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IT was weapons drawn if not at dawn, late morning: the carrot versus the burdekin plum. It was a conflict like no other, two writers on gardening locked in combat, a seething mistrust, a hatred breaking the surface at last like fresh shoots of old-world vegetables emerging after rain, or eucalypt seeds sprouting in the wake of fire. Punches were being thrown on Macquarie Street and the police were on the way. An uneasy peace, a truce of sorts, had reigned between the rival … [Read more...] about High noon on Macquarie Street

CRAGGY would be the way to describe him. Gnarled even. The old, retired sub-editor had come into the Chronicle looking for work to supplement his pension. An immigrant from Britain in the 1960s, the 68-year-old had an impeccable record both in his home country and in Australia. In the United Kingdom he had started his career on an evening newspaper in a city on the Wales-England border. In Australia he had worked on The Age in Melbourne. Don Bentley had offered to demonstrate … [Read more...] about Life and death at the typeface

Don Bentley, an old Africa hand, had worked in some pretty hot places during his career in journalism but he had not known anywhere with the heat of Townsville. Although the coastal tropics were supposed to be humid in summer, Townsville was seared, burned and scorched in the same manner as inland cities like Mount Isa and there was no escape from the sun out on Townsville’s wide boulevards. Townsville, unlike its steamy near-neighbour Cairns, was situated between two … [Read more...] about The Woking cowboy

Alcohol and journalism do not go together. Or more precisely the liquid lunch, the liquid supper or even the liquid snack at the desk to not mix with the computer terminal. It has taken two decades or more for this simple fact to sink in with the people who deal with facts on a daily basis. The management and proprietors of newspapers, of course, have known about the problem of alcohol since the invention of the typewriter a good hundred years before electronic editing, and … [Read more...] about Drinks with everything

IT was a funny place to be reporting on a football match, the Driehoek Stadium in the industrial heartland of  South Africa. On his travels through Africa as a young man, Don Bentley had taken work where he could find it and he had secured employment as a sports journalist on The Star  in Johannesburg. Bentley’s position on The Star’s sports desk was a lowly one and as a measure of his status he did not get to cover headline sports like rugby union, cricket, athletics and … [Read more...] about A sports-writing career on the line