When Ross Annabell arrived in Darwin from Mt Isa in l953 he was allowed to live on the NT News premises, above , in part of the verandah on the town side of the building. He had to provide his own bedding and mosquito net. To make life easier , he bought himself an electric jug and a one element stove on which to cook his breakfast and make numerous banana fritters. It was not too bad a set up for Darwin which had a severe accommodation shortage. At the time, the NT News Services Limited’s director, Bob Freeden , was only living in a one- room hut rented from the ABC, so Annabell did not feel so bad about his lot.
By Peter Simon
However , the situation changed for the worse . Annabell was given the task of turning the paper into a bi-weekly. Because of the old , slow press it had a to be run till midnight several times a week and it made sleep difficult. On top of that , an acccountant sent up from Sydney was a homosexual and he lived in a room nextdoor with a flimsy wall separating the two. The man would go drinking in pubs and bring home people, resulting in disturbing goings on behind the plywood wall.
The matter came to a head when Annabell was entertaining a nurse in his quarters. Back drunk from the pub , the man in the next room made snide remarks which could be clearly heard through the partition . Enraged , Annabell turned from a suave, mild-mannered reporter with an impressive (for those days ) bachelor pad , complete with a one ring stove, into an aggressive person threatening to smash in the accountant’s head.
Alarmed and shocked , the nurse asked to be taken home to the hospital living quarters. Reluctantly, Annabell whipped the nurse back to hospital on his motorbike . Then he sped back to the News in a murderous rage and ended up hitting the man . He described the fracas thus : “I called him out to settle the argument in good cave man fashion ; but he simply stood there and insisted that he was a ‘gentleman ’ and gentlemen didn’t fight . So I let him have a mighty right smack in the kisser, but he simply stood and took it , and wouldn’t fight . And, not being particularly adept in the ancient art of boxing, I had neglected to tuck in my thumb , which nearly dislocated on his ugly mug , and left me in no condition to give him a second right .” The man left the News soon after.
Annabell had a major row with Don Whitington over a story which he did not run in the NT News . The story was about the Monte Bello nuclear tests off WA . Whitington had sent up a front page story from Sydney quoting physicist Professor Harry Messel as saying a cloud of lethal radioactive fallout could blow across the Top End and kill people or render them sterile .
The explosion was due the day the story would have been run in the NT News. Annabell felt that if the dire predictions were true it would be too late to warn the people of Darwin because by the time the paper hit the street many of them could be dead or sterilised. Furthermore, he felt the story would create incredible panic in Darwin , resulting in a mass evacuation down the track like the one that followed the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese in February l942. “Whitington was furious , and ripped the shit out of me in his next dispatch from Sydney ,” Annabell recalled.
Annabell wrote most of the general news , did the layout for the paper, proofread and performed several other chores including keeping a close eye on getting the paper out on time . Melbourne Herald Darwin correspondent Doug Lockwood and Bob Freeden supplied him with “blacks”-copies of stories they sent south. Ruth Lockwood, who recently died at the age of 99, occasionally helped out by contributing an occasional “women’s item.”
THE NEWS VERSUS NORTHERN STANDARD
In a bid to capture more readers, the NT News ran horse racing acceptances from four States, claiming to be the only capital city newspaper in Australia at the time to provide such a service for punters. It was a clear indication that gambling was a major interest in Darwin and big business. As a counter , the union owned Standard began to run extensive horse racing notes from the Sydney turf expert A.B. Gray, former racing editor of Smith’s Weekly.
The Standard fulminated against Japanese being allowed back into Australian, especially Territory , waters . Its campaign quoted Jessie Litchfield and MHR Jock Nelson as saying it was inappropriate for Japanese to return. Japanese were described by the paper as “treacherous spies ”. It thundered : “ We will have no more Japanese polluting the North ”. A series of photos showing Japanese in military uniforms doing self defence military exercises was headed JAPS AT PLAY ? Other items in the paper said Japs had been seen taking photographs of a wharf in South Australia.
JAPS AT IT AGAIN IN NEW GUINEA was the comment when a fishing boat entered the three mile territorial waters. Another unusual heading in the paper was TUT,TUT,TOKIO ! It dealt with complaints in a Japanese newspaper about limitations likely to be placed on pearlers allowed back into Australian waters and pointed out that Darwin based pearler Nicholas Paspaley had told the Standard how Japanese had fished out grounds in the past .
The subject of Aboriginal rights, especially for half-castes, was frequently mentioned in the Standard, as it was in the News . The North Australia Workers' Union , of course, had been involved in this cause because half-castes were members of the union. Jack McGinness , President of the Australian Half-castes’ Progress Association was quoted in l953 in relation to the so-called Halfcastes Bill which would give them their “freedom”. He was also given space to outline plans for a hostel and other facilities in Darwin .
PORNOGRAPHY CLAIM IN PAPER
It was said that in a desperate bid to increase circulation, the Standard resorted to “pornography, ” a term used by Bowditch and others , without explanation . Presumably , this related to a contrived article under the heading SEX that suggested a brothel should be set up in Darwin which would reduce such crimes as young girls being “tampered with” and “ peeping toms” . It commenced by saying H. G. Wells had said one of the most disruptive forces of the 20th century had been the restless sea of dissatisfied young people. The North had “unsated youth ” and in Darwin there were 3500 male adults and only 1600 females. Youth was not only unsatisfied by existing society , but their natural , quite proper sexual drives and compensating outlets were blocked by the shortage of women.
The paper warned that “thwarted energies,” if not given an outlet through things like beer, swimming , fishing , etc. could lead to an explosive situation. To overcome this tropical time bomb , it was suggested that a licenced brothel like those in Townsville , Brisbane and Perth be established in Darwin to absorb “surplus, dangerous energies ”. The paper continued the argument by saying it should be apparent to police and Adminstration that the stability of Darwin and district rested as much on sex as the economic factor. The situation, it said, could also be eased by bringing up more wives from down south and providing more accommodation in Darwin . The paper invited readers to respond with letters and said it would run any printable suggestions to overcome the problem.
The first response to this article was headed NO BROTHELS FOR DARWIN and was signed “Psychologist”, a person said to be a well-known Darwin citizen whose identity was cloaked by a pseudonym. This mystery man said the editorial on sex had been unpalatable, that the use of Wells to start the argument for a brothel had been fallacious , and that bad grammar had been used. The paper next ran a nebulous editorial on a subject dear to the heart of Darwin- beer. In the Territory , it said , every man,woman and child swallowed a pint of beer a day , or 43 gallons a year. The response to these two editorials might not have been as desired . Enemies of the paper, including the NT News touting for business about town , could have- and probably did - brand the paper a depraved Commo rag , particularly in respect of the brothel issue. Soon after the brothel and beer items , the Standard felt compelled to declare it was not a Communist publication.
The union paper ,which had fought so stridently for the workers over many years, was doomed , and Annabell would figure in its demise. NEXT : Miss Pink invites Bowditch home in Alice Springs.
