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INVESTIGATOR MAGAZINE HISTORY
HELPERS OF THE PAST THIRTY YEARS (Investigator 180, 2018 May)
The "psychic" in the first photo is Pamela Winters, the former wife of
Alan Winters who was the assistant editor during Investigator
Magazine's first five years. Pamela was not really a psychic but posed
as one for the cover of Investigator No. 20.
The second photo shows both editors collating pages for the 48 copies of edition No. 9 in 1989. Mr Winters disappeared in 1994 and went to England. He reappeared about ten years later but was too ill to get re-involved with the magazine. Investigator has always been at the hobby level, never a commercial venture, and for years operated on a "shoestring" budget of $5 per week. Hence only 48 copies. To keep Investigator going therefore required that a steady trickle of helpful people show up and voluntarily help in some way. This could be by contributing articles for publication, becoming subscribers, drawing or otherwise supplying pictures, assisting in investigations, posing for photos, showing the magazine to others, supplying information, and teaching the remaining editor how to get some use out of his computer. The first subscribers to Investigator included Peter D. Thomas, Gary Schmitt, "Anonymous", Allan Brunt, and members of the South Australian Skeptics such as Allan Lang, Laurie Eddie, and Peter Woolcock.  Members of the SA Skeptics c.1990 Allan
Lang, Ron Evans, Laurie Eddie, Peter Woolcock
There followed among others Michael O'Leary, Burjin J. Kotwall, Bob
Potter, Jerry Bergman, Kirk Straughen, Harry Edwards and Brian de
Kretser, all of whom contributed material for publication (especially
Harry Edwards), and others (e.g. Douglas Davies) who were readers only.
The editors met librarian Andrea Rankin at the "Port Adelaide Writers" group in 1990 where the whole group cooperated to investigate a suspected astrology scam. Andrea has talent in drawing and drew some pictures for publication in Investigator, one of which is sometimes still used to illustrate page 4.
The
cat on the cover of #22 to indicate an article about
superstitions involving cats, and the girl, possibly a ballerina,
on the cover of #23 to denote the article "Marry A Virgin" were drawn
by Andrea. Probably not all ballerinas are virgins, but budget
constraints meant utilizing whatever pictures were on hand when
deadlines arrived.
Helpful in another way was Neil Bruce of NSW who subscribed from 1990 to 1994. Before his death he donated a box of old books authored by Judge Rutherford. WEBSITE and INTERNET
In February 1996 Burgin J. Kotwall contributed an Investigator article to a Norwegian website and announced: "Feb. 26 , 96. The Investigator is launched into Cyberspace today!" (#48, page 4)
 B.J. Kotwall
This
pointed the way forward and the editor purchased a computer and laser
printer later that year. Purchasing the items was easy but getting some
use out of them was another matter. However, up showed Tracy Kong.
The editor went to the Woodville [a suburb of Adelaide] Public Library to try out the Internet on a library computer but "didn't have a clue". At another desk sat a young woman who seemed to know what she was doing so he asked if he could watch. Ms Kong turned out to be an unemployed teacher of business studies and offered to give free computer lessons. The lessons continued for a year after which Ms Kong became a police constable and the lessons stopped. The next computer helper was a software writer, Richard Schmidt. With his help Investigator got onto the Internet in November 2000 on a trial and practice basis, and successfully longterm on December 31, ready for Day 1 of the new Millennium. Computer problems, however, continued especially when acquiring new laptops, new versions of Windows and new software. Danny Di Giacomo, a maintenance technician, appeared in 2009 and solved many problems and setbacks until 2017. Nowadays thousands of people view Investigator material on the website and hopefully are benefitting, and much of the credit goes to the helpers of the past 30 years.
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