Cops, Crocs & Leopard-Skin Jocks. Bob Magor
and besides, I was now in the most laid-back town in Australia, so if I couldn’t live here, there was no hope for me anywhere. Their attention meant I couldn’t get accommodation anywhere. Anyone who let me stay under their roof was under threat of going to gaol for consorting with a known criminal.
‘It was pretty bloody hard. I slept rough but, if it was pouring rain, I was forced to sleep in people’s cars. I’d check out driveways until I found a car unlocked and then climb into the back seat. I’d only half sleep because I had to keep a lookout in the dark. In the morning when the house lights came on as the owner got up to go to work I’d slip out of the car, close the door quietly and wander off. It would take me an hour to get my back straight again. They were hard times.
‘I had a lot of jobs in those early days in Darwin. I really tried to do the right thing. Work would be going okay until my employer found out, or was told by the coppers, that I was a criminal. Then I’d get my marching orders. At least they could have given me time to stuff up first before they sacked me!
‘I worked for Burns Philp on delivery trucks. They ferried oil and grease and motor parts around Darwin. I also had a job with Gus Trippe stacking cement. He had a big cement complex on the beach and we shifted all the cement bags by hand. No forklifts in those days. All grunting. They used to force-feed us with salt tablets every hour to make up for all the sweat we lost. I never sweated so much in my life. Later on I heard that too much salt is bad for you but it didn’t seem to hurt us.
‘I drove trucks for North Australian Haulage, then worked for Gerry Monk at Port Keats driving tractors. He was a contractor with dozers and trucks. I was driving front-end loaders and we had to make lots or corduroys. These were tracks made of logs laid side by side to form a solid base so vehicles could drive across creeks and boggy patches.
‘Gerry was doing a big job for some French mob. They had barrels and barrels of wine in the sheds. These Froggies drank wine like water. I’d go to their kegs, fill up lemonade bottles and swap it with the local tribal Aborigines for bark paintings. When I flew back to Darwin for a few days off I’d flog the paintings to the tourists. It was all clear profit, thanks to the French. I wish I had some of those paintings today because they were genuine paintings and not the crap that’s palmed off these days as the real thing.
‘I left Port Keats with a few bob in my pocket because there was nowhere to spend it. Lodgings and tucker were part of the deal so, for almost the first time in my life, at least since Wittenoom Gorge, I had some honest money. Life was good.
‘At this stage I was being tolerated by the police. I’d kept my nose clean and had been employed for six months. They were probably waiting for me to break out but at that time I was being given the benefit of the doubt. No-one was more surprised than me. It felt good.’
‘Yeah, you were keeping your nose clean all right,’ Allan growled. ‘Wasn’t that about the time you got Anne and me tangled up in one of your “get-rich-quick” schemes you mongrel?’
‘You fly with the crows and you’ll get shot with ‘em!’ Roy laughed out loud.
‘We weren’t flying with anyone,’ Allan growled again. ‘We were just going on a simple fishing trip with our loving in-law, who turned out to be an out-law and could have had us sent us to gaol!’
‘You worry too much,’ Roy grinned.
I realised after a few days’ yarning in the crab camp that for most of his life Roy had been a nomad. He had to be in a place where he could do his own thing well away from the prying eyes of the law, which meant that Roy worked and loved on the fringe of society. These frontier areas were also where large numbers of the Aboriginal population lived so it was only natural that Roy, and others of his ilk, sought companionship with indigenous women. This situation was accepted by both races.
‘Like most young blokes, I had lots of one night stands,’ Roy continued with a grin. ‘I didn’t get serious with the girls until I settled in Broome. I’d shacked up with Joanna Kelly for six months before Angie James and I got together. When I headed for Darwin, Angie had a new boyfriend, so I knew my daughter Josephine would be looked after. I found myself in a sort of a Catch 22 situation. I couldn’t take my daughter with me because Angie was staying, but I couldn’t stay near her either because I’d been run out of Broome.
‘Being the adorable stud that I was, I wasn’t alone for very long! In Darwin I soon won the heart of a local lass in Shirley Shepherd and, over the next few years, we had two kids – Lloyd and Betty. My family was growing but all I could afford to live in was a caravan on a scrubby block. It got stinking hot in the dry season and leaked like a sieve in the wet, but we were fairly happy.
‘I’ve always liked a challenge so I soon had two wives on the go. My fatal charm I guess. It sure kept me fit. While I was living with Shirley I got tangled up with Marjorie Horrell and we had a swag of kids. Junior, Lisa and Sharon all hit the ground over the next few years. We had a few others but Marjorie fostered them out. I was having enough trouble keeping two wives and five kids so fostering seemed to be the best option. Between fishing a few nights a week to feed the tribe and spending time with each wife, it was a busy time in my life. I don’t know how these blokes overseas get on with heaps of wives. Two was enough.
‘Both the girls knew about each other, but as long as I kept them apart and looked after them both well, life was sweet. This took a bit of doing at times in a town where everyone knew each other, but it made my love life fairly exciting. Darwin in those times was a bit of a shanty town so we blended in well.
‘I’d been in town for about a year and had tried working for a living but my record meant that real jobs were never going to last. I loved the town and the lifestyle and all I wanted from the police was a bit of peace and quiet. I knew I wouldn’t get that if I spent all my time in Darwin. I’d talked to the locals and they had stories about the big barramundi that were out in the Mary River. I knew a lot about fishing down south but I knew nothing about Top End fishing. I reasoned that it couldn’t be a lot different and, if nothing else, it would get me out of sight of the coppers.
‘There was no such thing as Kakadu in those days. It was just a big area of scrub and mosquitoes where nobody wanted to go apart from a few diehard fishermen and buffalo shooters. So I started going off fishing with a line. That was legal as long as you fished in saltwater creeks or saltwater arms. Legally you weren’t allowed to drop a line in the freshwater parts of the tidal rivers or in the inland billabongs. I’d take one of my wives and kids with me, or a mate, and we’d travel out one day and camp overnight. We’d fish that night and early the next morning before returning home with our catch. It certainly was a beautiful part of the world and it felt good to be earning a quid legally – well, almost.
‘On our first few trips we got 3/6 for fillets and 2/6 for whole fish. This was just before the dollar changeover in 1966 and it wasn’t bad money. Especially as it was all cash and I’ve always been a lousy book-keeper!
‘With no-one to keep an eye on me I fished the freshwater where all the fish were – which turned me into a poacher. I had plenty of outlets in and around Darwin which would quietly buy my fish but as I didn’t have a fishing licence, the marketing of my illegal fish was illegal as well. This minor detail never worried me because I’ve always reckoned that illegal is only a sick bird.
‘I didn’t really know what I was doing, so my fishing wasn’t very successful. But it used to put a bit of tucker on the table for my families and give me plenty of cash in my pockets. It was a quiet and unobtrusive start but I learnt to find my way around the area and all the tricks to catching barra. Like the fish – I was hooked!
‘At this stage,’ Roy confessed, ‘I was only really poaching part-time. Before I went on to full-time poaching I found myself tangled up in a couple of drug crops. I’ve always hated drugs, it’s never been my thing,