From selling papers outside Port Pirie’s smelter gates for a penny, to writing 1,000 profiles and a column that ran in The Recorder for three decades, Des Parker retains much of his 65-year newspaper career in his shed.
It is the early 1970s and Des Parker is in the middle of running an illegal game of two-up on Weeroona Island atop the Spencer Gulf in South Australia.As the organiser of the game, Mr Parker copped a fine of $14.
"It was just a job and my mother always told me I would never last in that job … so I proved her a little wrong," he said. It includes a thousand profiles on residents, thousands of old Recorder newspapers bound in big red books, hundreds of glass negatives and countless photographs.His column, Nosey Parker, ran for 30 years in The Recorder. Some of the town's secrets were shared there, but he said there were some he would never share."If you do the right thing by people, they do the right thing by you.
He has had people from all over the country get in touch with him to locate some sort of memorabilia for a friend or a family member. Mr Parker said he wrote his books by hand without what he described as "formalities", such as a degree, which he said was not necessary for success as a writer, photographer or journalist."I've learnt from watching other people … I had no study whatsoever," he said.
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