Worn and bent sign on the Darwin Esplanade at the start of a display of 200 remarkable Territorians installed as part of the Australian bicentenary celebrations . Inspected recently several times before Anzac Day , the display was in a sorry state, some names hard to read , obscured by grass, cuttings , sticks and bird droppings .A crack was running through part, grass protruding through.
Former politician and NT Administrator Jock Nelson's name is discernible,along with that of his wife, Peg, next to that of faded Salvation Army flying padre ,Vic Pedersen, other names illegible.
Many important Territorians are included in the following section , the Catholic priest, Father Frank Flynn, his name badly faded , one of them . An ophthalmologist before he joined the cloth, he drew attention to eye diseases in Aboriginal communities.
Chinese tin miners and Jack Noble who made a rich gold strike at Tennant Creek are represented in the next portion , along with Henry Peckham, The Fizzer, the postman in Jeannie Aeneas Gunn's We of the Never and another colourful character , Bulwaddy Bates
Another grubby section included Dr Cecil Cook of the Health Department , Protector of Aborigines, with whom author Xavier Herbert had many dealings (more later ) .
Represented was former Northern Territory News crusading editor , Big Jim Bowditch , last year posthumously inducted into the Australian Journalism Hall of Fame, along with Melbourne Herald journalist and author , Douglas Lockwood , who had been stationed in Darwin , there at the bombing . Somehow , Lockwood was not included in the 200 remarkable Territorians , despite having done so much to promote the Territory within Australia and to the outside world . The omission of Lockwood was raised with a Darwin mayor , but nothing eventuated.
The above section contains many worthy and colourful individuals , including the Alice Springs reporter Alan Wauchope who wrote a regular column for the Australasian Post about Central Australia , Miss Olive Pink (anthropologist ), Roger Jose (eccentric ) , Nosepeg ( cameleer) and Jack Slade (pilot). Pop Chapman who had the Centralian Advocate newspaper is also listed .
