From the monthly archives: January 2012
CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD HUGHES
With Tim Bowden
Just before World War II Australians seemed unaware that they were geographically linked to Asia, and not simply ‘British to the bootstraps’ as Prime Minister Robert Menzies later put it. There were no Australian foreign correspondents working in Asia, and Richard Hughes (and colleagues like Denis Warner) were [...]
NO TERN UNSTONED – MUSINGS AT BREAKFAST
By Tim Bowden
In 2003 I received a phone call out of the blue from Peter Thompson, then hosting Radio National’s Breakfast show. Would I be interested in doing a talk every Friday for the program?
‘What about?’
‘Anything’, said Peter.
Well what recently retired journalist could refuse [...]
DOWN UNDER IN THE TOP END – PENELOPE HEADS NORTH
By Tim Bowden
Australia’s tropical north, now the nation’s most popular tourist destination for overseas visitors as well as locals, was not always so highly regarded. It was even alleged in 1942 during World War II that in the event of a Japanese invasion, the [...]
THE DEVIL IN TIM – PENELOPE’S TRAVELS IN TASMANIA
Tasmania is the testicle of Australia – suffusing the Mainland with strength and vigour. What a pity there is only one of them…
I have to plead guilty to coining that aphorism. It is not unknown for island people to feel they have special values, unique [...]
PENELOPE BUNGLES TO BROOME
By Tim Bowden
We were completely unprepared for the magnificence of the gallery suddenly revealed. A shiver ran up my spine as I saw for the first time the great white Wandjina spirit figures, two and three times larger than human scale.
I can still recall that shiver when Ros and [...]
PENELOPE GOES WEST – ON THE ROAD FROM SYDNEY TO MARGARET RIVER AND BACK
By Tim Bowden
The urge to get out and see Australia has always been a strong one for me and my wife Ros. In 1974 we headed north from Sydney in a 1967 vintage split-screen Kombi, towing a 6 X 4 [...]
TIM BOWDEN – BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Tim Bowden was born in Hobart, Tasmania, on August 2, 1937. He is married, with two children and three grandchildren. An author and broadcaster formerly of Sydney but now living on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Tim was host of the ABC-TV listener and viewer reaction [...]
ONE CROWDED HOUR – NEIL DAVIS, COMBAT CAMERAMAN 1934-85
By Tim Bowden
As I lay there half-reclining, with blood streaming down from my head and hands, a North Vietnamese soldier appeared literally a metre away over a slight rise. My first reacion was, ‘What a fantastic shot!’ I looked down to adjust the focus [...]
SPOOKING THROUGH – AN IRREVERENT MEMOIR
By Tim Bowden
When I was a teenager I read an engaging book titled How to be an Author by Denys Val Baker. It’s first chapter, I recall, was titled ‘The Importance of an Unhappy Childhood’. Mr Baker made it very clear that serious writing would elude a nascent [...]
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF EXPLORERS
Caravan+RV Oct/Nov 2010 Issue
It is 150 years since Burke and Wills set out on their ill-fated attempt to cross the continent, Tim & Ros Bowden followed some of their footsteps to ‘Corner Country’, where South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales intersect.
We headed off from our [...]
