The torturous task of culling and getting the Little Darwin files, ephemera and books into some kind of order continues , in the process attracting some unusual viewers .
While going through the melancholy task of cutting out and saving illustrations and or photographing art work in old books badly riddled by bookworms , an operating theatre was set up on the back veranda for several weeks . Books to undergo the scalpel included Frank Hardy's 1950 controversial novel Power Without Glory which landed him in court charged with criminal defamation of the wife of sports promoter and gambler John Wren , with pasted in associated newspaper cuttings, chapter vignettes by Ambrose Dyson ; The Lone Hand , an Australian monthly , May to October , 1908, prolifically illustrated by Norman Lindsay and other artists ; A Second Diary of the Great War , by Saml. Pepys Junr., with effigies enlarged upon copper by John Kettelwell, 1917 ; FIFTY YEARS Memories and Contrasts from l882-l932 , from The Times ; A 1900 slim volume on cricket including a chapter on the Australian Eleven of l899 ; a l926 traveller guide to New Zealand which may have been read in Adelaide by Clem Hawke , father of Bob , during retirement , he having spent several years in NZ in the early l920s during which time he became an ordained Congregationalist minister . More book cadavers could be listed , but it is starting to bring tears to my eyes , so enough is enough .
While wielding the scalpel on the inert tomes , I was joined by an inquisitive , stubby-tailed Kookaburra, who hungrily eyed the books. Days earlier , a Kookaburra, possibly the same one , had been seen land on and closely examine a plastic bag containing a collection of historical feature articles written for the Darwin Star newspaper by the American journalist and author Barbara James .
The Kookaburra shown above was photographed standing on a badly drilled l909 copy of The Little Black Princess of the Never-Never, by Mrs Aeneas Gunn , pasted on the front advice about shipping services to and from Port Darwin and other travel information . Several boxes of dusty notebooks were pulled out of dark places , some going back 40 years , bringing back many memories . One box , containing much information about the Northern Territory and other places, a variety of subjects and individuals , attracted an equally inquisitive lizard when placed outside the den to be examined .
Another well taped , battered box hauled out for inspection attracted the attention of the inquisitive Kookaburra .
More culling sob stories and discoveries to come.
