We all Have our Bad Years. The sacking of Alan Jones as Wallabies coach meant 1988 started badly and it ended even worse. After arriving for his regular London sojourn in December, there was an incident so shattering, a ripple of fear that Alan might commit suicide reached all the way to Sydney. Friends rushed to his side.
On 26 January there was a good moment, when, in the Australia Day honours list, Alan Jones was awarded an Order of Australia for his services to rugby. It was ironic that, soon after, the Australian Rugby Football Union declared his services no longer desirable. What might have made it harder was the naming of Bob Dwyer, his rival beaten in 1984, as his replacement. Alan Jones’ archrival may well have ended up profiting from the earlier loss of his job. He was able to return to a more professional outfit thanks to the higher standard set during Jones’ stewardship.
Resuming another career as a newspaper columnist, Alan Jones showed a dignified public face. ‘It would never be my intention to detract from the legitimacy of Bob Dwyer’s claim to the job, or to deny him and his team the unity and cohesive national support to which they are entitled and which regrettably, we were denied … Let us now forgive the acrimony generated by a few (you can’t forget it) and join in the collective hope that 1988 will be a beneficial year for Australian Rugby and those entrusted with its safekeeping.’1
But Alan never got over getting the punt from rugby. A year later he severed all official ties, resigning his New South Wales executive position and developing the same poisonous regard for the forces that unseated him as he had for the jealous Liberals who had kept him from parliament. Alan was hurt by the way so many of his boys turned against him. After David Campese’s book was published Jones spoke of his disappointment with people who had ‘shared a slice of history with me’.2 Charlie Jones was also wounded. ‘My father rang up in tears after my sacking. He’d been reading on the front page of the Brisbane Sun that David Codey, whom I’d made captain for one Test, said that the Wallabies were a rabble under me at the end. That borders on the unacceptable.’3
Meanwhile his media career moved forward, not just with the Sun Herald column, but also a better timeslot on 2UE. Since his start in 1985, Alan Jones’ ratings had steadily risen. At the end of 1987, when his station lured John Laws back from 2GB and into the 9 am to noon shift, Alan was asked to move to the earlier timeslot. The breakfast shift, where a chunk of the daily news agenda is set, would extend both his audience and influence. Usually, the downside is the hours, but less so for a man who never let the sun reach his blanket while he was under it. Alan Jones had been reading the papers before dawn for decades. Now it would be his well-paid duty.
Nigel Milan, the new general manager of 2UE, oversaw the move. ‘The number one breakfast jocks at the time were Michael Carlton and Doug Mulray, the Bollinger Left if you like. Alan obviously had a very different perspective on the world. You know you looked for a unique selling point in commercial radio, something very different. He had enormous energy, obviously great intellect and I thought he was worth a go.’4
A powerhouse at this time of the day, Alan Jones was again uniquely suited. As a colleague put it: ‘Part of his appeal is that he is always so upbeat and full of energy. That’s what you want in a breakfast host. He also gives people a sense of empowerment—that they are listened to and can have a voice. He also allows them to say things that are not always acceptable, lets them be a bit sexist or racist or whatever.’
So from March 1988, Alan Jones would rise at 2.30 am and make his way from Newtown to North Sydney. It was already well known around 2UE that Jones’ buoyant on air persona stood in contrast to the fiend who materialised once the microphone was switched off. Alan, continuing to struggle with the technicalities of radio, became unpopular with some of the panel operators, one of whom said: ‘He is very unprofessional as a broadcaster. He just refuses to abide by formats. At one stage he just refused to stop talking at the top of the clock, so he would come crashing in over the news … for someone who is constantly telling other people about the need for discipline, he is very undisciplined.’
Conscious of his power in the industry, very few radio colleagues are prepared to put a name to their commentary. One of the technical staff to quit said: ‘He’s basically a school bully. Not a day goes by when he doesn’t shout at someone. I just hated the way he treated people, drove them to tears, etc, really terrible stuff. He’s a twisted, warped individual. I can’t imagine what happened to him as a child but it must have been horrendous. He never admits he is wrong. He never says sorry.’
The breakfast shift started at 5.30 am with the same theme Alan Jones had used for the morning shift. Having first trialled the Mills Brothers’ ‘The Jones Boy’, Alan dropped it after an interview with singer Laura Branigan, having taken a fancy to her disco hit ‘Gloria’ instead. He had showed off the tune and his eclectic taste during the 1987 60 Minutes profile. Flouncing into frame, Alan seemed unconscious of the camp undertones. ‘Gloria’ would become one of his pet Sydney nicknames.
At the radio studio where Alan Jones’ captivation with the good-looking younger men could not be missed, there was a general, though not exclusive, presumption that he was homosexual. As one observer noted: ‘He has this enormous need to feel loved and accepted because he finds his homosexuality unacceptable and thinks others do too. This need for acceptance drives much of what he does.’
Co-workers noticed Alan avoided dealing with the subject of homosexuality if it emerged in the news. There was embarrassment when talkback callers had to be dumped. Rugby types were still ringing in and asking what had happened with James Black in the back seat in 1983. The subjects of his phantom relationships, James Black and now Brian Smith, were also subjects of sledging. Some of the main sledgers came from that old Matraville High cabal, the Randwick hooker Eddie Jones, another Jones to take a prominent place in both rugby history and Alan’s hit list.
Within Jones’ inner circle there was fervent denial that Alan was in any way homosexual. His friend Ross Turnbull, defence counsel-like, was frequently brought to his feet when the familiar slurs were cast. In 1988 Turnbull was one of about 40 mostly rugby people to assemble in a private room at the Wentworth Hotel to pay tribute to Alan. There have been many such occasions over the years. Alan developed a routine whereby he’d move around a table, clasping the shoulders of individuals and giving a brief testimonial to their character and achievements: ‘Australia can never be grateful enough for the hard work and sacrifice …’, etc. On this occasion, a rare and remarkable hesitation is remembered. When he reached James Black, Alan Jones stood silently for a moment, his voice breaking as he finally said: ‘This fine young man has shared with me a dreadful experience … there has been terrible innuendo … terrible innuendo … but we have to go on with our lives’.
To close friends Alan expressed a wish for a woman in his life. He did so publicly as well. In a 1985 interview, he said his dad had just about given up on him. ‘I’ve had some disappointments there and don’t talk about that … (laughs) What I really want is a wealthy heiress so I can stop all this working.’5 In the 60 Minutes profile he told Jana Wendt that he moved too fast for a long-term relationship.
In 1988, for her The Search for Meaning program, the gentle interrogatory style of Caroline Jones prised out more. Alan Jones seemed eager to address the question, confessing to the failure of his private life:6
I’ve been unsuccessful in relationships. I suppose that’s a function of this so-called success … I think relationships require time and that’s where there is a contradiction in what I am about because I call for commitment and discipline and all that and you have to have that if you’re going to succeed in a relationship, commitment and time. On the other hand I have given commitment to two relationships in my life which through circumstances that neither of us could prevent, uh, failed, and I would have liked them to have succeeded and the legacy is still there. You still share the same love but it’s incapable of being fulfilled and that is difficult, I think, but at the same time I take the view that every aspect of your life can’t be fulfilling, I don’t think. You’ve got to be grateful for the moments that you get, I think. I’ve had a lot of pleasure and a lot of enjoyment and a lot of satisfaction … I must say in one that I won’t talk but which will be with me for some time, not deliberately. One thing most extraordinary set of circumstances occurred and I had taken a job in another place and I thought in doing that we were going to be able to sort of move together into that employment and something happened which kept us apart and as a result you’ve got to say to yourself do I stop here because I’ve got to sort of keep going and I did keep going. It might have been the wrong decision to make at the time … I don’t know, how do you know?
Although the detail of gender was missing, Alan did seem to be talking about female companions. One was likely to have been Madonna Schacht, in that Alan told people they were lovers. As much as she had wished it otherwise, Madonna explained this was not so: ‘Never at any time in my relationship with Alan did he express heterosexual yearnings or reveal any feelings that would be likely to lead to a fuller expression of a sexual relationship. We have always been—just good friends.’7
The blurring of the lines between acquaintance, friend and lover can be confusing for more than the odd athlete forced to cope with a love-struck Jones. This lonely man had a way of jumbling the personal, in other words assuming closeness that is not always reciprocated. Alan Jones can enter into impassioned support for someone he has just met, as if they were lifelong friends.
Even back then, the idea that Alan Jones was a ‘relationship person’ was of interest to Sydney’s canny media advisors. In the months leading up to the March 1988 election in New South Wales, Alan Jones’ good relationship with a bright young Nick Greiner had been helpful to the New South Wales Liberals. Both in favour of reducing public debt and increasing public accountability, Alan Jones and Nick Greiner appeared to be on the same wavelength. The new Liberal Party media machine was doing some pioneering work in the now practised art of manipulating talk radio. It established a network of fax machines in the homes of loyal supporters. Briefing notes and questions were sent out, suggesting new ways to attack Labor’s position on topics such as gun control. The supporters would then ring broadcasters like Alan Jones, and push a prescribed line under the guise of free speech.
A lacklustre Labor leader, Barrie Unsworth was no match for Nick Greiner and his revived party. On 19 March, after 12 years in the wilderness, the Liberals were back in power. The new government showed its respect for Alan by anointing him to the board of the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust. The post is a Sydney equivalent to a box seat at the Vatican. It would be important for the Trust and Jones, placing him on holy ground and in the company of Sydney’s elite. Prominent lawyer John Marsden, who had touted for the job, was thwarted, as he explained, when ‘the Minister for Sport, Roland Smith, dug his heels in. There was no way he was appointing a homosexual to the Trust.’8
Premier Nick Greiner continued to be interviewed in the feature 7.15 am timeslot, but as his term progressed so did Alan Jones’ habit of talking over him. Alan seemed to like Nick more than he liked his government, stocked as it was with moderates such as Ted Pickering and John Hannaford.
The more interesting political relationship forged at this time was from within the other camp. Two weeks after the election, Labor appointed a new Opposition leader, the Member for Maroubra, Robert John Carr. The 40 year old was, like the Ella brothers, a product of Matraville High and, like the Ellas, Carr’s regard for Alan Jones over the years veered between extremes of appreciation and rancour. Through the next decade and a half Jones and Carr would flirt and tiff like teenagers, each an important barometer of the other’s success.
In the beginning, it was not just the Liberals who thought Bob Carr as colourless as predecessor Barrie Unsworth. Some in the Labor Party saw Carr as a stopgap choice. New South Wales Labor Party General Secretary Stephen Loosley had more faith, recognising in the former ABC reporter a natural broadcaster’s voice and an ability to use it. Loosley saw this as a tremendous attribute, knowing that ‘Barrie Unsworth had suffered electorally because Nick Greiner had used talkback more effectively’. A courtship was encouraged. Bob Carr’s advisor at this time, Malcolm McGregor, was in a position to further the relationship. Like Alan Jones he had managed rugby touring teams and shared a friendship with Ross Turnbull. McGregor knew that Jones had ‘an enormous ego and could be courted’.
Alan Jones, perhaps looking for leverage and by various accounts genuinely impressed, began to give Bob Carr airtime. A turning point was a Bicentennial dinner for visiting British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Bob Carr, assisted by speechwriter Graham Freudenberg, made a speech that Margaret Thatcher singled out for praise ‘while barely mentioning Greiner’s contribution’.9 Alan Jones, with his Churchillian love of a fine phrase, played excerpts on air and referred to Bob Carr’s ‘eloquence’ in his newspaper column.10
Alan Jones’ mate north of the border, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, was not doing so well. The push for Canberra had proved calamitous, and by now the Fitzgerald corruption inquiry had revealed enough of a mess to render him unelectable in his own state. Bjelke-Petersen resigned after being sacked as National Party leader.
One Queenslander who did make it south, for a time at least, was Alan’s dad. In his eighties, Charlie Jones was in need of constant attention after a series of strokes. He tried to settle in Sydney, where some of Alan’s friends came to know and like the stooped and humble man. But the alien inner urban environment was plainly unsuitable. ‘I’d leave Dad to go to work with the radio tuned to 2KY for the horse races, but one day I came home and he was sitting in the chair crying. He told me he might as well be dead as be here, because he had no friends.’11 Charlie Jones, who did not want to go into a nursing home, returned to Brisbane. Alan paid $500 a week for a housekeeper to look after him.
At Newtown, Alan Jones was soon in need of his own housekeeper. His spare rooms were made available to many friends, particularly footballers. By putting Troy Coker up in Sydney and arranging for orthopaedic surgeon Merv Cross to repair his weakened knees, Jones effectively saved Coker’s rugby career.
Brian Smith was another guest at the Newtown premises which, to visitors entering the gallery stairwells, was like a shrine. They could not miss the walls covered with framed newspaper articles and pictures of Alan alongside famous people and favoured athletes. A particular talking point was a framed portrait spotted at Alan’s bedside, featuring Smith. ‘There used to be this amazing picture. It was taken in a changing room with lots of people but somehow the light just showed up the two of them.’
Alan Jones had also been helping some of his old players with further education. His 1987 winger, Ian Williams, like Bill Campbell before him, won a Kobe Steel scholarship to Oxford. With their respectable undergraduate credentials it was comparatively easy to assist these two Wallabies and Alan Jones wanted to do more, but getting in others who did not have the marks was a taller order. So he got together with mates such as Ross Turnbull and stockbroker Rene Rivkin, and started a new scholarship scheme. Each put in about $30 000 and, as a result, Brian Smith and Troy Coker were on their way to Oxford. Some jealous onlookers did not regard the stipend as a serious scholarship as no real application process or selection criteria appeared to be used.
The Dons run Oxford’s autonomous colleges to their own rather than university rules. Entry was achieved by going through the colleges, Alan Jones finding a good connection in a flexible admissions tutor. Entry standards were not so exacting for diploma courses, such as the one Alan Jones had done in the 1970s. Smith and Coker sat for a Graduate Diploma of Social Studies.
Relief from academic pressurers meant there was plenty of time for rugby. The footballers lived more comfortably off campus in a well-appointed terrace house. Smith was seen arriving at football training in a bright red BMW, which team mates understood had been supplied by Alan. Smith and Coker were part of what was again an Oxford side with a heavy Anzac lacing. Ian Williams was on one wing, with future Wallaby Rob Egerton on the other. In addition, there was David Kirk, the New Zealand World Cup winning captain, who had diplomatically conceded leadership to an Englishman, the multiple Oxford blue Rupert Vessey.
Having been asked before, Alan Jones anticipated being invited to guest coach Oxford again for the big December encounter with Cambridge. He was, in a sense, uninvited instead. The 1987 experience, when Oxford played percentage football and lost, had not met with complete favour. Rupert Vessey, along with some team mates, decided Alan Jones was not needed. Vessey rang Jones and gave him the news.
Alan Jones’ radio year was a lot better than his rugby year. His 2UE audience had jumped from 7.3 per cent to a remarkable 14.3 per cent share. Alan Jones was now the highest rating AM announcer, but still behind FM broadcaster Doug Mulray, who reached a different, younger audience. When his radio shift came to an end in December Jones played ‘Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye’. Despite the setback at Oxford, Alan Jones stuck with his plan to head to England. He was keen to catch up with mates such as Brian Smith and the Irish international Brendan Mullin. But first Alan headed for Queensland.
By this time pulling in around $1 million a year, the broadcaster had further expanded his property portfolio to include a villa at Mike Gore’s famous gated Gold Coast resort. Alan is still remembered for an awkward appearance in a television commercial, in which he is perched precariously on a li-lo, promoting Sanctuary Cove. He rented out the $767 505 villa for one dollar a week, making it available to friends. As one commented: ‘His is an uncomplicated generosity. All he would ask is that you keep it clean.’
On Saturday 3 December, Alan Jones was guest speaker at a private function at Sanctuary Cove hosted by Ross Turnbull. The next day he travelled to Brisbane where he caught a plane for London. He arrived behind schedule at Heathrow airport at 8.15 am on Monday 6 December. Alan Jones later said: ‘The plane was delayed at all stops and I was dog tired when I finally got to the flat on Monday morning. I had a cup of coffee and I couldn’t go to sleep.’12
Long before and since this occasion members of Alan Jones’ staff presumed he waited for these moments to ‘have his fun’. He knew the beats in Sydney and Brisbane, because he had been seen there and had commented on the rent boys as he drove past them with friends. But Sydney and Brisbane were risky. As one colleague said, ‘I don’t think he allows himself to play in Sydney. I think that’s why the London incident happened. He had it all bottled up inside until he just had to act, let himself go.’
The flat Jones turned up at in St James Street, Mayfair belonged to his friend Rene Rivkin. After dumping his luggage, he headed out again. ‘I thought I’ll go for a walk which is what people usually do when they come to London. I’d been walking for about 35 minutes. I just had light clothes on and it was very cold. I had this virtuous feeling that I was working the muck [of the flight] off me.’13 The six block walk from Mayfair took him to Piccadilly Circus, where he crossed into familiar territory, the West End theatre district. He later explained he was going to have a look at the posters for a Jeffrey Archer play, Beyond Reasonable Doubt. This is where his public account of what happened came to an end.
In the same area around Soho there was a gay beat with its own ‘wall’, known locally as ‘the meat rack’, a place where cruising men could pick up young male prostitutes. In Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, the police had been urged to be more vigilant about ‘cottaging’, the liaising of homosexuals in public toilets. To the cops, protection of underage males was seen as legitimate work, but there were mixed views about the legitimacy of targeting homosexuals. So it was not always popular work with the young police who were usually assigned to this area.
To make it more interesting, the West End branch had begun an informal competition: because the occasional judge or politician was caught in their net, who paid for drinks at the end of the week rested on whose catch was the biggest. Later that day the word went breathlessly around the station that one team had caught Australia’s future prime minister. Two plain-clothes officers had been watching the underground public toilet at Broadwick Street from the roof and a nearby corner. They had seen a man in an aqua coloured Lacoste sweater enter the toilet and became suspicious when he stayed inside for a longer than usual period.
Alan Jones was arrested and taken to the Mayfair station where he was charged with ‘outraging public decency’ and ‘committing an indecent act’. One charge appeared to refer to alleged public masturbation, and the other to an alleged attempt at picking up an officer by, to use the colloquial term, ‘flag waving’. It is only fair to point out that prosecuting authorities were ultimately unprepared to present any evidence to support the charges.
Meanwhile at London’s Lensbury Club, the Oxford rugby team gathered before the big game. They were watching a video, Action Jackson, when a call came through from a Mr Alan Jones seeking to speak to Mr Brian Smith. Smith made an excuse and hurried to his friend’s side. According to another friend, Alan was ‘shot to pieces’. He did not attend the Twickenham match, in which Brian Smith starred, scoring two tries. Oxford won 27–7, the largest victory margin since 1909.14
Yet another friend later said by Alan Jones to have provided ‘immeasurable’ assistance was the man whose new play had drawn Jones to Soho. Alan Jones came to know Lord Jeffrey Archer through the author’s book promotion tours. It is easy to see how they would have got on as there are remarkable similarities. Both came from poor backgrounds. Both had strong-willed mothers who urged them towards superior schooling. Both became teachers and inspirational sporting coaches. Archer and Jones did similar education courses at Oxford. The fellow fabulists had populist followings; they stood for parliament, in Archer’s case successfully, and gave a considerable amount of their time and money to charity. And there was something else. One year earlier Jeffrey Archer had been before a London court as the result of a sex scandal. He sued a British newspaper, which had alleged Lord Archer had slept with and later bribed a prostitute in an effort to secure her silence.
Although evidence was later to overturn the finding, Jeffrey Archer won the libel action. The same high order advocacy used by Archer was now made available to Jones. Archer, and now Jones’ solicitor Lord Victor Mishcon, litigation consultant at UK legal firm Mishcon de Reya, were not figures to be commonly found in a lowly magistrate’s court. A barrister, Stephen Reading, was also assigned.
It was dawn on a Tuesday when the story broke in Australia. First glimpses are commonly fleeting and newsrooms had only sketchy details of a high profile Australian arrested on a morals charge. Alerted by bureau chief John Highfield, ABC London correspondent Peter Cave was concerned not just about identifying the right person, but the right Alan Jones. (Another prominent Australian sports identity is the racing driver and 1980 Formula One champion, Alan Jones.)
When Peter Cave found Alan’s address he hurried to the Mayfair flat and knocked on the door. Although he thought he heard someone inside, the door stayed shut. Given the circumstances, the no-nonsense ex-serviceman doorman, who had seen Alan Jones enter, became worried that he might have harmed himself. So he knocked again, and then used his keys to open the door to reveal an ashen Jones. Cave, recognising the former rugby coach, introduced himself and asked whether he wished to comment. Jones declined and closed the door.
On 7 December, when Lord Mishcon’s shining Bentley approached the Marlborough Street Magistrate’s Court, there was bedlam. A mass of journalists had assembled for what the presiding magistrate described as a minor matter. When Australian television reporter Richard Carleton appeared by coincidence on the scene, he was mobbed by colleagues who knew only of an Australian media figure being charged and presumed he was the story rather than the storyteller. Richard and his wife Sharon, unable to dissuade fellow reptiles, took refuge in a nearby print shop.
The concern about suicide was more keenly felt a world away at 2UE. Alan Jones’ broadcasting colleague, John Laws, telephoned to offer comfort. Laws recalls Jones was so distressed he spoke about wanting to jump out the window. Station boss Nigel Milan was worried. John Brennan was put on the case, strings began to be pulled and, in the busy pre-Christmas period, airline seats found. Passengers were offloaded as Brennan, John Fordham and Ross Turnbull found space on that afternoon’s QF1 to London.
Another 2UE colleague, Phillip Adams, shared a concern that, in a homophobic nation, the scandal could mean that Alan Jones’ ‘commercial career was over’. Phillip Adams was one of many to send Alan Jones a telegram of support. He joshed about ‘British spunk’, an attempt to soften if not laugh off the matter. Adams was offended not by Jones’ alleged conduct, but by the idea that police could treat homosexuality as a crime.
Stephen Loosley conveyed his good wishes through Jones’ 2UE producer, John Stanley. Malcolm McGregor urged Bob Carr to ‘extend the hand in his hour of need and he will never forget you’. The Opposition leader sent a personal note, quoting Richard Nixon, telling him that his contribution to public life would sustain him through the difficult time.15
Advertiser John Singleton sent a fax: ‘Mate don’t let the bastards get you. Kick heads, fight, but don’t you ever give up.’16 Brisbane-based Robert Jones, now virtually out of touch with his brother, was buoyed by the strength of the support. ‘If we take the London episode—I was quite surprised by the number of phone calls that I got from people in England saying don’t worry one little bit. It was just endless, people just ringing.’17
Considering the crowd out front at Marlborough Street, Alan Jones was hustled into the court through an alternative entrance. Before the case was heard the Crown withdrew the more serious charge, leaving the charge of committing an indecent act. This charge, to which Alan Jones pleaded not guilty and which attracted only a small fine, was to be held over until January. He left the court via a front entrance and was photographed by the assembled media. Barrister Stephen Reading told them: ‘Mr Jones is a man of good character. He is completely innocent of the charge against him. It will be opposed vigorously.’18
Under siege from a range of media, and with the location of the Rivkin flat now known, Alan Jones needed somewhere else to stay. John Fordham got straight on to Terry Holmes, managing director of the Ritz. Fordham, who held a public relations account with the hotel, persuaded a reluctant Holmes to make a room available. Holmes was told Alan could prove to be a valuable customer, so a room was found and the advice validated.19
Fordham and Jones’ other mates also went to work on damage control. Back in Australia the Daily Mirror’s front page story on Tuesday had included a photo of Alan and a bold headline: ‘ALAN JONES ARREST “OUTRAGING PUBLIC DECENCY” CHARGE’.20 On Wednesday, with the blow softened, the Daily Mirror’s headline declared: ‘ALAN JONES: I’LL STAY AND FIGHT CHARGE. HE’S NOT GUILTY SAYS LAWYER’.21 On Thursday, again on the front page, it was ‘MY STORY: “I’m not immoral … I’m not indecent”’.22 The accompanying photograph pictured Alan and supporters at a lunch at the Ritz: Brendan Mullin from Alan Jones’ 1987 Oxford team, Brian Smith, Ross Turnbull, John Fordham and John Brennan. Although the ‘Alan Jones Arrest’ newspaper banners did not join the many others he had framed and mounted in his Newtown home, the photograph of Alan and friends, with scotch in hand, would find pride of place.
The article carried endorsements from Michael and Susie Yabsley, Good Morning Australia host Kerri-Anne Kennerley, and Wallaby Steve Cutler. Others to publicly support Alan were Liberals Kerry Chikarovski and John Spender, and media colleagues George Negus, Geraldine Doogue and Steve Liebmann. At this stage Alan Bond was in control of the former Packer empire but a link to the old regime was maintained through Channel 9 boss Sam Chisholm. Both Chisholm and Packer were also there for Alan.
Alan Jones was interviewed via satellite on Channel 9’s A Current Affair. An emotional Alan explained he had no choice but to abide by his lawyer’s instructions and limit his responses. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide. I am proudly a moral person and a decent person and I have maintained that morality and decency right throughout my life.’23 Alan Jones promised that in time all would be explained.
Back in Australia there was a gradation of whispering. Within Alan’s old school and rugby circles there were plenty of ‘I told you so’ telephone calls. In the King’s diaspora parents who had taken opposing positions on Alan Jones either ducked for cover or openly crowed. One woman who had long suffered for her suspicions within her mothers’ group began to gather newspaper cuttings into a scrapbook.
Meanwhile in London, the lawyers also gathered to contest the second charge of committing an indecent act. Alan Jones’ story to friends, and presumably counsel, was that he had been standing at the sink in the lavatory with his pants unzipped, but had not been masturbating. He said that having had a bit to drink on the flight he had a full bladder, but as can be the case with older men, he was having trouble getting the urine to flow. So he had gone to the sink to wash his hands, hoping that the hand motion and flow of water would help.
It did not matter. Before Christmas, the Crown decided to drop this charge as well. Alan Jones was free of all but decade after decade of fervent speculation about what caused him to be charged in that London dunny, and how and why he got off. On the upper floors of the Ritz Hotel there was considerable relief. Jonesy wanted to party, booking rooms for Brian Smith, Troy Coker and another friend, Sue Havers. Presents were handed out and the aqua Lacoste sweater, which had been stuffed in a bin, was souvenired.
After Christmas dinner, Alan Jones flew back to Australia. A Harley Street doctor had advised rest. He headed first for Sanctuary Cove where he caught up with Madonna Schacht. ‘He was keen that I fly to Sydney to attend some functions with him. In the aftermath of all the negative publicity, Alan felt the need to appear in public with some female company.’24 The relief that flowed from the dropping of the charges did not stop him worrying about how the public and others would greet him. Alan Jones’ self-belief could not accommodate shame. Back in Sydney he was reluctant to show his face. John Fordham had to push him out the door.
Fordham encouraged Jones along to a big cricket testimonial where Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh and dozens of sporting luminaries made him feel welcome. Underlying much of the show of support was concern that a man should suffer so pointlessly. It was a case at least one supporter was keen to make when Alan arrived to thank him. At Phillip Adams’ Darlinghurst home, his then 2UE colleague seized the opportunity to tell Alan Jones what many people felt, that he would not be judged harshly because he was gay. Adams remembers Jones replying: ‘But it did not happen’. Adams persisted, explaining that his support was unconditional and telling Jones that people who were offended by homosexuality could ‘get fucked’.
The meeting with Bob Carr took the form of a thank-you dinner at an Italian restaurant at Lavender Bay. Bob Carr’s advisor, Malcolm McGregor, went along and was not entirely surprised that a ‘genuinely conservative’ Bob Carr got on with Alan Jones. ‘It was a funny night and Jones was at his charming best … I told Carr that Jones was a relationship bloke and this kind of loyalty only starts when you are in trouble. That paid off big time.’25 McGregor was buying when the stocks were low. He said that following the dinner Jones prompted them to send him briefing notes.
2UE General Manager Nigel Milan had also experienced a troubled Christmas break. Although promising Alan Jones that his job was safe he had reasonable concerns about how the audience might react. ‘When he came back from London he went back on air with a lot of expectation—he handled himself, I have to say, extraordinarily well … I think he came out of it a stronger man.’26
When Jones returned to the microphone on 16 January 1989, the month-old story about the London dunny was still alive and kicking. Alan Jones said he was deeply grateful for the thousands of messages. ‘It’s only in adversity that you learn of the great reservoir of goodwill that exists among thousands of Australians.’27 He read a prepared statement: ‘Let me say that on this show and in my life, I’ve always articulated the adherence to certain values and standards and to levels of honesty and openness which I believe we all ought to try to embrace. I have not betrayed those standards. I am and always was innocent of the charges levelled against me. What I can say to you is limited by the fact that I have retained leading English lawyers who have instructed me not to comment on the matter.’28
Alan Jones’ lawyers won the remaining costs in the order of £70 and by the end of January the case was closed as far as the courts were concerned. Now presumably free of legal constraint, Alan was not heard to open up as promised about what had happened. But rumour, as well as nature, abhors a vacuum. Conspiracy theories began to do the rounds. Most had it that Alan’s high-powered pals had pulled strings. Perhaps from within his support base three further theories began circulating. The first was that jealous rugby figures set him up. The second was that he was a victim of a plot organised by an anti-apartheid movement and, thirdly, the Australian Labor Party wanted to kill off any chance he had of becoming prime minister. In all three scenarios, the London police had somehow been aware that three hours after arriving in London, Alan Jones would be in a Soho lavatory. What is most likely is that the Director of Public Prosecutions came to a pragmatic judgement that the low scale of the offence and the high order of opposition meant the fight was not worth it.
Having won the legal battle, there was still more to do in the court of public opinion. Those jealous colleagues in the media had so far been extremely kind to Alan. Instead of going in for the kill in the way Jones does, the Sydney media had been gentle. The tabloids are normally aggressive in their coverage of such stories. That considered, it is hard to think of anyone who got a better deal than Alan Jones. The reporting was unusually limited to the barest facts about what was delivered in court and a range of positive commentary. There was no further digging into London or his past. Among the favours extended to Alan was some obvious soft-pedalling.
In June 1989 New Idea ran a story under the headline ‘Alan Jones: a future PM?’ It hung on the improbable peg of Alan’s ambition to run the country. His friendship with Benazir Bhutto was recounted, but the main purpose of the interview was to resecure the mask. The reporter told us: ‘Alan is a loner. Although there is now a woman in his life … At 45 [he was 48] he has never married and he sees this as a big gap in his life.’ It quoted Jones: ‘A lot of people have gaps in their life and that’s mine. I have been privileged in many ways and I don’t think it is fair to complain about my lot. I once worried about never becoming a father, but not anymore. I don’t believe you should worry about what you’ve missed out on. There is a woman in my life but it is a personal thing. She is a professional woman and we are very close but she isn’t always here.’29
A later, unattributed piece in the magazine Ita described the then 49-year-old Jones as in his early forties, and pushed the same line: ‘His friends say he would like to have a wife. Sometimes older women listeners on Radio 2UE, where he hosts the top-rating breakfast talkback show, ring him on the open line to tell him he is doing too much, that he needs someone to look after him. He agrees. He talks quite openly about his failed romances and laughs it off, but in a serious moment admits: My main flaw in relationships is that I’m emotionally overpowering. Then he quotes a line from a John Donne sonnet—“Whatever dies was not mixed equally.” I’m conscious of the fact that I don’t have anyone to share my life with—a person with whom I can talk.’30
At the time, Harry Miller, who routinely vetted interview requests, would ask, ‘Are there going to be any questions about London?’ If you wanted the interview you conceded, as journalist Lenore Nicklin later confessed: ‘Okay, Harry, no questions about London dunnies’.31
But even the cleverest PR doctor could not kill the ghost of London. Following the episode the tortured, homophobic, closet homosexual ‘Gloria’ began to make regular appearances on the rival Doug Mulray show. Comedian Dave Gibson has a repertoire of clever impersonations, one of them a creditable Jones. One morning, rushing from Mulray’s farm to reach the studio by 6 am, the pair heard Alan Jones on the car radio begin his program at 5.30 with his signature tune, ‘Gloria’. The tortured homophobic homosexual Jones character got a name, which Gibson later dropped when Andrew Denton took over the program and ‘Gloria’ became Alan. The characterisation was more affectionate than cruel but even so the mocking evoked in Alan Jones a fury not felt since the ‘pansy’ jeers back at Oakey.
At the National Convention Centre in Canberra in August 1989, one of many awkward moments occurred. At a taping of ABC TV’s Hypothetical, ‘Beggar Thy Neighbour’, Alan Jones did a double-take when asked by Geoffrey Robertson: ‘What’s the first thing to do if you get arrested in a foreign country?’ There was laughter in the audience at Jones’ dropped jaw and his rarely seen state of being lost for words.
The toilet episode was indeed a watershed for Alan Jones. On top of all the other evidence that might have led people to suspect Alan was homosexual, the London incident was going to strengthen if not confirm suspicion. An opportunity arose for him to admit his homosexuality. The generally sympathetic response made it is easier for him to be himself. There was no need to confess to wrongdoing. It is not, nor should it be, a crime to be homosexual. It is not a sin to have your penis out in a public toilet. But having easily defeated the criminal charges, Alan Jones sought to defeat common sense as well, by asking the rest of the world to join him in his denial.
The incident also advanced the prospect of a more tolerant Jones. Certainly Alan thought so. ‘Whatever experiences you have in life somehow changes you, doesn’t it? You don’t know quite how at the time, but it changes you. Perhaps I’ll have a greater appreciation of the traumas that others face and the difficulties that they have to overcome and if that’s the case I’ll be a better person.’32
In a Good Weekend profile nine years later, Jones reiterated: ‘I’ve never said this before … I often think about it … and of course it’s fair to say it created significant anguish at times … but I spent most of my life being the victor. And that was one period of my life when I was the victim. I think it’s influenced a lot of my attitudes towards a lot of people. I see things from a different standpoint. It’s a silly thing to say but I think in many ways I’m most probably I hope, a better person.’33
Despite Nigel Milan’s and Phillip Adams’ fears that Alan Jones’ audience might desert him, the opposite occurred. The ratings increased. Alan was building an audience he had long been able to charm. What had worked for the mums and many of the dads at Ironside, Brisbane Grammar and King’s was working its magic in Sydney. Alan Jones appealed mainly to an older generation. A condition of signing on is believing him. While some of his older listeners perceived him to be homosexual and were unconcerned, Alan Jones could reasonably presume that others, perhaps the majority, would be as intolerant as they were of other divisive and provocative public issues: ‘Congratulations, Alan, on your exposure of the perpetrators of crime in this country. Australia has the wrong gene pool. Multiculturalism doesn’t work. These Muslims and Asians are not my equal. Anyone who covets a rear end is not my equal.’34
The promise of a better person, a more humane and compassionate Alan, seemed to last no longer than one of his fitful slumbers.