Darkie Dempsey’s Office
By John Wade
In 1990, when I was living in Darwin as BP Australia’s Northern Territory manager, I was driving back from Katherine to Darwin late one afternoon and decided to call in to Pine Creek. It would be dark by the time I reached Darwin, so I had some time on my side.
I’d heard a story about the ‘Monster Bore’ somewhere in the Katherine district, put down by a fellow named Norman Jensen. The drill bit was reported to have gone through some remains of a dinosaur and, as such, it had a potentially interesting natural history angle. First thing to do was find Norman Jensen, so I started my enquiries at the Pine Creek pub.
There were only two customers in the bar and neither they nor the barmaid had heard of Norman. The barmaid suggested that if he was in Pine Creek, then Darkie Dempsey would be sure to know him.
“You’ll find Darkie in his office – go out that door and follow along to the end of the veranda.”
Expecting to see an office, I was amused to find an old timer wearing a battered felt hat, durrie hanging out the side of his mouth, sitting down at a pub table with a VB stubbie in a cooler in front of him. He looked fairly relaxed.
A sign on the wall behind him proclaimed ‘Darkie Dempsey’s Office’. Business as usual, for sure!
I introduced myself. Darkie told me he had been in Pine Creek for some years, and he knew all about the good times and the bust after the mining boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was conversant with the names of all the big mining companies and the promoters, and the history of all the mines.
He told me that when he was young, he had a head of thick, black hair and that’s how he got the nickname ‘Darkie’. Eventually he got around to asking me what I was doing and I told him I was looking for Norman Jensen.
“What do you want to see him about? It’s not about the Monster Bore, is it?”
When I acknowledged it was, he said, “Mate, my advice is to forget about it. It’s a lot of bulldust. Anyway, Norman comes from Surat.”
At that stage, he looked me up and down. “I don’t suppose you even know where that is,” he suggested.
I told him, “Well, I come from east of St George and I’ve been to Surat many times over the years.”
“Whereabouts exactly do you come from?”
Now it was my turn to be smart. “I grew up 15 miles north of Weengallon, but I don’t suppose you know where that is.”
To my amazement and without batting an eyelid he then asked, “Do Rigneys still own the store there?”
The dialogue that followed was nothing short of amazing. Darkie’s memory of the district went back to the late 1930s and early 1940s to around the time just after I was born; his mind was working like a well-oiled Swiss watch. I am pleased to say my memories of more recent recollections were clear also.
If he asked, “Who did Zita Rigney marry?” I was able to tell him, Bert Harris. We went through the McGoverns, the Franciscos, the McCaskers, the Southerns, the Brosnans, and the Harris families and many others in the district. Whenever he asked a question I was able to bounce back with the correct answer. I could not disappoint him.
He asked, “Mate, what was the name of the bloke near Thallon who put in the flood irrigation scheme?” I replied, “That was Ken Cameron at ‘Bullamon Plains’ and he also introduced the Cactoblastis moth to the district.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” he conceded.
“Speaking of Camerons,” he said, “I was friends with a tall fellow named Don Cameron who lived north of St George but I have not seen or heard anything about him for years. Did you ever meet him?”
“That would have been ‘Begonia’ Don Cameron,” I suggested. “He lived on a rural property called ‘Begonia’ on the Roma road.”
“Yes, that’s him,” said Darkie.
“Darkie,” I said, “you’re not going to believe this. Five years after my father died, Don Cameron married my mother.”
He was flabbergasted. “Well, mate, I’ll go to hell!” was all he could think of saying.
Footnote: Prickly pear caused one of the greatest infestations of an introduced species and an ecological disaster in Australia, almost unprecedented anywhere in the world. Its spread smothered vast areas of Queensland after it was brought to Australia as a pot plant and then ‘went wild’. The Cactoblastis moth proved to be a wonderful, environmentally friendly answer to this scourge and eventually the insects brought prickly pear under control.
- Hits: 174