Stuart Highway, part of the great unwritten Nightcliff ripper novel .
An incident “witnessed” at Nightcliff has a novelist thinking about writing another book. What that event was , he , annoyingly, is keeping secret. Fair enough, I suppose . It would be nice to think that Nightcliff could inspire a bumper book such as James A . Michener’s, Hawaii. In that bestseller , turned into a movie, the author a Pulitzer Prize winner, told the story of Hawaii in episodes , covering its formation through volcanic activity, the arrival of the Polynesians, the impact of Western religion , other outside influences and so on in a mixture of fact and fiction . Using the same kind of storyline , Nightcliff could provide wonderful ingredients for an epic literary work.
In pre-history times , the Nightcliff area was the entrance to a vast inland sea . The origin of the name Nightcliff has long been the subject of conjecture . In 1839 a party from HMS Beagle , the vessel on which Charles Darwin had previously sailed, clambered up the cliffs with lanterns at night at a spot referred in its notes as the Night Cliff locality .It was speculated at the time that the local natives would have been terrified by those strange creatures emitting lights .
This “Night Cliff” description was used by Surveyor-General, George W. Goyder, in his original 1869 plan for Darwin.In subsequent years , however, it was erroneously claimed that the name Nightcliff was due to the misspelling of the name of multi-talented, obese, John George Knight , a qualified engineer , architect (designed Government House and the Town Hall ) , Government Resident from 1890-92, a lover of the Arts and a friend of poets Adam Lindsay Gordon and Henry Kendall . Knight was said to spend a lot of time in the beach area , and that it became known as Knight’s Cliff , a popular picnic spot. Now the beach has signs warning of asbestos .
The novel could include the wartime camps and huts , the dump , the ladies roster for cleaning dunnies , the undertaker who swigged rum while knocking up coffins, a fashion night at the old Seabreeze Hotel, the felling of most trees for the Nightcliff subdivision , the racist brothel keeper , stompers in an Indian cafe, long distance calling on the Mickey Mouse telephone , the mysterious Nightcliff bomber , the Larrakia struggle for Kulaluk, Freddy Fogarty and the imperious British butterfly collector, goings on at the Coconut Grove farm , the independent “ witch”, a visit by Xavier Herbert , the nuns’ retreat, Cyclone Tracy , the Sunday market anarchist bookstall run by Stuart Highway and the modern “Nightcliff Village” where one cafe has been broken into 50 times .
Then there are the Greek barbers, a Japanese lady with a big pooch, Lady Muck, the odd French cafe , political players and wannabies , selling sly grog to schoolkids , a runaway Boxer , Oscar the cat, the first search for cane toads , the budgie who called out Mum , a sweaty lady , Jasmine the dancing dog, did that cheeky girl actually lick the toilet seat?, Dr Woof, yiros , cuppas and the astute woman who said the NT and the rest of Australia received little in the way of benefit from mining royalties long before Canberra woke up to the fact .
These weird and disjointed fragments , thrown together at random , with the help of new medication, soon to be re-adjusted, illustrate the potential dazzling content of such a tome. By the time Michener died, aged 90 , his books had sold 75 million copies . I predict NIGHTCLIFF a la HAWAII could exceed the sales of Harry Potter , so somebody out there please get cracking and write the book as it would be nice to get my commission for the idea - afore I disappear into the never ending night. – (By Peter Simon.)
The novel could include the wartime camps and huts , the dump , the ladies roster for cleaning dunnies , the undertaker who swigged rum while knocking up coffins, a fashion night at the old Seabreeze Hotel, the felling of most trees for the Nightcliff subdivision , the racist brothel keeper , stompers in an Indian cafe, long distance calling on the Mickey Mouse telephone , the mysterious Nightcliff bomber , the Larrakia struggle for Kulaluk, Freddy Fogarty and the imperious British butterfly collector, goings on at the Coconut Grove farm , the independent “ witch”, a visit by Xavier Herbert , the nuns’ retreat, Cyclone Tracy , the Sunday market anarchist bookstall run by Stuart Highway and the modern “Nightcliff Village” where one cafe has been broken into 50 times .
Then there are the Greek barbers, a Japanese lady with a big pooch, Lady Muck, the odd French cafe , political players and wannabies , selling sly grog to schoolkids , a runaway Boxer , Oscar the cat, the first search for cane toads , the budgie who called out Mum , a sweaty lady , Jasmine the dancing dog, did that cheeky girl actually lick the toilet seat?, Dr Woof, yiros , cuppas and the astute woman who said the NT and the rest of Australia received little in the way of benefit from mining royalties long before Canberra woke up to the fact .
These weird and disjointed fragments , thrown together at random , with the help of new medication, soon to be re-adjusted, illustrate the potential dazzling content of such a tome. By the time Michener died, aged 90 , his books had sold 75 million copies . I predict NIGHTCLIFF a la HAWAII could exceed the sales of Harry Potter , so somebody out there please get cracking and write the book as it would be nice to get my commission for the idea - afore I disappear into the never ending night. – (By Peter Simon.)
