Information has just come through that journalist and author (John) Ross Annabell , 9l , died in New Zealand on September 7 . An adventurous reporter , a great feature and magazine writer , Ross worked in Australia for some time . He started the Mount Isa Mail , was an early editor of the Northern Territory News and was personally involved in the Territory uranium boom of the l950s, writing a book about the wild times when fortunes were made .
By Peter Simon
Smuggled into the Rum Jungle uranium mine camp , he revealed the poor conditions under which miners worked and lived . At one stage, eager to become a uranium tycoon , Ross went bush with a Geiger counter and found Annamount , named after him . The colourful Maori Mayor of Tennant Creek , boxer and mining entrepreneur , Al McDonald , took an option on the find . A syndicate headed by author Frank Clune took an interest in Annamount . McDonald travelled to Sydney where he called on newspaper proprietor Frank Packer , later Sir Frank , who had known Al from his earlier boxing days , ordered a reporter to write a story about McDonald's latest find ... Annamount.
Unfortunately, Annamount was found not to contain much uranium . Ross left Darwin for Sydney on a motorbike, a sample of uranium yellow cake in his luggage . In Alice Springs he hitched a ride on a truck which, due to heavy rain, was forced to detour and be driven at gunpoint into the top secret Woomera rocket range where he saw scientists working on Jindivik pilotless planes .
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I met Ross on the Rotorua Post , New Zealand , where he was a feature writer and we shared a gold prospecting dish, but we did not find El Dorado, just grains of iron ore . We also clambered up and down into the hot crater of Mount Tarawera and went bush walking , Ross in the lead with his Boer War cut down rifle. He is pictured above on a deer hunting trip . More later about a great reporter, a true Kiwi do it yourself type who taught journalism in New Zealand , was chief reporter on the Wairarapa Times-Age and wrote several books , even tried to open a tourist souvenir market for the rotten egg gas smell of volcanic Rotorua . A funeral service will be held in Wellington on Monday.
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