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| Concorde |
It is doubtful
if Seattle , Qantas ,
American hot gospellers and London
knew what hit them when Bowditch
went on two overseas trips in the
l970s . The first was to
Seattle courtesy of Qantas to see
the Boeing jumbo jets and come
back on the inaugural flight
of the City of Darwin . Before
setting out on the trip , Bowditch
was drinking with
Australia’s Rock and Roll King, Johnnie "The Wild One " O'Keefe who was performing
in Darwin . O’Keefe and Bowditch
had "clicked " the first time they met.
Hearing that Bowditch was soon off to
USA, he asked him what he was going to wear. Bowditch said
he had a pair of long pants and would borrow a jumper and a coat , there being no use for such clothing in Darwin .
This was
not good enough for O'Keefe , so he supplied
Jim with a wardrobe of trendy clothes. This included a
double-breasted , pin-striped, blue-black gangster type
suit with wide lapels and padded
shoulders . There was also a mauve suit,
four dress shirts , ties, built
up shoes
and even floral underpants. O'Keefe
also supplied a thousand dollar
Spanish leather overcoat . In addition,
he gave Bowditch a
pair of gold
cufflinks O'Keefe had been given when
he appeared on the Johnny
Carson Show in America.
Bowditch had never been so
sartorial .
He and some
other journalists were flown to
Sydney by Qantas to join a jumbo for America. The party was accommodated in the Wentworth Hotel ; it was
erroneously believed by the journalists that the frig contents, which
included French champagne and
scotch , was free so they drained them dry .
QANTAS STAFF WORRIED
As a result ,
on the flight to America the journalists
were a bit tired and emotional ,
especially Bowditch . He
slumped down in one of the swivel
chairs in the club part of the
business section and fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand.
Horrified Qantas staff were mesmerised by the
cigarette , the ash on which got longer and longer . It was feared he
would burn a hole in their nice new aircraft.
By the time the
plane reached Hawaii he had come
to the conclusion that he was
the only reporter on
board - and all the others were
high flying executives . Feeling uncomfortable, he apparently
stepped up the intake of liquor . Arriving in mainland
America , he went missing and somehow became involved with a team of
popular Negro women hot gospellers, the Clare Ward Singers .
Dressed like a suave hit man in O'Keefe's clothes , he
impressed the gospellers with his
capacity to do the twist , a rare
skill he had acquired
which included a lot of stomping of the foot .
Back in Darwin,
reporter John Loizou at the NT News received a garbled
telephone call from Bowditch which left him flabbergasted. The
gist of the story was that Bowditch had some terrible disease , was going into quarantine and would
never be coming back to Australia
! Loizou was asked to pass this astonishing information on to Betty Bowditch .
CAPTAIN RITCHIE CALLS
Flummoxed by
this call, Loizou wondered
what to do . However , he did not have long to ponder the situation ,
because soon after he received another surprise telephone call -
this one from Captain Ritchie , the
Qantas general manager who
dealt with "Mr Brown " the bomb
extortionist . Captain Ritchie was curt, precise and
very clear. He said ... "Your Mr Bowditch " had
been a menace throughout the trip to America
, was now in a Seattle
motel with a group of Negro hot gospellers , and the return flight to Australia was leaving
in a short time ... If "your
Mr Bowditch " was not aboard he would have to pay his own way home , or swim back to Darwin . The well informed captain gave Loizou
the telephone of the said
motel. After thanking Captain
Ritchie, Loizou quickly rang the motel
, somehow got
hold of Mr Bowditch
and passed on the message. Bowditch
missed the return flight . He arrived back
in Darwin with very little of
his impressive wardrobe and said he had had
to leave America so quickly his clothes were left behind at the
drycleaners.
Another overseas
trip came soon after - not with
Qantas- to see
the supersonic Concorde. He was so impressed by the
Concorde that it was said he " fell in love with the plane". Modern aircraft were now guided rockets , he declared. While in England he saw members of
his family , including brother David who
had been a young boy when Jim left England for Australia in 1937. Somehow , under the influence , he disported himself at the old Roman
resort of Bath in England. In telephone calls back to Loizou in Darwin he spoke of
travelling to Switzerland with somebody he had met. Then
Loizou got an urgent request to
send some money to Hong Kong . Loizou and another
reporter, Dennis Booth, managed to rustle up the money and wired
it off to Honkers .
It is not clear from whence
Bowditch flew back to Darwin ;
mystery surrounds what happened to the money urgently sent to him in Hong Kong as Bowditch apparently did not
receive the sum . When he
rolled off the plane, being the
last to emerge, he was
yelling and refusing to cooperate
with Customs. After Bowditch shouted that he would not be searched, airport officials said he was lucky not to be
arrested and to get him off the premises
. Bowditch complained of seeing blood covering his arms and
cried about mutilating - " murdering"- the
young enemy soldier on Tarakan during the war . In his highly
distressed state , he did not want to
see people or go to work . For him not
wanting to work was unusual , because he was virtually
a workaholic who loved going to the newspaper office.
Bowditch
was involved in another aviation
incident . It involved the
l972/3 flight of a Concorde to
Australia . The British Aviation Corporation
threw a party in the Darwin Travelodge which was attended by a number of southern journalists. At some
stage in the proceedings , the door flew open, and there was Bowditch , who glared
about the room . A BAC
official standing behind a bar , wearing a cravat , dared to laugh about something , and Bowditch chipped him
. He apologised to Jim for laughing .
For no reason at
all, Bowditch then began to monster the
tallest man in the room , a well known
aviation writer, mild mannered John Stackhouse . There was
this spectacle of the uncomfortable man towering over
Bowditch who was threatening physical violence, including throwing him from the balcony near the top
of the hotel . Bowditch was lured from
his victim by this writer. A Darwin woman who worked with
Bowditch and had seen him perform in
various pubs and other venues described him as being like a tiny terrier dog which on entering a room looked for the biggest
dog with which it
immediately picked a fight. Many a
person went through the experience of Bowditch, in his cups, threatening to kill them with one or two blows. NEXT : A Royal visit, a Greek funeral and Bowditch resigns.
