Library produces fabulous photograph collection
On a recent visit to the Genealogical Society of the Northern Territory (GSNT) in Darwin , not expecting to get a positive response, I asked if its superb library contained any postcards produced for the colourful character , Jack Buscall , who ran the Curio Cottage, pictured here in 1938.
By Peter Simon
On the spot, a volunteer member of GSNT, sorting out a box of old photographs , produced a bundle of Buscall snaps . Eureka !!!
Years ago, I wrote an article about Buscall who became paralysed after he fell trying to get INSIDE Darwin's tin-walled Fannie Bay Gaol . It was in the free and easy days when prisoners were allowed to go into town and socialise, but had to be back in time before the gates were closed.He lingered longer in town , came back late , banged on the gate, got no response. So he tried to gain entry by climbing scaffolding erected for repairs on the prison wall, fell, broke his back .
While in Darwin hospital he started collecting stamps , using a hospital typewriter to belt out letters to penfriends all over the world The above photograph,showing him in bed, attended by Doctor Harris , Matron Gallagher and Sister Stewart , is from the GSNT collection .
Released from hospital, he established the Curio Cottage , a shop which sold a wide range of items - groceries , books , buffalo horns, and Northern Territory postcards . He sat in a bed at the front , mirrors placed about the shop so that he could see what was going on . It was later claimed he ran the first self service shop in Australia .
To attract tourists off ships, he had a small zoo which included an emu and some snakes . Children used to sell him frogs for sixpence a dozen with which he fed a python. One of the snakes bit a passing Aborigine .
Author Xavier Herbert knew Buscall who wrote the Round About column in the union owned Northern Standard newspaper. Many people used to drop in and mag with Buscall in the Curio Cottage , subjects of discussion often mentioned in his newspaper column . As a result , Curio Cottage became known as the Gossip Shop .
The above GSNT photograph is of Buscall's buckboard in Chinatown , a sign points to the Australian Workers' Union office . Buscall was said to have first arrived in Darwin with a circus ; a master builder and carpenter, he also took part in SP betting .
Another photo,above, is of a 1915 strike meeting in the open air Don Theatre , the waterside workers demanding a payment of two shillings and fivepence per hour for handling cement .
After the February 19, l942 attack on Darwin, Buscall, against his will ,was evacuated to Adelaide , the zoo animals dispersed by police . In Adelaide he opened another Curio Cottage which mainly traded in stamps . When he died in 1945 his 40 volume stamp collection was sold.
