CHAMPION OF THE UNDERDOG -Continuing biog of Crusading Editor , " Big Jim " Bowditch .

After 10 months in Darwin , Bowditch wrote  to   former Northern  Standard  editor  Bruce  Muirden  in  Cairns  asking him if he would be interested in the position  as  editor of the Mount Isa Mail . In the letter , Bowditch said  that when  he ( Jim ) was editor of the  Centralian Advocate in Alice Springs  and Bruce was  on the Standard, he  had  hoped for the demise of the NT News . But in   those days  the News was an alleged threat to the Advocate .The News  was supposed to have been  tied up with big southern combines.

This was not so,said Bowditch. There was no connection with southern papers, except to provide a news cover ,for which they were paid in the usual way.

 

He told Muirden  that he and Betty  now had two boys , one aged two , the other six months.  He wrote : “ We plan, repeat plan, to leave the family at this size . As you know, Darwin is a most expensive place to  live in  and we find  that even with our small family  and  a pretty good salary , the going is not so good.” They had two more children - daughters  Ngaire and Sharon. Sharon became a journalist and  married  Col  Allan who  is now  running  Rupert Murdoch’s  New  York  Post.  

 

Bowditch  told Muirden  he would probably be taking over the  direction  of the Mount Isa  paper from  Darwin  . And  so it was.  Apart from being  responsible for the running of the NT News, each three months  Bowditch   drove to  Mt Isa  as general manager  of that paper and sorted out business problems .  It was a journey of 1100 miles  each way  and took 27  hours of driving.Betty  accompanied  him on several such trips.

 

BY PETER  SIMON

 

As word spread about Darwin that the new   editor of the  NT News, Jim Bowditch , was a fighter for the underdog ,  a steady stream of  people  came to the  office seeking  help  from him in a  wide range of problems .  A  considerable  number  were   women with children who found it hard to  pay  rent  or  bills   and ,in some cases  faced eviction .  Of  the “many  scores” of  people  threatened with eviction   who   asked for help , he said  he had about a 70-80 per cent success  rate. 

 

Most of the  eviction threats involved   women with  children who had been left  by husbands  or men  who could not cope  with a home situation.  Women  in  such situations, he said, “really  copped  it”.   While it was  rare for women to walk out on kids, Bowditch observed men often   avoided their family   commitments. While terrible  things  might have been done to some of the houses , Bowditch  could  not just  stand  by  and  see  people “ buried ” by the system.  His attitude, he admitted, could have been “psychopathic” due to what  had happened to his mother. 

RAIDS ON THE KITTY

Bowditch in action  on  the  phone.  Photo by Kerry Byrnes .

On being approached by a woman facing eviction or unable to pay a pressing bill, he would  stop what he was working on and immediately try and solve the  problem .  He did not pass the woman to  a reporter ;  he handled the matter himself.  Once he had the facts, he was on the phone .  Probably  because of  what he had  seen his  mother go through at the hands of  bailiffs , he  detested  the idea of families being  pressured, "bullied”. To save a  woman  from being evicted he would try various  courses of action ,even  threatening :  You are not going to look  very nice in  the  paper  if  we say you  are  throwing a  woman with  five  kids  out  on  the street ...

 

On numerous  occasions he  pulled money out of his  pocket or raided the office kitty  for an advance and  gave it to  somebody who was “doing it tough”-a common expression of his. He repeatedly  called on lawyer Dick Ward  to help  people facing eviction and he did  not charge  a fee in  many instances.  Ward  played a major part  in the  setting up of the NT Housing Commission and was at the ceremony marking the hand over of  the  first house  to a tenant. Due to the fact that  Bowditch was  basically an easy touch, he went guarantor  for many people  in the  purchase of  second hand cars. It  was  jokingly  stated that Bowditch  had  “the biggest fleet of  bombs  in Darwin ”. 

 

A man came to Bowditch with  a  sad  story about his  father  being   near death  in Asia , and how he could not afford the  airfare  home.  Bowditch  provided  money  for the fare so that the  man  could  speed to his  father’s  bedside.  Instead of  heading  for  Asia, the man decamped  south . The  dying  father   story  had  been a fabrication.

THE  ANGRY   PLUMBER

 

A number of  women thought the editor of the NT News  was a wonderful  man.  An English battler , Lew Stewart, of  the Housewives  Association, who  worked tirelessly to improve the lot of pensioners and  for the formation of a housing commission ,  frequently  praised the  campaigns of  “that  Jimmy Bowditch”.  And caterer , “Auntie”    Billy  Nicholls, later Mrs Pitcheneder,  involved  in  many   fund raising functions, was a woman who  plied  the editor  with  cakes  and  sandwiches.

 

Once a year she  threw a birthday  party for the entire  News staff.  A large , bustling woman with  great energy, she was in a distressed state of  mind when she called at the News office one day.  She sat close to Jim, and confided that some women  had  been saying  hurtful things about her.  With that, she burst into tears  and  placed her head on Jim’s shoulder; Bowditch responded by  patting her  on the back and soothingly  murmured ,“ There , there .”

 

A staff  member  happened to look through the  opening to the  editor’s dive  and  was  greeted by the sight of  little  Big Jim   engulfed by  the sobbing  woman . The  supply of  sandwiches  and buns  became so great thereafter, Bowditch  politely told  her to desist.  When social writer  Joy Collins  fell down some  stairs and lay  there injured, she cried out, “ Get Jimmy Bowditch !” The  cry  was repeated when  a  coconut  tree  fell on her  car .

 

A woman  having  a  row with  a  stroppy   plumber  rang  Bowditch   and  asked  him to come  to  the   rescue .  He drove to  her house  and  found she , having soundly  abused the recalcitrant  plumber , had been  pushed into  a trench ;  the  enraged , departing  plumber  had  then  belted  a  tap  with a large  hammer  so  that it would never  work again .  From  these   examples  it  is  evident    that  the  rescue and soothing  of  damsels  in  distress  was  another  facet  of  his  unusual  editorship . NEXT : The man who beat up Errol Flynn helps  Bowditch  cope .