Living next to the Bowditch residence was never dull what with police raids, an officially forbidden tryst by Gladys and Mick in the banana patch and other assorted alarums . There was a right wing neighbor not enamoured of Bowditch . The Shell Mess was close to the Bowditch house in Georges Crescent , Fannie Bay , and the men who resided there had an upright piano for their entertainment , which often resulted in them returning at night from various hotels and engaging in some hearty singing of tunes , like Roll Out The Barrel .
About midnight , Bowditch , lubricated himself, became annoyed at the noise from the mess- especially the
tickling of the ivories and the raucous
singing. He stormed up the stairs of the two storey building and
confronted the happy throng .
Telling them that only peasants
sang community songs , he
announced his intention to push the piano down the
stairs if they did not stop
their infernal racket. To back up his threat, he began to push the piano , which was on wheels,
towards the balcony . A very large
footballer took hold of the editor
by the seat of the pants and the
scruff of the neck and, in the words
of a popular community song , attempted to
show him the way to go home.
By Peter Simon
A man of
undoubted agility , heightened by his
commando training , Bowditch stunned the
group when he flipped open the top of the piano and pulled out some of the vital innards .
He subsequently received a bill
for his unusual
piano concerto and paid
for the repairs.
Police raids on his
house looking for the Stayput Malays and Portuguese also disturbed the tranquility of the suburb and set dogs
barking. One long suffering
neighbour was jeweller
Max Tite. Returning home after some heavy drinking
late one night , the residence then in 40 Phillip Street , Bowditch went to
the bedroom and saw a man in bed
. “You bastard!” Bowditch exclaimed , as he kicked the man . “What are you doing in bed
with my wife ?”
Max Tite jumped up and
yelped: “This is my wife, Jim , and this is my house - you live two doors away .”
Betty Bowditch told of another event involving “that poor man Max Tite ”. She noticed
a receipt for payment of
some glass sent to Jim.
When she asked him what it was
for, he revealed that he had again
paid a noctural visit to the Tite
residence. On that occasion, thinking
he was home , he had found the
door closed and thought Betty had locked
him out . He then began kicking in glass panels.
Shocked and alarmed, Max Tite had
appeared and told Jim he was at the
wrong abode. Without telling Betty of his faux pas, Jim arranged
to pay for repairs to the door.
After a trip to Asia with some friends, Betty Bowditch returned home with
the usual range of electrical
goods and gifts. While she was pleased with her purchases ,
Jim took an instant dislike to them ,
saying they had been made by
slave labour in sweatshops. So vehement was he in his antipathy to the purchases that he threw
them off the verandah onto the
concrete driveway while she was absent . One of the items thrown over the rail
was a stereo . He enlisted the help
of daughter Ngaire to heave the
stereo over the rail. At the time she thought that dad new about such things as slave labour
and sweatshops , so he must be right .
In later years, she realised what
“poor mum” had been through. Betty
had arrived home to find all her
things broken and strewn about
the driveway .
Betty endured
much over the years and many people said Jim was lucky she remained with him . She constantly
remonstrated with him over his drinking
and told him he brought a lot of trouble upon himself through excessive drinking . There
was a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde aspect about his personality .
Sober, he was gentlemanly , in the old fashioned way, which saw
him stand whenever women got up from or joined a group at a
table .
And if any male in the group , or nearby, swore
in the presence of women,
Bowditch would glare at them . Then
you had the obverse -the drunken ,
swearing, aggressive editor prepared to fight at the drop of a hat. Though capable of killing people with unarmed
combat blows taught him during the war, he
would not use them and being of slight build
he often came off second
best because he mixed it with
larger, younger men.
CHASED FLIES WITH KNIFE
Sleep , he
maintained, was a waste of time , so he got by with about four hours a night . Because of his heavy
smoking , the home was pock
marked with cigarette burns and infuriated Betty . A
new teak table she bought
soon sported many cigarette burns. Incredibly fast in
his reflexes , Bowditch would
take a knife from the drawer and stalk flies or catch them with his hand .
Jim’s sister , Mary,
came out from England and made a
surprise visit to Darwin. Jim arranged to meet her at the front of the Hotel Darwin
and immediately asked her to
come inside for a drink .
She did not drink alcohol and Jim
said he was surprised to learn that there was a member of the Bowditch family who did not touch alcohol.
She told him he was just like
their father in his behaviour.
When he took
her home to meet Betty , Mary
sympathised with her and asked
,“ How do you put up with him ?”. Betty often explained that she was kept busy
bringing up the children , taking part in their and her own
sporting and school activities, running the home . Jim had been on the go all the time , deeply involved in the newspaper, socialising after work
and fighting for various causes. Because they both led busy lives , she often did not
know many details of events in which Jim had been involved . With
all her family commitments she just could not be expected to recall endless details about news
stories and people connected with
her husband. NEXT : Contact with ASIO .
