Melbourne journalist Kim Lockwood has fleshed out , in more ways than one , the latest chapter in the Little Darwin serialised biography of NT crusading editor , James Frederick Bowditch ( See post below ) . It was pointed out there that it appeared Bowditch had incorrectly named the renowned Punch editor Malcolm Muggeridge –not the famous philosopher Lord Bertrand Russell – as the person who figured in a strange episode in The Residency , Alice Springs , where the irascible NT chief veterinary officer, Colonel Lionel Rose, cavorted within and without. Kim’s father , the late well known journalist and author , Douglas Lockwood, was the Melbourne Herald representative in Darwin for many years . In part , Kim wrote :
You must be right about JFB's Muggeridge being Russell. As you say, Muggeridge was in the Territory in 1958, and is hardly likely to have also been there in 1950. I know Muggeridge was there in 58 because Doug Lockwood dropped his 13-year-old son ( Kim) at Mataranka Homestead for a few days, drove to Alice, picked up Muggeridge and returned, picking me up on the way back. The two men had a swim in the hot springs, but not having bathers did the obvious. I may -- or may not -- be one of very few people to have seen the editor of Punch in the nude. On the way home I drew a couple of cartoony things, resulting in his (Muggeridge’s ) inscription in my autograph book: "To Kim, the future cartoonist."
Little Darwin followed up this fascinating story and asked Kim for a copy of his teenage artwork which had so impressed Muggeridge , plus details of his autograph collection. His rapid response was thus :
As for the "cartoon" I drew for Muggeridge, fair suck of the sauce bottle! I was 13! That's 55 years ago. Do you think I kept it? In your dreams. However, despite my penchant for singing syrup , my memory of what I drew and why I drew it is good. I will replicate it tomorrow and send it to you. With my cartoon signature. (I invented a giant machine that could gouge through hills, thus eliminating the blasted Pine Creek Hills switchbacks.)
As promised, Kim met Little Darwin’s demanding Christmas global edition deadline and provided the above awesome drawing , which looks like a machine for thrilling , dangerous journeys to the centre of the Earth , a la Jules Verne . Kim said he was pleased with his “invention” - a tunneller, or hill-gouger, a machine that would bore straight through the hills to produce a flat, straight road.
The Lockwood home, Kim continued , on Darwin’s Esplanade , was a goldmine for an autograph hunter as his father regularly went to the airport to meet passengers of note on incoming Qantas flights, and since people had to overnight at Berrimah ( the airline base) in those days , he brought home many of them for dinner or a drink. A detailed list of persons in the autograph collection , with interesting pen pictures and other snippets of information , is as follows -
1. Jennifer and Penelope Wise, Government House, Darwin. They were the daughters of the NT Administrator, Frank Wise – a former Premier of WA – with whom Dale (Kim’s sister ) and I often played. The book was a gift from them, and although their entry is not dated I would guess it was for my ninth birthday in 1953.
2. Don Bradman. This signature was cut from a letter from Bradman to my father. They corresponded, though perhaps not regularly, and Bradman had dinner with us in our house in Esher, Surrey, in 1955 or 1956.
3. Verity Gill, c/o Gold Seeker. Gill, 23, a Singapore-based journalist, was one of six survivors of the wreck of the Gold Seeker, a treasure hunter grounded on the coast of Timor. The six spent eight days in an open lifeboat before being rescued. Their story is told in my father’s cuttings.
4. Arthur Calwell, long-serving federal Opposition Leader. Visiting VIPs often came to our house for dinner or drinks. I recall hearing from my bedroom the raised voices of political debate in the lounge room that night. Dad had probably invited a few local politicians along.
5. Rohan D. Rivett, campaigning editor of The News, Adelaide. Author of Behind Bamboo, the story of his time as a PoW, and famous for his involvement in the Rupert Max Stuart rape/murder case.
7. (Dame) Elisabeth Murdoch. Widow when she signed the book of Sir Keith, and mother of Rupert.
8. Laurie W. Whitehead, journalist at The Herald, Melbourne, competitor in the 1953 round-Australia Redex trial.
9. (Sir) John Williams, journalist, editor-in-chief, managing director and chairman of the Herald and Weekly Times in the 1950s and 1960s.
10. Norm Banks, 3KZ and 3AW broadcaster 1930-1978. Pioneered Australian rules football broadcasts, founded Carols by Candlelight and pioneered talkback radio in 1960.
11. R(ichard) G(ordon) Casey (in green ink). Minister for External Affairs in the Menzies era, later Lord Casey of Berwick. Another senior federal politician talking to locals in our lounge room. My father doubtless got news stories from these encounters.
13. Albert Namatjira, modern Aboriginal artist.
14. J.S. Higgins, general manager of the Peko gold mine at Tennant Creek.
15. Bill Harney, bushman, poet, author of 12 books, self-taught anthropologist, lived and worked among the Aborigines of the NT almost all his life. He was an honorary member of our family, and my sister Dale’s godfather.
16. Jock Nelson, then MHR for the NT, later NT Administrator.
17. Ngarla (Rosie) Jedda, real name Rosalie Kunoth, the 16-year-old female star of Australia’s first full-colour feature film, Jedda (1953). Became a nun, left the order and married, becoming Rosalie Monks.
18. Redex Aircraft Trial Survey Flight. I imagine men who surveyed by air the route of the 1953 Redex trial.
19. Elsa Chauvel, wife of film-maker Charles Chauvel (see 43).
20. Farrell, Wesley and Jones. Sydney Fairfax journalists taking part in the 1953 Redex trial.
21. Syd Kyle-Little, served in the Malaya uprising, but was also a Native Affairs Branch patrol officer in the NT.
22. Wade, Fuller and White, Redex trial contestants.
23. Clive Turnbull, journalist on the Melbourne Herald and Argus.
24. Aubrey Koch, Trans Australia Airlines, previously a pilot with Guinea Airways in Papua New Guinea in the 1930s.
26. R. Schmidt, manager of Avon Downs cattle station.
27. Glen Cooper. ?
28. Richard Murdoch. British radio and TV comic actor, appearing in shows such as Much Binding in the Marsh, the Men from the Ministry and, later, Rumpole of the Bailey and the first Blackadder series. I got his autograph on the RMS Himalaya on the way back from London in 1956.
29. Arthur Brittenden, senior writer at the News Chronicle, London, and later, after the paper folded, editor of the Daily Mail.
30. Graham Stanford, long-time reporter on the London News of the World.
31. Wilson, James and Poylan, USAF flyers on a goodwill mission.
32. Thompson, as above.
33. Peter Finch, English-born Australian actor (his parents were Australian), winner of posthumous Oscar for Network. Made 50 films, starting with Dad and Dave Come to Town in 1938.
34. Max Fatchen, Adelaide News and later Advertiser journalist and resident poet. Max did a topical poem for the paper each week.
35. Beth Dean, American dancer, and her husband, Australian singer Victor Carell. In 1953 they spent eight months studying Aboriginal dancing, and later toured the US, Australia and New Zealand giving performances and lectures on the dances of the Pacific, the Aborigines and the Maori.
36. Frank Tolra, same page, Melbourne Herald photographer who had come to Darwin to accompany my father on his annual outback feature-gathering tour.
37. Rex Battarbee, his wife Bernice Battarbee. Battarbee taught Namatjira to paint.
38. Kim.
39. John Landy. Champion Australian miler signed this book when on his way to Finland to try to be the first runner to break four minutes for the mile. Seven days after he signed, Roger Bannister beat him to it at Oxford (6 May 1954). Forty-six days later, in Finland, Landy broke Bannister’s time.
40. Alec Hay, my grandfather, Ruth Lockwood, my mother.
41. Howell Walker, National Geographic. The magazine’s writers and photographers were frequent visitors.
42. Henry La Cossitt, Reader’s Digest freelancer.
43. Charles Chauvel. Australian film-maker. His work included The Sons of Matthew, Forty Thousand Horsemen, Jedda and others. Chauvel’s uncle was General Sir Harry Chauvel of the Australian Light Horse in World War I.
44. Yvonne H. Simpson. A babysitter. One of the many young single women who worked for NT Administration and lived next door to us in Marrenah House, the main “single girls’ quarters” in the 1950s.
45. Jon Cleary. Prolific Australian novelist. More than 50 years after this signature he was still writing.
46. Agnes Susanne Schulz. German student of prehistoric art.
47. Patricia Murphy. A babysitter. See Simpson, 44.
48. Lachie McDonald, London Daily Mail journalist.
49. Denis Warner. Long-serving foreign and war correspondent for The Herald, Melbourne, and wire services.
50. Hopman, McGregor, Sedgman, Cooper, Rosewall and Rose. Australian Davis Cup squad members.
51. Malcolm Muggeridge. British intellectual commentator, editor of Punch. Aged 13, I had been holidaying at Mataranka Homestead for a few days on my own while Dad went to Alice Springs to pick Muggeridge up. Back at Mataranka, they both had a nude swim in the hot springs – no on else was around – and we all then drove to Darwin.
52. Mobil Round Australia Survey 1954. What it says.
53. Sefton “Tom” Delmer, The Daily Express, London. Born in Berlin, father born in Hobart, Tom was interned with his family in a concentration camp in World War I. After university he was posted to the Express’s Berlin bureau, and was the first British journalist to interview Hitler. In the 1932 election Delmer travelled with Hitler on his private aircraft and was with Hitler when he inspected the Reichstag Fire. During WWII he worked for British propaganda.
54. ??
55. A.H. Cooper, skipper of a navy ship heading for Exmouth Gulf to look for oil.
56. Scot McColl, station manager, Victoria River Downs, which was then – after Alexandria Downs – the second biggest cattle station in the world.
57. Mr Fujita (upside down) and the names of all his family. The Fujita Salvage Co took back to Japan the scrap metal of the ships sunk in Darwin Harbour on 19 February 1942 by the Japanese Air Force. This entry, dated 1962, is chronologically the last in the book.
58. Norm Mitchell, Adelaide News cartoonist.
59. Nicholas Monserrat, author of The Cruel Sea.
60. Pepper Martin, Tokyo-based journalist. CBS, United Press, China, 1930s and 1940s. U.S. News and World Report, Senior Editor, 1950s to retirement.
61. Richard Whyte. Darwin Primary School friend. Lost his way and died young in Perth.
62. Barney Porter, journalist, Korea.
63. Alan Dower, Australian war correspondent and police roundsman for The Herald, Melbourne.
65. Jolliffe, Eric. Artist, cartoonist. Sketches of the eight-year-old Dale and 10-year-old Kim.
66. Virginia Paris. US singer/actor who played Bloody Mary in the Australian tour of South Pacific in 1954. She was staying at the South Australian Hotel on North Terrace, Adelaide, where we were also staying on our way back to Darwin from our biennial holiday. We had seen her in the show.
67. William A. Something and Los Angeles industrialist Allen Chase. They were US investors in the Humpty Doo rice project, which failed.
68. Michael Somes, Margot Fonteyn Arias, ballet dancers.
69. Bob Cummings, US comic actor on TV and elsewhere. Had his own show.
70. Kim Keane, NZ journalist. Was good at handstands. Did several in our lounge room.[Sounds as if there had been some heavy drinking that night .]
Kim points out that nearly all the autographs were obtained in Darwin, which makes the collection a most unusual part of the Territory's social history .
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