Another grand tour through North Queensland seeking books, ephemera and oddities resulted in a mixed bag . The safari , with No. 2 son at the wheel, took in op shops, secondhand establishments , a garage sale and a roadside antiques and old wares business (closed, unfortunately ) which seemed to have a giant cut out of King Kong on the premises , which would not have fitted in the car boot anyway .
Son revealed he had always wanted to be photographed with a gorilla, having once been snapped sitting on the lap of Frankenstein in Singapore in the l970s.
Son revealed he had always wanted to be photographed with a gorilla, having once been snapped sitting on the lap of Frankenstein in Singapore in the l970s.
By Peter Simon
At Port Douglas , in The Book Lounge , a major find was the slim 21st anniversary edition of the quarterly literary magazine Overland , Spring 1975, which contained much interesting content , especially an account of Cyclone Tracy by the late film maker and longtime activist , Cec Holmes.
Having known Cec and also been through Cyclone Tracy, his account , headed The Night of the Frogs (because they croaked madly as the Christmas eve night progressed to the disaster ) , made interesting reading . He opened the article by recalling that the first time he came to Darwin was in 1945 on his way to Hiroshima . In 1960 he had come back to make a film of Doug Lockwood's book , I,the Aboriginal .
In 1964 Cec was made editor of a magazine called The Territorian and with his wife, Sandra , also made ethnographic films for the Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Off to Sydney he went to work for the Commonwealth Film Unit , coming back to Darwin from time to time to see his family .
Describing the cyclone as The Beast , he graphically wrote what took place, Sandra , with glass in an eye, taken to hospital, a distraught woman arriving with a dead baby in her arms , rows of dead bodies .
He came across a young girl in the sea holding a dead pony, a Christmas present from her parents, which had taken fright and fallen down a cliff; the warden at Fannie Bay gaol decapitated by a sheet or flying iron . People are mentioned by name - lawyer Dick (Ward) , dubbed the Clarence Darrow of the North , with a love of literature and a collection of first edition leather bound books .
There was the tragic event where a publican thought a man was a looter and shot him dead, only to discover it was a plumber he had hired to do repairs.
The arrival on New Year's Day of the naval relief fleet , aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne and 13 other vessels , is covered and contains an episode in which an admiral spotted a Land Rover being driven erratically near the botanical gardens , no doubt by a drunk , who pulled up, shot at a stray dog , missed and fired again , then drove off .
The driver , in white ducks, with a topee , also had a cigar and was identified as "Tiger Brennan ", the mayor of Darwin , who slept through the cyclone and woke up to find the city blown away . The admiral reportedly said he should be clapped in irons .
A sailor who found the corpse of a 10 year old girl in a refrigerator returned to his ship , went on deck and jumped overboard , drowning himself .
In 1964 Cec was made editor of a magazine called The Territorian and with his wife, Sandra , also made ethnographic films for the Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Off to Sydney he went to work for the Commonwealth Film Unit , coming back to Darwin from time to time to see his family .
Describing the cyclone as The Beast , he graphically wrote what took place, Sandra , with glass in an eye, taken to hospital, a distraught woman arriving with a dead baby in her arms , rows of dead bodies .
He came across a young girl in the sea holding a dead pony, a Christmas present from her parents, which had taken fright and fallen down a cliff; the warden at Fannie Bay gaol decapitated by a sheet or flying iron . People are mentioned by name - lawyer Dick (Ward) , dubbed the Clarence Darrow of the North , with a love of literature and a collection of first edition leather bound books .
There was the tragic event where a publican thought a man was a looter and shot him dead, only to discover it was a plumber he had hired to do repairs.
The arrival on New Year's Day of the naval relief fleet , aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne and 13 other vessels , is covered and contains an episode in which an admiral spotted a Land Rover being driven erratically near the botanical gardens , no doubt by a drunk , who pulled up, shot at a stray dog , missed and fired again , then drove off .
The driver , in white ducks, with a topee , also had a cigar and was identified as "Tiger Brennan ", the mayor of Darwin , who slept through the cyclone and woke up to find the city blown away . The admiral reportedly said he should be clapped in irons .
A sailor who found the corpse of a 10 year old girl in a refrigerator returned to his ship , went on deck and jumped overboard , drowning himself .
In the weeks that followed, Cec obtained a job working on the Greek passenger ship Patris which was hired by the Whitlam Government to provide accommodation for the shattered city . During that time Cec met many reporters who came to Darwin and told me that they seemed to be a soft lot compared with yesteryear. He had heard them telephoning head office down south wanting water and food sent up to them .
At the Darwin High School , having a meal, Cec met up with Arthur Wright ,who had been a lino operator at the union run Northern Standard and the Northern Territory News .
Entertainers who came to Darwin to help ease the strain after the cyclone included Rolf Harris and a Russian troupe.
Eventually , Cec wrote , the frogs became silent .( More details about the interesting lives of Cec and Sandra Holmes and their daughter Mandy have appeared in Little Darwin , especially in relation to their involvement with the crusading editor of the NT News, Jim Bowditch .)
UPCOMING : More finds along the way .
