Bowditch was arrested and charged with drink driving late in 1978. Despite
the pleas and evidence that he was haunted by the wartime
killing of an enemy guard , mutilated with a knife to make out he had been killed by a native rather than a commando on a daring mission before the Tarakan invasion , he was sentenced to a total
of eight weeks’ imprisonment . As he
knew he would be going to prison , he brought his toothbrush
to court the day of sentencing .
Nobody
, however, had advised him about
the need to bring along spare underpants.
In an agitated frame of
mind, Bowditch rang the
Information and Public Relations Branch and asked for some underpants to be bought and delivered to the lockup . Jill Graham took three
pair of
“lairy ” underpants to
Bennet Street lockup
and, at the counter, told police she had some
underpants for Mr Bowditch .
The police roared with laughter, closely inspected
the underpants and
brandished Big Jim’s jockettes for everyone
to see. Back at the office, Jill was made tell what transpired at the police station over and over, causing much laughter.
Bowditch
was taken to Fannie Bay Gaol and then
to Gunn Point Prison Farm . While in prison he received a Christmas card from
June Tapp of Killarney Station , who
had been the leader of the Rights for Whites movement, based in Katherine ,which at Jim's suggestion had been changed to Rights for Territorians .
In good handwriting , the envelope
was addressed to Mr Jim Bowditch,
Fannie Bay Goal , and
decorated with hand-drawn holly ;
the front borders carried
continuous lines of Merry Xmas .
On the back of the envelope were some
lyrics from the song Fannie Bay Blues , illustrated with musical
notes. She censored her line about using a can opener to escape.
Bowditch appreciated the letter , lost the card , but carried the envelope
around for a long time . After
two weeks in prison he was released on
appeal against the six week part of the sentence . The appeal
resulted in him being released on a good behavior bond for a
year .
While
at Gunn Point he did weight lifting with a number of people,
one of them Bela Csedi , doing time in connection with a drug farm discovered at
isolated Wollogorang Station . During Csedi’s court case it was claimed that he had
links with the Mafia .
When
Bowditch was released from Gunn Point he smuggled out in his
multi coloured underpants a letter
to the wife of an inmate . She had been
very pleased to receive the
letter. But Bowditch
said he wondered if she had
would have been so enthusiastic
about handling the
letter had she known it had been
wrapped about “ Big Jim’s penis ”.
Bowditch was released during
the dangerous festive season
and went back to work with the government .
It
was not only Bowditch who got into
trouble in Darwin during the fateful
end of l978. In a disgraceful event , I was involved in a Christmas
fracas in the Hotel Darwin and
ended up being king hit , gracefully slid down a pillar
in the Green Room , my nose painfully buried in a metal
cigarette ash and butt container, resulting in a
black eye and a wonky finger , twisted
by a police officer I threw over my head.
There
had been a long lunch in a Greek restaurant for a journo mate
who was going south to be married ; next was a party at Government House where
much whisky was downed and I slapped the friendly Administrator on the back , told him I could arrange any photographs he wanted taken ; then it was a short walk to the Hotel Darwin where more than a fair shake of the sauce bottle took place. At some stage I was contemplating the meaning of life as blood dripped from my nose into a mug of beer.
‘Twas
not the night before Christmas but very
close to that blessed event when
guards at Fannie Bay Goal were
alerted by banging on the front gate . They
demanded to know who it was knock,
knocking at the portal. “ Jim Bowditch!” was the reply . As if
he had uttered that magic
incantation “Open Sesame ”, a panel in the
main prison gate instantly opened . Bowditch had
a package, and told the
guards it was a chest expander , a bullworker , which he had
promised a prisoner at Gunn Point
, which he would like delivered before Christmas
. The
bull worker had been in the
Bowditch family for years
and used
by his son , Steven , who became
the international squash champion.
It
is customery towards the end of the year to
think of new year resolutions .
Fearing that Bowditch could come
to a sticky end in the near future, with my bloated nose , black lip and
an odd shaped finger from the
Hotel Darwin escapade, I began to tape
Jim’s life story , paying him along the way . Things did not run smoothly. At times Bowditch did not turn up for taping sessions ; on other occasions he
was influenced by drink , erratic
. Bowditch helped
by recording himself , once on a
beach . In a
lucid recording he did
on his own , the tape was suddenly interrupted by
what appeared to be
a Portuguese radio message. NEXT : The Queen Mother and the Freckled Fool .
