From the left : Killer commando Bill Cattell ; stunning model Julie Reiter, who stopped the traffic in India , and one of the daring London Oz magazine covers which shocked Britain,leading to the longest obscenity trial.--- Graphics by Four22 Images , Darwin.
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Soon after the 1969 closure of the groundbreaking Broadside magazine, which he had edited, Pete Steedman, an acknowledged major force in Australian university publications during the Vietnam War period , left Melbourne and went freelancing along the Southeast Asia hippy trail . His intention was to eventually reach swinging London where the key players in the controversial Australian Oz magazine were causing a storm in the very centre of the British Empire with a local version, described as a psychedelic hippy publication .
Oz shocked the British establishment with its anti- Vietnam War coverage, drugs, sex and alternative lifestyles . It also revealed that the military junta in Greece was torturing people.
Travelling with Steedman was Jimmy Brandon, a News Limited reporter. Many and varied were Steedman’s experiences along the way. The adventures of Crocodile Dundee and Harrison Ford combined appear tame by comparison . Lobbing in Bali, they made their way to Jakarta and at Serena Casino played roulette for one week solid, ending up with about two grand ,a substantial amount in those days .
In Singapore's Orchard Road bars , they met three commandoes from the British Royal Marines ; one , Bill Cattell, who had been the light-heavyweight boxing champion of the navy and a karate and judo expert , expressed a disturbing desire to kill and maim . He had been a helicopter machine gunner in Aden where he had rejoiced in shooting human targets , even if they were small when viewed from the air . He preferred getting up close to his victims and killing them manually . His short and violent life is a wild , complicated and disturbing story ,involving drug running , a madcap deliberate intrusion into mainland China , people said to have been killed at random, their deaths hushed up. More extraordinary details will be revealed later in this post.
While Steedman decided to travel on to Kuala Lumpur , Brandon went back to the Serena Casino in Jakarata with Cattell and another commando, Phil, the latter claiming to have worked in London casinos and able to count cards dealt by croupiers, hoping to make another bundle.
The grandiose plan apparently failing, Brandon and Cattell ,who had deserted , subsequently lobbed in Thailand. Cattell got involved with a dodgy doctor who alerted police because the commando was carrying a military first aid kit which contained morphine,which he was entitled to have, and he and Brandon were locked up in a Bangkok prison for three months awaiting trial . While in there , Cattell deliberately picked fights with other inmates , including a kick box champion whom he almost killed . Both were released without facing charges , Cattell handed over to the military ; he was reported to have come out of prison a loner, hating everybody and “hard as shit.” Brandon took off for London , glad to be free of the homicidal soldier after the torrid spell in prison.
While this was being played out , Steedman was also experiencing dangerous situations. Run out of Burma by the army, he flew into Calcutta during an uprising by the Communist Naxalites and had to dodge machine gun fire driving from the airport in a taxi . When students from schools revolted they took over the Jadavpur University and used its machine shop facilities to make pipe guns with which to attack the police. The so called "revolt " by Melbourne university students over the Vietnam War and conscription seemed sedate when compared with what was going on in Calcutta.
An arrangement had been made for his girlfriend , model Julie Reiter ,whom he had met when editor of Broadside , to join Pete , and she flew in from Melbourne. Julie had been to London before and became his lifetime partner . That period of togetherness looked like being extremely short soon after . They headed off to Nepal, came back to India , and in Delhi ,Pete had several skirmishes with currency dealers who tried to short change him by sleight of hand when handing over bundles of notes. The knife had to be applied to the throat of a driver when three Sikhs tried to abduct them. At Meerut,where the Indian Mutiny of 1857 started, police had to rescue them as thousands of people engulfed them , all wanting to see and touch Julie’s blond hair.
With a penchant for staying in cheap accommodation, Steedman went to pay the account in a primitive hotel in Amritsar with an American $5 bill. The desk clerk refused to take the currency, demanding rupees , of which he had none . In the row that followed, the clerk ran out into the street and called for help from passers by ,claiming he was being robbed by this foreigner with funny money. A large mob of angry people, growing bigger by the minute, formed . Steedman rushed back to the room in which Julie was packing and informed her to arm herself with the tomahawk in his swag and dong the first person who came through the door,convinced they were going to be done in.
With a penchant for staying in cheap accommodation, Steedman went to pay the account in a primitive hotel in Amritsar with an American $5 bill. The desk clerk refused to take the currency, demanding rupees , of which he had none . In the row that followed, the clerk ran out into the street and called for help from passers by ,claiming he was being robbed by this foreigner with funny money. A large mob of angry people, growing bigger by the minute, formed . Steedman rushed back to the room in which Julie was packing and informed her to arm herself with the tomahawk in his swag and dong the first person who came through the door,convinced they were going to be done in.
Clutching a flick knife –like a Boy Scout and Crocodile Dundee , he was prepared for any eventuality on this magical ,mystery tour- Pete went back into the street , the by now vast crowd (said to be in the thousands), surging about him . Steedman feared that they were about to meet their end . Out of nowhere , a man appeared , asked what was the trouble , and agreed that what Steedman was offering to pay was worth more than twice the bill. Saved from what looked like a life threatening situation , Steedman and Julie decamped .
In Kashmir , mixing with some of the separatists and living on a houseboat on Lake Dal with Julie, Steedman dabbled in carpets , the bright idea being that he would have them sent to Italy where he would sell them on arrival and buy a car in which to continue the journey in style to London. Old flintlock pistols,knives and swords were bought in Kabul, Afghanistan , where he also developed pleurisy . Trying to ease the pain,he tied bandages around his chest to restrict his breathing and , in theory, reduce the hurt. He was saved from another sticky situation there with the help of the flick knife and an airline pilot. Some time was spent in Tehran , Iran ,where he said the women were strikingly beautiful, and they journeyed to Israel and flew to Rome ,landing during an airport strike . A long way from the terminal, passengers had to tote their own luggage.
Feeling unwell , with a throbbing chest , Steedman undid his shirt , exposing the bandages . An airline official noticed , asked what was wrong . In an inspired moment, indicative of a vivid imagination, he replied that he was an injured racing car driver on his way to Turin to pick up a new Ferrari . “Everybody in Italy loves racing car drivers,” Steedman explained. He and Julie, with their luggage, were placed in a bus and driven to the terminal with the plane’s crew , while other passengers from the same flight were struggling across the tarmac, cursing the eternal city and its populace. Steedman’s grand carpet cash in scheme did not go the way planned because of a hold up along the way , the revolting Naxalites having caused the closure of Calcutta through which they were to be shipped . Two weeks were spent recuperating on vino and ravioli in Italy, waiting for the carpets.
Arriving in London, Steedman and Julie were soon in the thick of the London action . They first stayed with Australian Ian Stocks and wife Jane Ayre .Stocks was working on publicity for Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
While the swinging 60s were over in London , the 70s were a wild, dangerous and vibrant period. What was described collectively as " the London scene," consisted of several separate scenes, all seemingly linked in various ways , each with its brand of politics. There were the colourful , boisterous Aussie expatriates, prominent in everything from drinking a yard or three of ale , art, academe and the media. The underground press and those into alternative culture were others who confronted and shocked the establishment.
While the swinging 60s were over in London , the 70s were a wild, dangerous and vibrant period. What was described collectively as " the London scene," consisted of several separate scenes, all seemingly linked in various ways , each with its brand of politics. There were the colourful , boisterous Aussie expatriates, prominent in everything from drinking a yard or three of ale , art, academe and the media. The underground press and those into alternative culture were others who confronted and shocked the establishment.
Steedman met up with the Oz crew , did some work for them as a debt collector , proofread some pages of The Female Eunuch for Germaine Greer and got the rundown on the underground press. The people with whom Steedman and Julie mixed read like a Who’s Who of the counter culture, rising tycoons, artists , musicians and bands, eccentrics, crazies, Michael X , a man who said he was God.
For a time they stayed with architect Peter Burleigh who had drawn cartoons for Broadside . Also resident in London was the former Melbourne University architecture student, Mike Bastow , who had drawn anti-Vietnam War cartoons for Lot’s Wife/Farrago when Steedman was the editor. Bastow , who now has an art gallery in France and Belgium, wowed the glitterati back then by designing and making painted leather vests which sold for a pretty penny. Bastow was living in a mansion, owned by the Rothschilds, rented by another Australian ,Peter Oysted , who was running the Newcastle Theatre, later to become the first Dean of Drama at the Victorian College of the Arts.
While also living in that mansion , Steedman wrote for publications back in Australia. Down the road was an area known as Little Venice where there was this young , ambitious fellow called Richard Branson who ran a magazine called Student and lived on a houseboat . Pete and Branson swapped notes ; Pete also worked with John Varmon who played a large part in Branson’s early rise to fame as a seller of records through a chain of shops . In Branson’s autobiography,LOSING MY VIRGINITY , Random House,2002, Branson described Varnom as "the other genius" in the business in those early days. Next to the Virgin Mary, Branson became the best known Virgin in the world through all his business ventures and the Forbes 2011 list named him the fifth richest man in the UK and the 254th richest in the world. Others Pete and Julie met up with were Joan and Jacqueline Collins , actor Michael Caine, and Ed "Kookie" Burns from 77 Sunset Strip. Pete sank a pint or two from time to time with thirsty actor Tony Booth,whose daughter , Cherie, a QC, became the wife of PM Tony Blair . Tony Booth , of course, was the annoying lefty son of Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part Tv series
Julie , of Prussian descent, was hired to do some modelling in Germany . Steedman quipped that the Germans had run out of blond Aryan stock at the time and had been forced to import them from overseas. Later on , Julie managed a highly profitable Estee Lauder stand at Harrod’s posh store , providing make up for the naked musical, Oh! Calcutta! cast , including the stunning Amazonian Afro-American beauty , Brenda Arnau , and later on wrote pieces for the fiery feminist publication, Spare Rib , edited by Marsha Rowe and Rosie Boycott.
Steedman was deeply interested in the uproar caused by London Oz , especially when the editor, Richard Neville, and co –editors, Jim Anderson and Felix Dennis, were fighting obscentity charges, facing long sentences , in the Old Bailey. Artist Martin Sharp , co- founder of the Sydney Oz , who drew dazzling psychedelic wrap around posters for the London magazine and record sleeves , which became highly collectable , had returned to Australia.
Contributors included Germaine Greer who had appeared nude in one edition (she only getting her gear off if the male editors did the same, which they did ), journalist Lillian Roxon ( of Rock Encyclopedia fame ) , artist and filmmaker Philippe Mora, photographer Robert Whitaker , Angelo Quattrocchi , radical English graphic artist Barney Bubbles, designer of many record sleeves, an LSD user , later bi-polar, who suicided on the anniversary of his late parents’ wedding anniversary, and Marxist writer David Widgery. Attractive Louise Ferrier , Neville’s girlfriend, and Jenny Kee, the well known Australian fashion designer, appeared in what was described as their" birthday suits" on an Oz front cover.
Steedman featured in a poster advertising Oz #31,said to satirise outlaw chic, which promised FUN,TROUBLE AND ADVENTURE FOR ALL THE FAMILY . Toting an automatic rifle , he posed with a woman and a child. The front cover of the magazine carried the heading BRAVE NEW MORNING and Steedman was presented in the same family group setting . He was wearing sunglasses, a Digger’s hat to which was attached a parachute cord with . a .38 calibre cartridge as a toggle. With a wild mop of hair, mutton chop whiskers, he appeared to be nursing a cute child, while also carrying the automatic rifle. Standing alongside , bullet pouches slung over her shoulder , was a topless , sultry-looking woman , brandishing a rifle . The child in the picture was Damon Hughes son of Robert Hughes ; the woman was Jamaican model , Mynah Byrd.
Contributors included Germaine Greer who had appeared nude in one edition (she only getting her gear off if the male editors did the same, which they did ), journalist Lillian Roxon ( of Rock Encyclopedia fame ) , artist and filmmaker Philippe Mora, photographer Robert Whitaker , Angelo Quattrocchi , radical English graphic artist Barney Bubbles, designer of many record sleeves, an LSD user , later bi-polar, who suicided on the anniversary of his late parents’ wedding anniversary, and Marxist writer David Widgery. Attractive Louise Ferrier , Neville’s girlfriend, and Jenny Kee, the well known Australian fashion designer, appeared in what was described as their" birthday suits" on an Oz front cover.
Steedman featured in a poster advertising Oz #31,said to satirise outlaw chic, which promised FUN,TROUBLE AND ADVENTURE FOR ALL THE FAMILY . Toting an automatic rifle , he posed with a woman and a child. The front cover of the magazine carried the heading BRAVE NEW MORNING and Steedman was presented in the same family group setting . He was wearing sunglasses, a Digger’s hat to which was attached a parachute cord with . a .38 calibre cartridge as a toggle. With a wild mop of hair, mutton chop whiskers, he appeared to be nursing a cute child, while also carrying the automatic rifle. Standing alongside , bullet pouches slung over her shoulder , was a topless , sultry-looking woman , brandishing a rifle . The child in the picture was Damon Hughes son of Robert Hughes ; the woman was Jamaican model , Mynah Byrd.
Text on the lower right corner said : " He drives a Maserati/ She’s a professional model/ The boy is the son of the art editor of Time magazine/Some revolution !". The leading American underground newspaper , the Berkeley Barb, which had taken an interest in the ground breaking university magazines Steedman had edited in Melbourne, and had invited him to come on over to California , reproduced the cover and ran off copies as posters.
( When Danton Hughes was three years old one of his babysitters was Jenny Kee who had posed in the nude for Oz. They later became lovers, and artist Damon, 21 years younger than Jenny, gassed himself at the age of 33 while living with her in Australia . Kee’s subsequent autobiography , A Big Life, was critical of Robert Hughes and said his son just wanted to be accepted as an artist by his father, but had not. )
One edition , the Schoolkids Oz which included a Rupert Bear sexual parody , had caused an almighty uproar in official circles . It was created by a 15 year old schoolgirl who pasted the lovable bear’s head onto the lead character in an X-rated satirical cartoon by Robert Crumb. Steedman did not agree with a lot of what was published in Oz, but nevertheless said it was a case of civil liberties.
In what became the then longest obscenity trial in British legal history, the Oz crew faced the serious charge of conspiracy to corrupt public morals ,for which they could face an extreme penalty. More specifically , they were charged with having conspired with certain young people to produce a magazine containing obscene, lewd,indecent ,articles, cartoons and drawings with the intent to debauch and corrupt the morals of young children and other persons and to arouse and implant in their minds lustful and perverted ideas.
The late John Mortimer,QC, who wrote Rumpole of the Old Bailey, represented Dennis and Anderson in court ; Geoffrey Robertson , recently mentioned in Little Darwin in connection with a Darwin spoofy hypothetical hypothetical case, was his junior. Neville represented himself .
John Lennon and Yoko Ono joined a protest march against the prosecution and organised the recording of what was first God Save Oz, changed to God Save Us. At the opening of the trial in 1971, Mortimer said the case stood at the crossroads of our liberty , at the boundaries of our freedom to think, draw and write what we please . Defence witnesses included comedian Marty Feldman, who had a row with Judge Michael Argyle , artist Feliks Topolski, artist and drugs activist Caroline Coon, DJ John Peel ,musician and writer George Melly and lateral thinker Edward de Bono .
At the committal trial, Neville , Dennis and Anderson wore rented schoolgirl costumes. While this was thought to be great fun, Steedman wrote that Geoffrey Robertson clashed with the"theatre"people who wanted to embarrass and overthrow the system, and yelled at them that the trio could be sent away for 10 years.
While this circus was getting saturation coverage in the media and the subject of debate in Westminster, Steedman was made managing editor of Oz and another Australian, lawyer Andrew Fisher, managing director , in a bid to keep the publication solvent and its assets out of the hands of the police. The police at the time , said Steedman, were out to totally destroy Oz by seizing stock , threatening printers , prosecuting the distributors and harassing retailers.
An independent weekly political tabloid –INK -was started up with Steedman becoming involved as managing editor. Police swooped on the Ink premises ,above, to investigate an alleged bomb threat. Shown here are ,from left,Steedman,financier-publisher,Ed Victor,boyish-looking Richard Neville,lawyer Andrew Fisher .(Further information about INK will be revealed in another later post.)
An independent weekly political tabloid –INK -was started up with Steedman becoming involved as managing editor. Police swooped on the Ink premises ,above, to investigate an alleged bomb threat. Shown here are ,from left,Steedman,financier-publisher,Ed Victor,boyish-looking Richard Neville,lawyer Andrew Fisher .(Further information about INK will be revealed in another later post.)
The " Oz Three" were found not guilty of conspiracy to corrupt public morals , but convicted on two lesser charges relating to publishing an obscene magazine, and sentenced to imprisonment. Judge Argyle gave Dennis a shorter sentence, nine months, because he said he was " very much less intelligent " than the other two and had been duped. (Today Dennis is worth squillions –one of the richest men in England ,probably a billionaire . He cashed in on the early days of the computer age , set up a vast publishing empire , became a prominent poet, selling French wine while making live recitations, wrote a bestseller book how to become rich, established a forest , assists worthy causes . In an odd twist of fate, Dennis sued The Spectator and was awarded 10,000 pound damages , given to charity , for running an interview with Mr Justice Argyle in which the disparaging comments made against Dennis in the Oz case were repeated. Dennis reportedly said he did not want to sue the judge because it would make a martyr out of him for the Right, and there was no glory in taking the 80 year old judge’s house away from him. )
The Oz three were taken to prison and had their heads shaved, an act which caused another outcry. At the appeal , where the defendants wore wigs, it was found Justice Argyle had grossly misdirected the jury on numerous occasions and the convictions were quashed .
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On September 1971, Oz # 38 ran a story by reporter Jimmy Brandon detailing his experiences with the commando Bill Cattell , highlighting the three horrendous months spent with him in the Bangkok Hilton prison.
The Oz three were taken to prison and had their heads shaved, an act which caused another outcry. At the appeal , where the defendants wore wigs, it was found Justice Argyle had grossly misdirected the jury on numerous occasions and the convictions were quashed .
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On September 1971, Oz # 38 ran a story by reporter Jimmy Brandon detailing his experiences with the commando Bill Cattell , highlighting the three horrendous months spent with him in the Bangkok Hilton prison.
Much to everyone’s surprise , more like nervous shock, Catell arrived at the office of Time Out , another innovative and lively London publication with strong political content and a guide to the capital , of which Steedman was the business manager . It seems Brandon had left London and Oz directed Cattell to Steedman .
Demanding information, Cattell spoke to Steedman and revealed he had deserted yet again. In a boastful but open manner , he was eager to recall his previous misadventures . He said he deserted on this occasion because he had been told that the military was to go easy on the Irish in Northern Ireland , but he "wanted to kill the Paddies ." Time Out reported that Cattell had deserted from the Royal Marines in October 1970 and found his way to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, making contacts in the heroin trade. Sent back to Singapore , he and bored, hell-raising mates "ran over Chinese" and smashed bars. When stationed in Hong Kong, Cattell bet he could invade China , and while on night guard duty, slipped across the border for half a mile ,and tied his scarf to a bush so it could be seen through binoculars in the morning.
While in the Time Out office , Cattell mentioned connections with the heroin trade,which included supplying Australia. He also asked to use a telephone to arrange his passage back to Southeast Asia,using a stolen passport from another commando , James Gill.
Posing as a press photographer, Cattell returned to Vietnam and obviously became involved in the drug trade. Then the 23 –year-old commando, 6ft 2 in tall , weighing 15 stone, was found executed near Quang Tri , his hands tied behind his back, a bullet in the head ,in August 1972. Money and letters found in his room indicated he had been involved with the drug trade. One letter was from an acquaintance in Sydney demanding he complete a deal for which he had been paid. Another reportedly stated threats were"futile as we could have each other killed." It went on to say :"Let not your greed or forgetfulness overpower your logical mind ."
Time Out reporters Neil Lyndon and John Lloyd wrote a special article about Cattell headed HOW A ROYAL MARINE DESERTER FOUND HAPPINESS AND DEATH IN THE VIETNAM DRUGS BUSINESS .It detailed that the drug trade into the US and elsewhere was controlled by the US military, flying smack into the USA on Air America , the CIA run airline.
The British military intelligence organisation, MI5, called at Time Out and spoke to Steedman, seeking information about Cattell. NEXT : STEEDMAN AND JULIE MAKE ANOTHER DEATH DEFYING TRIP IN A DODGY BEDFORD VAN BOUGHT BY GULLIBLE ARCHITECT/CARTOONIST PETER BURLEIGH WHICH MAKES THE HUNTER S. THOMPSON FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS ESCAPADE SEEM LIKE A SUNDAY SCHOOL PICNIC HAYRIDE ***
