterious printery and newspaper .

Under- capitalised, the weekly Star , full of local news , cost 10 cents and outsold the NT News on its day of publication ,Thursday , and created great interest in Darwin with its lively new style and strong local stories . The initial ambitious print run was in the order of 16,000 ; it levelled out at something near 12,000, at times running to 40 pages. From inside informants at the NT News came reports that the management was deeply concerned and shocked by the standard of the opposition. There were anguished cries at the News of why the hell didn’t we have this front page story ?

A southern printing trade journal on several occasions mentioned this lively new paper In Darwin with a healthy circulation. As a result, it attracted the attention of assorted major media players and some very strange organisations . A strong approach was made by the well- connected Jewish journalist ,PR, politician, organiser of Royal tours and a Papal visit , Sir Asher Joel , of Sydney, through one of his companies, Carpentaria Newspapers Pty Ltd, Mount Isa ,Queensland . Joel , with backing from Mount Isa Mines , had forced News Limited to close the Mt Isa Mail as a result of the great mine strike .

Another organisation which “sniffed about” seeking information may have been connected with the Sydney Morning Herald group. It is sheer hearsay that Sir Frank Packer’s Consolidated Press had an agreement with Murdoch not to get involved with any competitive Darwin paper because ConPress had or was interested in the TV station.

Startled was perhaps the best word to describe the reaction of Sandra Byrnes when she received telephone calls indicating a desire to buy the paper from Frank Nugan, a founding principal in the Nugan Hand Bank, later centre of a sensational scandal which revealed that it was a CIA front which dealt in drugs, guns and money laundering.

Nugan, an Australian lawyer, reputed to be associated with the Mafia in Griffith , was found shot dead in his Mercedes on January 27 ,1980, near Lithgow, NSW . A bizarre report said a bible with the name of William Colby, former director of the CIA, had been found in the vehicle. Midst ever astonishing revelations about the shonky bank it was suggested Nugan had faked his death and was in hiding, so the body was exhumed. It was found to be his.

At the inquest, his partner in the bank, Michael Jon Hand, a former US Green Beret , who had served in Vietnam,said the bank was insolvent , owed at least $50million .Then he flew out of Australia on false identity papers to Fiji in June 1980, after destroying Nugan Hand’s records , and has not been seen since . As a CIA operative, it was said he probably re-entered the US and was given a new identity.

There were astonishing revelations at a subsequent royal commission and a joint task force report on drug trafficking regarding the activities of the Nugan Hand Bank . It was reported Nugan Hand had acted as a CIA front to finance the war in Laos by laundering drug money. Nugan Hand's Chaing Mai branch was even said to have participated in the covert sale of an electronic spy ship to Iran and weapons shipments to Angola.

On the Australian front, Frank Nugan was linked with the mystery disappearance and murder of Griffith politician , Donald Mackay , the name of Sir Peter Abeles (Hand had once worked for one of his companies in Australia ) was mentioned and there has long been speculation that Nugan Hand played some part in the dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, an allegation made that the bank transferred $2.4million to the Liberal Party of Australia for the 1974 and 1975 elections .

During the shock inquiries and reports, Sandra Byrnes’s ears pricked up when she heard the name of an American , a member of an odd Darwin organisation, the Institute of Commercial Affairs ,who came to The Star from time to time . The very initials , ICA, could and were taken to really be CIA- the US Central Intelligence Agency .

ICA had something like a compound in Parap Road occupied by three American families. There was no sign outside , just a small brass plate with the letters ICA above the street number. The folksy Americans approached Kerry and invited him to join their fellowship group which held picnics at places like Berry Springs, where they sang songs, the Internationale not one of them . It was not a religious organisation, but extolled the American way of life, said Pine Gap was good for Australia and that the US was sorry so many people had been killed in Vietnam but Communism had to be held at bay.

The ICA presented poorly written press releases which were usually binned at The Star. However, the ICA newsletter was printed on the premises .What was plainly a public notice was presented as a news item, and Kerry told them they would have to pay for it as an advertisement. In the minds of many people in Darwin at the time , it was a CIA front . NEXT EDITION-Abuse, a bashing and a millionaire buyer.

STONE AGE CONTROLLED COMMUNICATIONS

Paranoia has broken out again in a certain Darwin organisation which is seriously considering scrapping all its computers and replacing them with Aboriginal runners carrying message sticks to control the flow of information . Watching the recent New York marathon probably inspired this dynamic decision. In addition , all office staff phones are likely to be sent to A.G.Sims to be scrapped. It appears somebody in the organisation has upset top bras(s) by making adverse comments about the emperor and his retinue.

TOLSTOY FOUND WANTING

Around the world there have been festivals and other ceremonies to mark the centenary of the death of the Russian author Leo Tolstoy who died a vagabond on a railway station on November 7, 1910. In Australia the ABC has been running a fine series of documentaries on Radio National .

The late Australian author, Xavier Herbert, who wrote Capricornia and Poor Fellow My Country, most of their content inspired by Territory experiences , declared Tolstoy had ruined the end of the novel Anna Karenina by having her throw herself under a train because of jealousy and despair over her lover , the dashing military man, Alexei Vronsky.

Herbert felt Tolstoy had chickened out using this ending . In his opinion , he should have allowed the two to live together and all the tensions and passion of their relationship would have enhanced the book. Mind you, Xavier was noted for using trains to wipe out characters in his writing.

THE DARWIN STAR MEDIA WARS , Part 1

(First in the exclusive REWIND THE PRESS ! series about the NT media )

*Front page of the dummy Darwin independent newspaper
****************************************************
Drugged and in a confused , painful state due to burns sustained during an explosion following Cyclone Tracy , a woman in Darwin Hospital signed two documents which would have a dramatic impact on the Northern Territory political and media scene . One increased a mortgage to finance the start of an independent newspaper and the other was an application to register its name, The Darwin Star, strangely inspired by a blood and guts publication in Hong Kong .
The women whose signature made this daring venture possible was accountant , Sandra "Sandy " Byrnes ,wife of a former travelling salesman, taxi driver and oil driller , Kerry.

Wearing a bikini, Sandra was engulfed in flames when a fault in a washing machine ignited fumes from petrol being used to remove the adhesive from laundry rubber floor tiles that had lifted as a result of the cyclone. The door into the laundry slammed shut, the fumes built up and as the washing machine changed cycle , there was a spark and a loud explosion.

Her husband forced the door open, walked through flames, and directed Sandra, shocked and in pain , to the shower . She was also doused in iced water . Kerry then walked/ carried her to their car and sped to the hospital, his blistered feet sticking to the pedals along the way . The bikini had to be cut from her at the hospital. Placed in a saline bath and heavily dosed with morphine,she was in hospital for five months.

During that stressful period , The Star was born and performed more like a fiery comet than a faint glimmer of light in a distant galaxy as it took on Rupert Murdoch’s Northern Territory News in what became a battle to the bitter end .The cast of characters in this gripping yarn ,which includes a touchy feely green frog, reads like the Guys and Dolls of Damon Runyon's great short stories about Broadway .

Prior to the cyclone, Sandra and Kerry were involved in a small printing business, Graphic Systems, on the Stuart Highway, Stuart Park, with a partner, Dudley Hollands , who had worked for the Packers in NSW. As the business expanded , it was moved to new premises in Bishop Street, Winnellie and attracted a growing number of journalists, printers , photographers and graphic artists for boisterous after hours sessions .

Two journalists who regularly came to Graphic Systems were Jim Bowditch ,former editor of the NT News , and Peter Blake , member of a dynastic family of journalists . Blake had been involved with two other brothers and the notorious Jim Ramsay, called the Evil One and on a Murdoch "leper list" , in production of Sydney’s massively successful , audacious and irreverent King’s Cross Whisper . On the premises Blake and Bowditch produced North News , a newsletter of business, political and economic news sold on subscription to southern business interests . They also collaborated in the production of a government rural magazine .

Blake, now probably this very day doing his last shift as a sub editor on the New York Post, ending 60 years of journalism, had been chief sub editor on the Hong Kong paper, The Star, which was mainly staffed by colourful Australian journalists . News editor at the time was the dashing, handsome Steve Dunleavy, who went on to become a living legend in America , even the subject of a cult movie ; his old Sydney police rounds foot in the door style of reporting during the Son of Sam Murders in New York made him a national identity.

He visited the Boston Strangler in prison and wrote a book about him . Elvis Presley’s drug taking was revealed in another book. Through TV reporting in the US , Dunleavy became known as "Mr Blood and Guts". Steve also wrote a novel about the first female US president and a Big Apple watering hole much frequented by him etched his noble head in a glass panel. Yvonne Dunleavy co-authored the best selling memoirs of New York madam ,Xaviera Hollander's The Happy Hooker .

Dunleavy, showing signs of journalistic wear and tear , walking with the aid of stick , his hair white (jet black and swept back like Elvis in younger days in Sydney), retired from the New York Post in October 2008. At the farewell bash , Rupert Murdoch recounted how he had once written a $US30,000 bonus cheque for Steve ,who promptly went to a nightspot and lost it. Rupert wrote out a replacement cheque , but gave it to Steve’s partner, who put it down as a deposit on a house.

During drinking sessions at Graphic Systems , outrageous and colourful anecdotes about Hong Kong journos , the colony's extraordinary characters ( who was Nipples Nancy and what part of her anatomy stood out like cigar butts ?), the mysterious death in a nightclub and the disappearance of a quantity of gold were recounted. Peter Blake recently told Little Darwin the Hong Kong Star had been “a spritely tabloid much given to stories of bloody mayhem and students hurling themselves to their death after failing college entrance exams .” A banker who jumped from a tall building was splashed across the front page in more ways than one.

A former NT News sports editor, Dennis"Doggy" Booth , was another who worked on the colonial paper when Blake was there ; he devised a horse betting system which at first looked as if it would make all the reporters Hong Kong dollar millionaires , until they, inevitably , ended up losing their cheap tailor made shirts.

As a result of Cyclone Tracy and the early stages of the Darwin Reconstruction Commission , there was an influx of journalists from south , some dealing with Graphic Systems, where they produced community information newspapers . One of them was Peter Steedman, dubbed the Black Knight because of the way he dressed, who drove about Melbourne in a Jaguar which bore a message, something like STUFF MALCOLM FRASER . His transport nowadays is a Bentley. A former fiery editor of the Melbourne university papers, Farrago and Lot’s Wife, during the hectic Vietnam War period, he was involved in verbal and physical clashes with ASIO operatives, the right wing National Civic Council and conservative politicians who tried to both blacken his name and optics.

In London, he had been involved in a number of successful campaigns , including one which prevented a new TV channel being given to commercial interests, and ran the controversial Oz magazine office for a time while key players were fronting the Old Bailey. He and a mate, Jonathan Ball, also a political activist, who played a large part in reviving the Ballarat Chinese Joss House , were involved turning out various publications for the Darwin Reconstruction Commission,providing people evacuated south with information . The indomitable Steedman also drew up a report on how to deal with the community needs of natural disasters anywhere in the nation, which seems to have disappeared .

Then there was journalist Roger East, later killed by the Indonesians in East Timor, who had arrived with Sir Leslie Thiess , head of the Interim Darwin Reconstruction Commission.East , a longtime friend of Peter Blake’s, had also worked in Hong Kong, and often came to the printery to help Blake and Bowditch.

During production of various publications Kerry Byrnes was often instructed by the thirsty crew that as he was a rising media mogul with bundles of dough, he should make himself useful , go and get grog and something to eat, garlic bread and garlic prawns very much in favour. From time to time , it was strongly put that Graphic Systems should consider bringing out a badly needed , really good newspaper to take on the Northern Territory News .
Gravel voiced Steedman pointed out the printery was chock- a -block with crazed newspaper journalists , looked and sounded like a disorganised newspaper office , so it should launch a newspaper and it would have more helpers than Santa had elves. {Steedman will be the subject of a separate in depth report in this series .}
This wild idea grew wings , and Sandy and Kerry decided to give it a go. Peter Blake suggested the paper should be named after the Hong Kong paper. He even designed the logo for the proposed paper along the lines of the one in Honkers . Then the terrible explosion.

From Sydney came a bug -eyed journalist, one Ken MacAulay, intense, short of cash and transport, nicotine-stained, long suffering back pain, to be the first editor , with Bookie Blake ( he fielded at Fannie Bay), contributing anonymously from the wings .

In the dummy paper designed to show potential advertisers what it would look like , gardening notes were facetiously attributed to Sydney reporter Bob Staines, better known as “Big Betting Bob”, who had worked at the ABC Darwin in the early 1960s, a close friend of renowned turf writer, Max Presnell, nicknamed "Society Max", now of the Sydney Morning Herald , recently heard on the ABC giving tips for the Melbourne Cup.

Staines and Blake had run two fishing magazines in Sydney and they were often heard giving live radio reports on the best fishing spots in the Emerald City .

A racy political column in the mock up speculated about who would be the next NT Administrator to replace Jock Nelson who had resigned to contest the 1975 Federal election , describing Government House as one of the more salubrious and gracious pads in Darwin town. Darwin Navy chief, Captain Eric Johnston, a man of worth and girth, had been sounded out for the position, it continued , but the Navy had not been keen on the idea of losing a sea-going commander to the giddy social whirl of Darwin.
NEXT EDITION- Enter Santamaria,Nugan Hand Bank and CIA .

DARWIN SPIES

The interesting ABC documentary on Colonel Spry and ASIO, the Australian security organisation, contained a front page newspaper picture of Sergeant Greg Ryall of the Northern Territory Police with a beefy forearm around the throat of a Russian KGB gorilla at Darwin Airport in the dramatic Petrov Affair. ASIO compiled thousands of files on people -unionists, journalists,activists , politicians , public servants - anybody who spoke out about the establishment, it seems.


Many individuals , men and women, in the Territory were watched. Little Darwin has seen ASIO files in which the names of journalists at the NT News who received the communist newspaper,The Tribune, were listed . One ASIO report ,covering a meeting in Darwin , said a person had cheekily asked who was the ASIO representative at the gathering that evening. Waterfront workers received extensive attention from ASIO in bygone days .

It is unlikely that a man who has been allegedly "spying " on Darwin waterfront toilers of late is a member of the modern ASIO. Like something out of Get Smart, this person has been reported " hiding " behind trees,leading to him being dubbed Agent 13, Maxwell's Smart's unfortunate buddy who was always inside unlikely places such as cigarette machines, washing machines, trash cans ,fire hydrants and even disguised as a tree.

One local Get Smart fan says the guy doing all the eyeballing on the waterfront looks more like the evil KAOS character, Shtarker, Siegfried's over -zealous lackey with an abrupt personality. As a result of his activities ,there has been a name change for Darwin -Little Dubai.

DUBAI, YOU WILL RECALL, WAS WHERE HOWARD GOVERNMENT FINANCED SCABS WERE TRAINED TO TAKE THE JOBS OF AUSTRALIAN WATERFRONT WORKERS IN MELBOURNE. MILD MANNERED , TEA DRINKING, ROLL- YOUR- OWN BARRISTER , JULIAN BURNSIDE; ACTU SECRETARY , GREG COMBET, A BREEDER OF CAGE BIRDS, NOW A CRACKER POLLIE , AND FEISTY MARITIME UNION OF AUSTRALIA BOSS, JOHN COOMBS , WERE KEY PLAYERS IN THAT EPIC 1998 CLASH, CALLED THE BATTLE THAT CHANGED AUSTRALIA.

There are other fascinating Territory angles to the documentary , but they will have to wait until another day when we have time to look through (find) our musty files.

" EXCESSIVE FAECES" HITS FAN AT DARWIN PORT CORPORATION

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A POSSIBLE DISPUTE AROSE WHEN , WITHOUT ANY CONSULTATION WITH THE MARITIME UNION OF AUSTRALIA (MUA) , THE DARWIN PORT CORPORATION LET A CONTRACT TO A PRIVATE COMPANY TO CLEAN THE FRANCES BAY MOORING BASIN AREA TOILETS.

THE MUA , WHICH HAD BEEN CARRYING OUT THE WORK FOR MANY YEARS , LODGED A STRONG PROTEST WITH DPC CEO, ROBERT RITCHIE. NT MUA ORGANISER THOMAS MAYOR POINTED OUT THAT THERE IS A FIRM AGREEMENT THAT THE UNION MUST BE CONSULTED OVER ANY POSSIBLE CHANGE , IN WRITING, PRESUMABLY ON LADY SCOTT TISSUE PAPER, 14 CLEAR DAYS BEFORE ANY PROPOSED ALTERATION . OUTSOURCING TO A CLEANING COMPANY WITHOUT ANY REFERENCE TO THE MUA WAS CLEARLY A BREACH OF THAT AGREEMENT.

RITCHIE DID NOT REPLY PERSONALLY TO MAYOR . THROUGH THE COMMUNICATION TUBES CAME A RESPONSE ADMITTING THERE HAD BEEN AN OVERSIGHT BY THE CORPORATION IN NOT FIRST DISCUSSING THE MATTER WITH THE MUA.

HOWEVER, IT APPEARS THE DPC CLAIMS A CLASSIC CASE OF FLUNG DUNG ON THE TOILET WALL PROMPTED THE ANNOYING CHAIN OF EVENTS. IT SEEMS THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH ITINERANTS USING AND ABUSING THE CONVENIENCES , ESPECIALLY AT NIGHT . INSTEAD OF STEPPING UP THE WHARF SECURITY , THE DPC HAS RESPONDED BY SENDING IN SOMEBODY ARMED WITH A BRUSH , WHICH THE MUA SAYS WILL NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

THE DPC STRESSED THAT THE COMMERCIAL CLEANER WOULD BE WELL TRAINED , PERHAPS WITH A CHARLES DARWIN UNIVERSITY DIPLOMA IN ETHICAL CRAPOLOGY? , WHICH WOULD COME IN HANDY IF SWITCHED TO MATARANKA TO CLEAN UP THE MESS IN THE BEEF JERKY FACTORY.

SHAKEY ISLES

THE LATEST EMAIL FROM FRIENDS IN CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND, TELLS OF 2500 OVERSHOCKS SINCE THE CITY WAS HIT BY AN EARTHQUAKE . ALTHOUGH THE TREMORS SEEM LESS POWERFUL, THE FREQUENT SHAKING IS CAUSING FURTHER DAMAGE TO BUILDINGS NOT ALREADY DEMOLISHED . THE SOIL UNDER FOUNDATIONS IS BEING PULVERISED IN PLACES . SERIOUSLY , MANY KIWIS ARE THINKING OF MOVING TO AUSTRALIA .

CLOSER TO HOME , THE ERUPTIONS OF THE INDONESIAN VOLCANO MERAPI COULD HAVE CATASTROPHIC RESULTS IF IT EXPLODES LIKE KRAKATAU DID IN 1883, KILLING MORE THAN 40,000. LIKE A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION, IT WAS HEARD 3000 MILES AWAY . IN AUSTRALIA, IT WAS HEARD IN PERTH AS 23 CUBIC KILOMETRES WERE BLASTED INTO THE ATMOSPHERE, IN THE PROCESS DESTROYING THE ISLAND IN THE SUNDRA STRAIT , BETWEEN JAVA AND SUMATRA.

LAST OF THE FIGHTING EDITORS >>>>>> THE "BIG JIM " BOWDITCH SAGA , Part 6. LIFE IN THE LOLLY FACTORY

Former great Northern Territory News editor making emphatic point

The economic grind and Jim’s disenchantment with school combined to make him leave at the age of 14. Fortunately, while still at school , he had made the acquaintance of a remarkable man, Pat Martin, an early exponent of time and movement studies. A “mathematical wizard” and humanist, Martin was in his early twenties , and he and Jim got along well. It is not known how they came to meet , but Jim’s sister ,Mary ,recalled that she had been a babysitter for the Martins. A quietly spoken Irishman, Martin told Jim he would like him to work in a new industrial psychology department he was about to open in C & E. Morton Pty. Ltd., a huge canning works on East India Dock Road, Mill Wall, London, where they canned fish, meat, jams and also produced a wide range of confectionery , including acid drops.

Morton’s wanted a bonus system introduced similar to the one devised by Frenchman Charles Eugene Bedaux which gained notoriety as an exploiter of the workforce. In America the Bedaux technique had substantially increased output by offering workers a bonus payment for greater production . It became a method of weeding out slower workers, and there was much union suspicion about the time and movement study techniques from across the Atlantic. Jim said he believed the distrust of the Bedaux system was responsible for Australian trade unions banning all bonus systems in the late l930s.

At a wage of two shillings and sixpence a week , Jim went to work for Martin in the cannery . Men and women in the vast works were suspicious about Martin , his time and movement studies and the young men, including Jim, who worked for him.

According to Jim, Martin firmly believed that his mathematical variations on the Bedaux system would give the workers a greater share in the company’s profits. Martin explained to the workers -he was a great speaker, “but not a used car type”- that while the aim was to increase productivity, it would not be done at the expense of jobs. He gave an undertaking that workers who could not reach the production norm would be given more suitable jobs and not be fired. It was agreed the study should go ahead on trial for some months.

So Jim, complete with a stopwatch and clipboard , went to work as a time and movement observer in a confectionary packing section. He noted that girls on the production line were on their feet 10 hours a day. The monotonous work involved taking jars or bottles from a production line, laying them on a bench, sticking on labels, then placing them back on the conveyor belt. Because the girls and women were on their feet so long , they suffered from sore legs and extreme fatigue.

Jim told Martin the staff should have adjustable chairs to sit on to take the weight off their legs . He also pointed out the process of taking a container from a production belt to be labelled consumed a large amount of time . As a result of his suggestions and observations, chairs were supplied, the production line was adjusted to make labelling easier and faster , resulting in increased production .

What is more, the girls received a bit more pay. Some of them showed their appreciation by offering to take gawky Jim behind the chocolate box stack for a quick cuddle . He was too shy to avail himself of the offers by the saucy London lasses. Jim was given a bonus payment for his work and his wage went up to seven shillings and sixpence a week.

As he cycled to work he observed the grubby surroundings . His income helped his family in those tough times. Martin influenced Jim’s thinking as he often had him at home discussing working conditions, workers ’ pay and enlightened industrial psychology.

Despite the interesting and rewarding work, Jim wanted to move on . The grime of London , which he described as a nauseating place , and the poverty of the people bore down heavily on him . One of the abiding memories of London was the stench from glue factories where the workers , overcome by the putrid smell, rushed outside to vomit , and then returned to the fetid interiors.

His longing to leave developed into a hatred for London and what it did to people who lived in the sprawling city. Tension at home with his father added to the desire to get away. The seductive colonies beckoned. He still had this overwhelming feeling to be a farmer or an agricultural worker : “ I had a mad desire to milk cows, ride horses and plough fields. I hated London- this filthy, smog -filled , poverty- ridden bugger of a place.”

After deciding that he would “flee ” to either New Zealand or Australia , he made inquiries and found that it was sometimes possible to work your passage to these distant meccas . However, he was told that the colonies required that you had six pounds ($12) in your pocket when you landed there . That was a lot of money in those days .

Martin readily provided Jim with a glowing reference in the hope that he could find employment in the colonies in the field of industrial psychology. Nobody was able to inform him if industrial psychology was even used in NZ or Australia , still he was prepared to give it go.

Before Jim left the cannery, Martin arranged a meeting with the boss of Morton’s , hoping that he might even contribute some money for a passage out. However, the head man delivered a lecture for about half an hour during which he never mentioned money and warned that the colonies were rough places . Honesty and the virtue of hard work were emphasised.

Jim’s depression at not being able to raise funds lifted when a rich relative , Uncle Joshua Cornelius , who part –owned or had shares in some Welsh coalmines, asked to see him. “ Uncle Corny ” ,whose name was mentioned in hushed tones in the Bowditch household because of his wealth, lived in a mansion near Blackheath . Jim hurried to his well stocked fireside full of expectations. Uncle Corny, a Jew ,was married to a sister of Jim’s father .

Uncle Corny opened proceedings with another lengthy lecture which warned about bad women, keeping your nose clean and the necessity to work hard. Jim’s heart began to thump when dear Uncle Corny put his hand in his pocket... and pulled out a mere five shillings (50c) . This was much less than he had hoped to receive. It fell to Jim’s maternal grandfather , the man after whom he had been named, to provide the necessary cash to enable Jim to muster the money for a passage to a new life. It was not ingratitude that made Jim sign the necessary papers for his trip in the name of James Frederick Bowditch instead of Frederick James Bowditch. Everybody knew him as Jim , and he really did not like the idea of being called Fred.

MUSICAL CHAIRS AT THE PORT CORPORATION

GO ON HOLIDAYS OR ABSENT YOURSELF FROM THE OFFICE AT THE DARWIN PORT CORPORATION AND YOU MAY FIND THAT MORE THAN THE POTPLANTS AND PAPERCLIPS WERE REARRANGED WHILE YOU WERE AWAY. READERS WILL RECALL WHAT HAPPENED TO THE RESPECTED , LONGTIME DARWIN PORT HARBOURMASTER , BRUCE WILSON, WHO RECEIVED A SIGNAL WHEN HE WAS OVERSEAS INFORMING HIM THAT THERE HAD BEEN CHANGES BACK AT THE WHARF APRON , AND HE WAS REDUCED TO BEING ONE OF THE PORT’S PILOTS. A LEGAL MATTER ABOUT THE TREATMENT OF WILSON APPARENTLY ESCAPED THE ATTENTION OF THE MEDIA WHEN LISTED FOR HEARING LAST MONTH.


THE CITY WHARVES PRECINCT MANAGER RECENTLY RETURNED FROM A BREAK TO DISCOVER THAT DURING HER ABSENCE A NEW OVERSEEING POST, GENERAL MANAGER CITY WHARVES , WHICH SOUNDED VERY MUCH LIKE HER POSITION, HAD BEEN ADVERTISED .THIS NEW POSITION IS HELD BY ONE PETER RAINES .OUT OF RETIREMENT, HIS APPOINTMENT WAS ANNOUNCED OCTOBER 7 . A FORMER JOINT OWNER OF THE BANK OF QUEENSLAND DARWIN FRANCHISE, EX MANAGING DIRECTOR OF STERLING PROPERTY SERVICES NT, AND SAID TO BE EXPERIENCED IN CONTRACT MANAGEMENT, HE WAS THE CHAIRMAN , CULLEN BAY MARINE MANAGEMENT

BIG BROTHER GOOGLE

Neurotic Little Darwin staff members now come to work permanently made up to look like warty Halloween characters , a form of disguise, convinced that Big Brother is watching their every move. Why ? After posting several spoofy items about Prime Ministers, a rodent called Lazarus, and a snake’s duodenum -up popped Google adverts linked to these subjects. One offered the opportunity to keep in touch with PM Kevin Rudd’s website; another seriously offered pest control services for rats and mice and another recommended a pet business which provides reptile supplies.

It appears every golden word that is posted on the Little Darwin blog is scrutinised in a bid to work out what kind of weirdos we are and , more importantly , how can we be induced to spend our Monopoly money .