When
he worked on the
Darwin waterfront , avowed
Communist, the late
Brian Manning , admitted it was provocative for him to have put his
notebook inside the
cover of Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung's so called little red book .
The notebook was
pulled out when
he was having lively discussions with representatives of the
stevedoring authority, sometimes during disputes , and
other Darwin officials . Brian was
a great human
being who late in
life experienced ill health and got about with the
aid of a walking stick. The
walking stick was stolen while he was
shopping in a supermarket and replaced by a fancy carved one bought
by his son
for several hundred dollars . Brian
said that after
the theft , he went
about
glaring at " old , shuffing farts " in
shopping centres looking
for his walking
stick.
His many
contributions to Aboriginal
advancement, land rights, the East
Timor struggle, dealings with author
Frank Hardy , and many other subjects
will be covered in the ongoing Little Darwin
condensed biography of NT editor
, Jim Bowditch. Brian's old Bedford
truck, frequently used in May
Day parades and worthy battles , was suggested for
inclusion on the Territory
Heritage list and lodged
in
the old Qantas hangar in Darwin . Over
the years , I had
many conversations with Brian ,
exchanged emails, and we spoke over
the phone . We chatted at the last bombing of Darwin ceremony down at the wharf, where so many waterside workers had been killed .
An account of his involvement in setting up and running the “illegal radio” in Darwin which kept in contact with Fretilin in East Timor after the Indonesian invasion appeared in the book A Few Rough Reds , produced as a result of the 2001 Seventh National Labour History Conference in Canberra, a series of talks on the history of communist organisations in Australia .The stories in it were described as inspiring accounts of working class activism guided by a serious commitment to socialist politics. -Peter Simon
An account of his involvement in setting up and running the “illegal radio” in Darwin which kept in contact with Fretilin in East Timor after the Indonesian invasion appeared in the book A Few Rough Reds , produced as a result of the 2001 Seventh National Labour History Conference in Canberra, a series of talks on the history of communist organisations in Australia .The stories in it were described as inspiring accounts of working class activism guided by a serious commitment to socialist politics. -Peter Simon
