While ratting through musty files trying to find a particular item , its whereabouts still an annoying mystery , up popped the above 1973 working typescript about the tiny town of Borroloola , in the Northern Territory Gulf country , which in early days was like the Wild West, the area plagued by a "band of outlaws " known as the Ragged Thirteen .
By Peter Simon
It was written by the late Colin Mann , a onetime Sydney Morning Herald reporter, for distribution overseas through the Commonwealth News and Information Bureau ; photographs were by Danish cameraman Michael Jensen .
I came into possession of this rare document , entitled AUSTRALIAN GHOST TOWN WON'T LIE DOWN , composed on the back of Bureau letterhead writing paper , some portions stapled onto the page , through my habit of regularly going through the Bureau's office rubbish bin in Darwin .
The scavenging was mainly intended to retrieve reject photographs which Jensen , with whom I imbibed , regarded as not being up to his high standards; some were duplicates , discards . His brilliant photographs had been used by Qantas to promote Australia overseas , a reject photo of his a work of art as far as I was concerned.
He referred to photographs I took as " happy snaps". This was his disparaging description for so many photographs taken by average button clickers . Over the years , he mildly taunted me , most recently on the blower from Canberra, by asking if I was still taking happy snaps .
The rough nine page Borroloola article I snaffled had obviously been given to the typist by Mann to turn into a pristine copy , dumped on completion . The intro to the feature article cleverly sets the scene : If there is such a place as the Last Frontier , then Borroloola would be on the other side . It went on to say that while authorities listed it as a ghost town , it did have some permanent residents , who could be spectres capable of much swearing . The best place to meet them was in the pub ...
Of the many characters mentioned in the article , one is "lotus eater " Bill Harney , who at one time had spent time in the Borroloola clink for cattle duffing . The above page refers to that episode and the fact that there was a well stocked Carnegie Library from New York in the Borroloola Police Station , much used by the locals and prisoners . Strangely , Karl Marx is crossed out in the list of works available in the library .
The article says that Harney , later in charge of Ayers Rock (Uluru ) and an author , confessed he had read the Roman poet Horace (from the library ) in the dunny behind the Borroloola Pub , which helped develop his urge to write . For the benefit of overseas readers , a dunny was described , in brackets, as lavatory .
Many authors wrote about Borroloola over the years , including Ernestine Hill , Glenville Pike , Douglas Lockwood , Keith Willey , Ted Morey , George Farwell and Vern O'Brien .
CARNEGIE OR NOT ?
A slim volume with much information and photographs of interest is Borroloola Isolated and Interesting 1885-1985 , by J. A. Whitaker , written to mark the town's centenary. In a chapter dealing with the town's "renowned library " , it states that Borroloola may not have had a specific Carnegie Library.
Instead, it could have received books from the Tennant Creek Library , near the geographic centre of Australia , which had some books purchased with funds provided by the Carnegie Corporation and were stamped as such . It continues : " Bill Harney and Douglas Lockwood popularised the story of Borroloola's Carnegie Library in their books about the Gulf" .
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Doomsday Book Borroloola .
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