A rollicking reminisce about Troppo and the Fannie Bay Whisper with a belated tribute to Sydney's Kings Cross Whisper and its talented , trail blazing crew.
During the cull of the Little Darwin den several fat folders marked SPOOF and TROPPO were discovered in a filing cabinet . These covered the time , more than 40 years ago ! , in Darwin , when two humorous publications were launched on the unsuspecting Top End , using some of the saucy photographs from Sydney's fabulously successful King's Cross Whisper .
Journalist Peter Blake , one of the Blake brothers , with wide ranging newspaper skills and a great sense of humour,which made him a hit in New York , helped turn the Kings Cross Whisper into a resounding success . He was working in Darwin at the time , also swinging the bag as a bookie at the Fannie Bay Racecourse .
We kicked around the idea of launching a satirical Kings Cross Whisper like publication in steamy Darwin . Troppo and the Fannie Bay Whisper were born as one offs , the Whisper to coincide with the Fannie Bay Beercan Regatta . Of particular interest in the bundle of material in the filing cabinet were duplicates of stories run in the two papers .
The Kings Cross Whisper owed its existence to a bland Darwin footy club publication, the Waratah Whisper , taken over and kicked into life by an audacious scribe , Jim Ramsey, above , seen here hamming it up as the editor. A top sports writer, in Sydney he had been placed on a Murdoch" leper list" for something he supposedly wrote which had upset the ace Australian international golfing star Peter Thompson .
Despite his leprous state , the editor of the Murdoch owned Northern Territory News in far away Darwin , Jim Bowditch , at Peter Blake's urging , hired Ramsey . Bowditch just changed Ramsey's name to Ramsie in bylines in a vain bid to hide his true identity. On being sprung by a Murdoch executive over from Brisbane , Ramsey told him to stick the job up his black arse .
We kicked around the idea of launching a satirical Kings Cross Whisper like publication in steamy Darwin . Troppo and the Fannie Bay Whisper were born as one offs , the Whisper to coincide with the Fannie Bay Beercan Regatta . Of particular interest in the bundle of material in the filing cabinet were duplicates of stories run in the two papers .
The Kings Cross Whisper owed its existence to a bland Darwin footy club publication, the Waratah Whisper , taken over and kicked into life by an audacious scribe , Jim Ramsey, above , seen here hamming it up as the editor. A top sports writer, in Sydney he had been placed on a Murdoch" leper list" for something he supposedly wrote which had upset the ace Australian international golfing star Peter Thompson . Despite his leprous state , the editor of the Murdoch owned Northern Territory News in far away Darwin , Jim Bowditch , at Peter Blake's urging , hired Ramsey . Bowditch just changed Ramsey's name to Ramsie in bylines in a vain bid to hide his true identity. On being sprung by a Murdoch executive over from Brisbane , Ramsey told him to stick the job up his black arse .
On leaving Darwin , Ramsey/Ramsie returned to Sydney, teamed up with another Blake , Terry , both almost broke . They hocked Terry's wife's sewing machine and another Blake brother's scuba diving gear to pay for the printing of the zany first Kings Cross Whisper newspaper . It sold like hot cakes to New Year's Eve revellers at Kings Cross. Realising they were on a bonanza , regular editions were produced , the sales astronomical across the nation . After many parties , it was turned into a highly successful and hectic business that branched out , sold personal ads in its columns , went into bawdy records through a Queensland government scheme , started a chain of sex shops selling marital aids with an extensive mail order outlet , provided fishing news for Sydney anglers . It even extended operations to New Zealand with the short lived Kiwi Whisper for which I wrote some copy .
By Peter Simon
Instead of having to hock the family heirlooms to pay the printer in advance , so much money flooded in they soon had their own three storey building in Darlinghurst with an upstairs printery. A linotype operator there , from Darwin , told me he had been glad Cyclone Tracy had devastated the northern capital on Christmas Day l974 because a man had promised to come round and bash him with an iron bar that very day. On the morning of that fateful day, he had been sitting on the toilet , holding a tile over his head for protection , as the residence was torn apart ; he had willingly fled overland with others in a battered car .
Terry Blake wrote the fabulous account of the heady King Cross Whisper days , the cover montage including headings on several stories I had written . Payout from the Whisper before I went to Darwin to work for the government in the l970s enabled me to buy a secondhand Holden stationwagon.
During my time as a government press officer in Darwin I was once the official media liaison officer for a royal tour. Could I be locked up in the Tower of London by now revealing that an official photograph I had been given of Prince Charles found its way into a crazy Troppo story about the Alice Springs outbreak of diarrhoea that followed a banquet provided in the Residency during the royal visit ?
During a drinking session in a Sydney hotel , Terry Blake flatteringly told me that because of my distinctive writing style , the odd angles that I took , I could become more popular than the renowned Australian writer of poetry and prose, Henry Lawson . This was an incredible , unsolicited testimonial .
However, at the time, he had consumed a lot of John Barleycorn and, in between guffawing over crazy national and overseas events , especially American politics, where President LBJ had said Gerald Ford was so dumb he could not fart and chew gum at the same time, he appeared to be attempting to EAT a cigar , which crumbled , pieces falling into his whisky glass.
Years later, while attending a weekend market in Adelaide, looking for oddities in boxes and elsewhere , I was surprised to spot Terry Blake . Asked what he was doing in South Australia , he explained that he had come from Sydney to sell the last remaining sex shop in the chain . In these ventures, he said you arranged to meet the new owner in a public place , took the money in cash- and ran to a nearby bank , hoping not to be waylaid by somebody who jumped out of a dark alley along the way and stole the loot . He could have been joking , but who knows ?
Terry Blake died as the result of an incident outside a Kings Cross nightspot in which he supposedly fell on his head . So the place that played a large part in his life, which enabled him to buy a sports car ( which he crashed ) and original Australian art , also led to his tragic demise .
Peter Blake , involved in a failed planned sting of Darwin bookies ,had also hoped to break the bookies in Hong Kong and America with strategic plunges , but failed to do so . Nevertheless , a Damon Runyon type character , full of humour , great company , a keen fisherman , a talented all round newspaper man , was respected in New York , where he died .
Peter Blake , involved in a failed planned sting of Darwin bookies ,had also hoped to break the bookies in Hong Kong and America with strategic plunges , but failed to do so . Nevertheless , a Damon Runyon type character , full of humour , great company , a keen fisherman , a talented all round newspaper man , was respected in New York , where he died .
When Jim Ramsay died in 1997, aged 67, he was described as a top golf writer , one of the great larrikin journalists of modern Australia , his life an odyssey of irresponsibility leaving a train of defalcations, infidelities, moonlight flits and terrible memories . Seems he started work in Melbourne as a tram conductor .The write up went on to say there had been many women, aged from late teens to the 80s , whom he had loved and left . Along the way he also managed to reduce to charcoal the lounge in journalist Steve Dunleavy's New York apartment.
