Don Knowler

CHRISTMAS approached, but Don Bentley was thinking not of the Chronicle’s annual staff party at a local brewery, or the Christmas parade down Liverpool Street in Hobart. Sitting in the Chronicle newsroom late one evening he was thinking of a white Christmas long ago, one in South Africa during the apartheid white-supremacy era. The singing of ‘‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas’’ had become an ironic joke in the newsroom of the Star, or at least some sections of it. It was … [Read more...] about The white Christmas

He was described as a kindly and good humoured man who delighted in company but Don Bentley had seen a wicked side to the great foreign correspondent, Chris Munnion. Don Bentley was thinking of Munnion, and talking of him, in the Chronicle’s newsroom. Bentley had just learned of his death. Bentley mourned Munnion with a sense of loss that only journalists, and possibly soldiers and others who live with danger, know. The foreign correspondent covering wars gets used to … [Read more...] about Sangria with a punch

His shoes splashing in pools of blood, Don Bentley climbed the stairs leading to  Le Coq d’Or nightspot in the heart of the Rhodesian capital, Salisbury. Out there on the street were three young soldiers with bashed-in faces and broken noses. Bentley looked at his mate, Peter Sharp, and whispered: “Do you think we should go on?’’ The stairwell was dimly-lit and gloomy but there was no mistaking the dark blood dripping down the steps. “Well, why not?’’ answered Sharp, and … [Read more...] about Trouble at Le Coq d’Or

Don Bentley was one shave behind the world and one drink ahead of it. He sat at the bar in Mahoney’s, half listening to a conversation between a colleague, Michael Cooper, and a friend of Cooper’s who had arrived for drinks. They were talking mobile phones, and comparing their instruments and the different applications they had obtained for them. Like the radio waves buzzing around him, it all went over Bentley’s head in the Hobart pub. Bentley had initially shown a glimmer … [Read more...] about Ringing the changes

Don Bentley sat in the Hobart Magistrate’s Court, waiting for his name to be called. The matter at hand was a contested traffic infringement but, as on the day Bentley may or may not have committed the offence, the defendant let his attention drift from the road ahead. Bentley was surveying the press gallery in Court No.1 and, more specifically, its empty seats. He was thinking of the time when the press gallery would be crowded, like the court itself. The daily parade of … [Read more...] about At the court of King Jones