Interesting additional information has come in since mention of Sumner Locke Elliott’s controversial play - Rusty Bugles - based on experiences in the WW11 Army camp at Mataranka , NT, in the series about Kiwi author /activist , Jean Devanny. Two of Darwin’s current elder statesmen , Creed Lovegrove and Vern O’Brien, holidaying in Melbourne from the NT in 1949 , saw the play performed. The language used did not seem unusual for the NT. Further savouring the sophisticated offerings of the big smoke, they went ice skating .
Creed recalls neither of them was steady on the blades . Vern said ice skating was a real experience , and laughed when he said there was no ice in the NT at the time . It has been suggested that there could be a photograph of the ice skating follies somewhere in Darwin. We have unleashed a sniffer dog to try and track down this snap before global warming causes it to fade, curl up and disintegrate .
Former Darwin journalist , Kim Lockwood, TV Editor of the Melbourne Herald ( l979-l981), interviewed Sumner Locke Elliott when he came out from America to promote the TV series based on his novel, Water Under the Bridge , which covered Kings Cross and Sydney's class system in the l930s, described in the blurb as a watershed in the depiction of Australian identity. Kim recalls that Elliott , of pleasant disposition, had an American accent. Kim also interviewed Frank Hardy for the TV adaptation of his book, Power Without Glory.
