Maybe a reader could help with the year (perhaps 1989-90) but while hunting for the date when Erich Abetz was made President of the Tasmanian Liberal Party I came across a surprising gem in the form of a complete Letters column in an issue of the Examiner of January 1990 entirely devoted to the career of serial letter writer Mr Trevor G Cowell and centred by his portrait.
It was titled “Trevor G Cowell hits the Letters jackpot” and I offer extracts from a few subsequent comments to the column:
Donald W Sewell: “It is always interesting to see who are writing letters to the editor … the title must now surely fall to Trevor G Cowell of Main Street Perth … After a string of letters during the past few weeks he hit the jackpot on Thursday January 5th with two letters appearing side by side in the Mercury and one in the Examiner … such dedication to letter writing should be recognised – even if one does not always agree with the contents …”
Mr Noel Mundy: “Is Trevor Cowell the Examiner’s new secret weapon?”
Ruth Rowe: “I am not criticising Mr Cowell’s right to have frequent letters published but object to his outrageous statement ‘we are witnessing as good an example of democracy at work over this pulp mill as we may ever know … ‘” (The proposal for the Wesley Vale Pulp Mill near Devonport was defeated by community protests led by then local school teacher Christine Milne)
Mr Dean Folks: “I wonder what he thinks of Land Rights for Gay Whales? He accuses Christine Milne of intellectual dishonesty … Mr Cowell is both intellectually dishonest and immature if he is suggesting …”
J E Reilly: “However well informed the Letters of Trevor Cowell may be, he is still basically flogging a Liberal trained viewpoint. Whether a public opinion column should be seen to allow a bias for this purpose in publishing Mr Cowell’s over-extensive supply of letters is a matter for puzzlement.”
After twenty seven years of it I note that TGC “is still basically flogging a Liberal trained viewpoint”.
I could go on.
*John Hawkins is a Sandhurst-trained former British army officer, now an Australian resident of almost fifty years. For the past fourteen years he has been enhancing the Bentley landscape in the Chudleigh Valley, Tasmania. He is well known for his two-volume standard reference on Australian Silver, and for his knowledge of the Life and Times of Erich Abetz.
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