Tuesday, September 29, 2009

I'm not going to tell you what this remarkable story from 2007 is about, because I don't want to spoil the tale as told by Jack Marx, in a brilliant piece of journalism. I will only try to convince you to read the full story, by quoting these two paragraphs :

Patients were booked into the clinic under assumed names - an understandable necessity for privacy - and travelled in Leighton Jones' car from Eraring to Morisset, spending the 30-minute journey in the back seat with the donor monkey as companion.

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Today, the people of Dora Creek know little of what happened all those years ago, and they'll tell you even less. They squint through security doors and murmur that it's "all but forgotten now" or was "a queer thing". Some joke about it, reciting the urban myth all over again. Even the editor of the local paper declares the story of Henry Leighton Jones "nonsense" that belongs in "a mixing bag of about 5000 other local myths".

The truth, as it so often turns out to be, is far more interesting than the myth.

UPDATE : Jack Marx has a new book out called Australian Tragic, a few dozen forgotten tales of our dark history. Haven't read it yet, but there appears to be a follow-up on the story of Henry Leighton Jones in those pages, as well as a whole load of remarkable Australian stories stories I haven't heard about before.