Like the American writer Damon Runyon who captured the cavalcade of colourful guys and dolls of Broadway, the late Australian journalist Peter Blake chronicled in racy prose , anecdotes and zany headings , the equally fabulous doings and misadventures of reporters and others in Sydney , Darwin, Hong Kong and New York .
Runyon used the demimonde of gamblers, hustlers , actors and gangsters for his characters with names like Harry the Horse , Nicely Nicely Jones , Dave the Dude and Madame La Gamp .
Upon Peter Blake's recent death , aged 84 , the Murdoch New York Post, for which he had been a copy editor writing captivating headlines , a hallmark of the tabloid , ran an illustrated article in which it was said Peter had set an Australian record for drinking a pint of ale , 4.2 seconds, just as former Prime Minister Bob Hawke had done in London .
Eventually an executive was sent over from Brisbane and specifically said he wanted to see this suspicious sounding reporter. Beforehand , Bowditch urged Ramsay to be nice , contrite when confronted by this company hit man .
Subsequently he jazzed up the Waratah Football Club's lighthearted newssheet which was called the Waratah Whisper and is shown in the above shot hamming it up as the editor on a good day .The Whisper took the mickey out of local identifies, even Bowditch , and ran bright adverts . It subsequently led to the birth of the famous Kings Cross Whisper when Ramsay left Darwin, broke , and bunked in with Terry Blake, Peter's younger brother , and his wife in Sydney .
NEXT : The mad , mad Kings Cross Whisper days with its many characters and how the Evil One set fire to his room in Hong Kong and reduced the lounge in the New York apartment of "Mr Blood and Guts" to charcoal ; Blake's unique fishing column and Northern Territory adventures .
By Peter Simon
Runyon used the demimonde of gamblers, hustlers , actors and gangsters for his characters with names like Harry the Horse , Nicely Nicely Jones , Dave the Dude and Madame La Gamp .
Upon Peter Blake's recent death , aged 84 , the Murdoch New York Post, for which he had been a copy editor writing captivating headlines , a hallmark of the tabloid , ran an illustrated article in which it was said Peter had set an Australian record for drinking a pint of ale , 4.2 seconds, just as former Prime Minister Bob Hawke had done in London .
However , pints are Pommie measurements , in Peter's case , with a gullet like a Pelican , it was a jug of beer , on numerous occasions , in Darwin , and in other drinking establishments . Hawke's record was with a yard of ale, two and half Imperial pints, in 11 seconds while he was at Oxford University .
The New York paper mentioned Peter's love of fishing. He and journalist "Big Betting " Bob Staines , who had worked on the long gone Sydney Sun newspaper in the sports department , at one stage ran Fishing News and provided a lively radio fishing report.
Peter often used colourful expressions which would have won the approval of Damon Runyon ... New Yorkers told one Blake expression : "It is so windy out there it would blow a dog off its chain ."
Peter often used colourful expressions which would have won the approval of Damon Runyon ... New Yorkers told one Blake expression : "It is so windy out there it would blow a dog off its chain ."
Big Betting Bob Staines figured in a Runyonesque like scenario involving this writer and Max Presnell, now a well known turf writer , when we were all cadet reporters on The Sun . Staines , working in the turf section of the paper , had the good oil on some sure horses and we three amigos would use our holiday pay to plunge on the nags, making a killing , and go up to the Gold Coast and paint the town .
Unfortunately , the horses did not win , we lost our drip dry shirts and spent our holiday in a nicely set up, well-stocked weekender at seaside Kurnell, where champion boxer Jimmy Carruthers had relaxed before a fight , owned by Presnell's father, who had the Kensington Hotel , so broke were we that we played cards for seashells picked up off the beach .
A great punter and card player himself , Peter Blake came to Darwin and added colour , humour and newspaper skill to the town ; establishing an awesome reputation as a champion beer drinker at a time when "Big Jim " Bowditch was the crusading editor of the Northern Territory News , who hid in his own home and the newspaper people authorities wanted to deport .
In an email to me , Peter Blake recalled his first arrival in Darwin in the early 1960s , met at the airport by journalist Keith Willey , a Walkley Award winner and author , and taken to the Parap Hotel , instead of the Vic Hotel , the NT News regular drinking hole , for a welcoming beer.
Peter said this was due to the fact that Kiwi journalist Les "Thrasher " Wilson had been barred from The Vic for a week by the licensee Richard Fong Lim the previous week because of " a minor matter" in which Les clambered up onto the bar and Keith had remonstrated with the publican .The Vic , he added, had been the scene of many a rowdy tipple involving thirsty employees of the News, including both of us.
Blake was responsible for another extraordinary journalist , nicknamed The Evil One , James Arthur Ramsay , getting a job on the Darwin paper in a situation that not even Runyon could have envisaged .
In an email to me , Peter Blake recalled his first arrival in Darwin in the early 1960s , met at the airport by journalist Keith Willey , a Walkley Award winner and author , and taken to the Parap Hotel , instead of the Vic Hotel , the NT News regular drinking hole , for a welcoming beer.
Peter said this was due to the fact that Kiwi journalist Les "Thrasher " Wilson had been barred from The Vic for a week by the licensee Richard Fong Lim the previous week because of " a minor matter" in which Les clambered up onto the bar and Keith had remonstrated with the publican .The Vic , he added, had been the scene of many a rowdy tipple involving thirsty employees of the News, including both of us.
Blake was responsible for another extraordinary journalist , nicknamed The Evil One , James Arthur Ramsay , getting a job on the Darwin paper in a situation that not even Runyon could have envisaged .
Holidaying back in Sydney from Darwin in 1962 , Blake telephoned editor Bowditch and asked him if there was a job for a top notch sports writer ( as was Damon Runyon) he had known from Brisbane in earlier days . There was a slight problem , however, this brilliant scribe was on a " Murdoch leper list " and the NT News , of course, was owned by Rupert . It seems Ramsay had written something offending the Australian international golfing champion Peter Thomson , who had complained bitterly . As Murdoch papers were running the Peter Thompson golfing clinic , Ramsay was sacrificed , never to darken the door of any Rupert paper.
A bit dubious at first, Bowditch , ever ready to help an underdog, eventually said that would not be a problem , he'd just give him another name , Jim Ramsie , a ruse inevitably to fail .
Thus the Evil One, described on his death as one of the great larrikin journalists of modern Australia , lobbed in Darwin. He proved to be a hotshot sports writer , but was also very thirsty, somewhat scruffy, not a problem in Darwin , and loved gambling . At a Darwin gambling den in an old two storey house, he cleaned out the Crown and Anchor school downstairs and, despite being urged by Blake, who had lost his dough , to call it a night , went upstairs and lost the substantial winnings in a card game, salang.
Of course Murdoch HQ in Sydney twigged that this Ramsie in Darwin was the unclean leper . Bowditch denied the suggestion, said it was somebody else with a similar name . Sydney demanded he send a mug shot ; even said sack him , but Bowditch refused to comply .
Eventually an executive was sent over from Brisbane and specifically said he wanted to see this suspicious sounding reporter. Beforehand , Bowditch urged Ramsay to be nice , contrite when confronted by this company hit man .
Instead, Ramsay told the executive he could stick the job up his black arse and that he was going to take away some of the top printing staff and start up an opposition newspaper to the NT News .
Subsequently he jazzed up the Waratah Football Club's lighthearted newssheet which was called the Waratah Whisper and is shown in the above shot hamming it up as the editor on a good day .The Whisper took the mickey out of local identifies, even Bowditch , and ran bright adverts . It subsequently led to the birth of the famous Kings Cross Whisper when Ramsay left Darwin, broke , and bunked in with Terry Blake, Peter's younger brother , and his wife in Sydney .
NEXT : The mad , mad Kings Cross Whisper days with its many characters and how the Evil One set fire to his room in Hong Kong and reduced the lounge in the New York apartment of "Mr Blood and Guts" to charcoal ; Blake's unique fishing column and Northern Territory adventures .
