The recent publication of this book , the cover illustration highlighting the old tin bank in Darwin which became the Northern Territory News premises , adds strength to this blog's feeling that the city should capitalise on its colourful media past.
Perhaps start an offbeat gallery with a name like THE PRESS GANG , THE NAKED FRONT PAGE or BREAKING FRONTIER NEWS .
It could be located in the empty Victoria Hotel , a popular watering hole for many reporters , local and visiting , in days long gone , which has been closed for years . Only a suggestion .
The author of the book , Dennis "Doggy" Booth , a former sports editor at the NT News ,involved in the spread of 10-pin bowling in Australia .
Booth was sporting and racing editor of the tabloid Hong Kong Star , which over the years employed many colourful Australians, some with Territory connections, such as Peter Blake, Roger East , Jim Ramsay , about whom a book could be written on each one, part of which has been outlined in varying degrees in Little Darwin
Peter Blake told how he and several other reporters put money into a betting system devised by Booth . In two weeks they won 33,000 Hong Kong dollars, a lot of money in those days , and they all contemplated early retirement . Next week, however, they lost 20,000 .
The old tin bank, said to have been prefabricated in India , has long gone .There is no marker with info to indicate the spot where it once stood and the important part it played in the newspaper history of the northern gateway to Australia .
A short distance away was another early Darwin newspaper, the Northern Territory Times , below , one of its editors Jessie Litchfield .
Both the Parliamentary Library and the Museum and Art Gallery include some small aspects of the Territory's media history in their displays . There is , however , a mass of mighty material which could be drawn upon to provide Darwin with a most unusual tourist attraction .
This being Heritage Week in Darwin , we seriously suggest there be a close look at this proposal . The world's most unusual story competition won by Darwin reporter ,author Douglas Lockwood ; NT News crusading editor Jim Bowditch ; other editors who passed though Darwin who made their mark in Asia , America and New Zealand ; wartime newspapers produced in Darwin ; Miss Olive Pink , Pop Chapman and Alan Wauchope in Central Australia,; The Northern Standard , union owned and run newspaper . Just a small indication of the wealth of material available .
The photographers , printing staff, even the cleaners would add to the extraordinary story to be told .
Special thanks to Darwin agronomist Robert Wesley-Smith who drew our attention to Booth's book .
