The October 1996 funeral service for Darwin’s crusading editor, Jim Bowditch,76, began and ended with the powerful strains of African-American human rights campaigner, actor and singer , Paul Robeson. The Bowditch family regarded those songs as symbolising Jim’s lifelong struggle for the underdog.
Robeson spent two hours in Darwin when passing through on his way to Sydney in October 1960.At the time, the Northern Territory News carried a report that Robeson spoke to union activists, Des and Norma Robson, at the airport. The paper announced that a committee, including News reporter , Jim Kelly, had been formed to try and arrange for Robeson to perform in Darwin on his way back overseas. Unfortunately, this could not be achieved.
In Sydney, Robeson sang Old Man River and The Ballad of Joe Hill to workmen on the Opera House site. In the audience of a packed Adelaide hall where he sang was teenager Rob-Wesley Smith, later to become a well known Territory agronomist,civil rights activist,Gurindji campaigner and longtime supporter of East Timor. Wes , as he is known in Darwin today, mightily impressed by Robeson’s singing and his message , went backstage in the enthusiastic throng and shook his hand.
That episode was vividly recalled this week as a result of the Darwin ABC’s Guest Room interview by Kate O'Toole of singer and entertainer,Kamahal . He was also in the Adelaide audience for Robeson , and on air mentioned the fabulous voice of the American. He also told of the part played by Wes’s father in his ( Kamahl’s) career. Academic Registrar at Adelaide University , Harry Wesley- Smith, advised Kamahl, a student from Malaysia , to switch from architecture, at which he was not doing well , to a course at the Conservatorium of Music. Kamahl visited the Wesley-Smith household from time to time and shyly sang a song one evening , near the open French doors ,so that he could bolt if the audience booed.
Wes made contact with Kamahl after the ABC broadcast and they discussed the proposal to commemorate Robeson musically, a subject which had been raised previously with Martin Wesley-Smith , a well known composer whose wide ranging work has included political content dealing with international issues such as Vietnam, Afghanistan,Timor and West Papua.
One of his compositions ,Quito,a documentary music drama, with text by his twin brother ,librettist Peter Wesley-Smith, called a magnum opus, dealt with a young East Timor refugee, Francisco Baptista Pires , suffering from schizophrenia , found hanged in Darwin Hospital.There have been other works dealing with East Timor . Jose Ramos Horta described Martin Wesley-Smith as a model political artist , a true creator , activist and humanitarian. Horta went on to say Martin and his brothers were “treasures of our country”. Wes intends to forward to Martin the information supplied by Little Darwin about Robeson's connection with Darwin and his songs being played at the funeral service for editor Bowditch. The Paul Robeson Centenary was celebrated in 1998. NEXT : The unusual part played by Rupert Murdoch in Kamahl's early, struggling life and the singer's involvement with Sir Donald Bradman who heard Robeson sing in Show Boat . (See Newsflash below )
