Another major news story broke in the Northern Territory in
l967 involving French couple, Captain Henri and
Madame Jose Bourdens , plucked from a submerged raft north of
Darwin . Their yacht had been
wrecked on Bathurst Island and after two months , not
knowing there was a mission a short
distance away , they
made a raft and set sail.
Near death, the raft was several feet underwater when they were picked up
by a coastal vessel and brought to Darwin.
Captain Bourdens , 44, was a British United Airways pilot
and he and his wife had set
out from Singapore on their way back to
France , but due to a series of mishaps
and a cyclone were washed ashore on the
island .
Bowditch was absent from
Darwin or tied up with something else , possibly in Alice Springs at the new Murdoch paper , when the story first broke. The Melbourne Herald Darwin based reporter,Douglas Lockwood , filed a cover story for Jim . News Limited trumpeted the
fact that it had the world rights
to the couple’s story and it was run at great length in Murdoch papers and overseas.
However, a Lockwood version of the French
couple’s ordeal was also
run in Australia and overseas and angered News Limited .
A London Times
article bearing Lockwood’s byline said the Bourdens had faced many dangers , including goannas - “six-foot , man eating lizards” with
ridged backs . Knowing that Lockwood was a stickler for the facts
and a hater of beat ups, there is no doubt that
he would not have described
goannas in this way .
In any
case, News Limited took court action for alleged
breach of contract by Lockwood,
but it was dismissed. As a
result, Murdoch instructed Bowditch
to have no further dealings with
“that man Lockwood”. Bowditch ignored
the directive and the close association continued. Bowditch described Lockwood as a
fine reporter and a
magnificient feature writer with a
vast audience in Australia and
overseas.
Lockwood’s books and newspaper articles, he said, must have been
worth millions of dollars to
the Australian tourist industry. A photograph of Captain Bourdens with the Bowditch youngest daughter, Sharon, appeared in the Northern Territory News . She became a journalist and now lives in New York.NEXT : The Evil One heads north.
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Lockwood and Bowditch outside Darwin Press Club , 1980.
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