When he emerged, the ever-enigmatic James wrote of his long incarceration in a series of articles for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

"On the one hand, I was subjected to gross insult and abuse, deprivation and starvation, to mental and physical torture. I was kicked and beaten, spat upon, threatened with death and made to undergo personal humiliations and indignities of the most odious kind, usually for no apparent reason,” he wrote.

"On the other hand, I was shown at some times the most loving care and attention — real kindness and consideration."

All these years later, no one can be entirely sure what James had been up to before his arrest for “espionage”, though he claimed to have visited secret Chinese nuclear facilities on a previous trip.

His timing was poor if he thought he could boast about such exploits and skip free. China was deep into Mao’s Cultural Revolution (in which as many as 20 million Chinese people died), Cold War paranoia infected international affairs and relations between China and the Soviet Union were so parlous that many observers feared they would wage nuclear war on each other.

But there was no one like Francis James. He was a journalist who filed his reports for The Sydney Morning Herald from behind drawn curtains in the back of an old Rolls Royce and swept about in a ridiculously broad-brimmed felt hat and black cloak.

He ran a religious newspaper named The Anglican and when he created the Anglican Press to publish it he ended up on obscenity charges for also publishing the naughty OZ magazine.

His refusal in 1960 to sell The Anglican to the Packer family placed him at the genesis of a great Australian media rivalry. The Packers and Rupert Murdoch, each wanting control of James' religious printing press, assembled opposing gangs of thugs to do unholy war.

In the resulting famous brawl, a young Rupert Murdoch is said to have directed operations by walkie-talkie while a former boxer and sports editor from Sydney’s Daily Mirror, Frank Browne, led the charge on his behalf.

Kerry Packer copped a mighty blow to the body from a journalist wielding a wooden post. His brother Clyde was photographed throwing a one-legged clergyman into the street.

Murdoch’s forces, in league with James, won the night. James denied any knowledge of the affray.

“’A brawl? You must be mistaken. Browne and I have been studying Psalm 35,” he told a reporter, mischievously. Psalm 35's first words? “Contend, Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me.”

James’ exploits seemed so improbable some considered him a Walter Mitty fantasist.

And yet his avant-garde hat protected eyes that were burned when, as a Spitfire pilot in World War II, he was shot down over France, resulting in his first period as a prisoner, this time of the Germans.

His darkened “office” in the Rolls Royce was because the light in The Sydney Morning Herald’s office was too harsh for his damaged eyes, he insisted.

His provocateur's personality and polymath’s grasp of literature, history and language won him admirers everywhere. The late Bob Ellis wrote a play about him.

As a boy, James had the great good fortune to become friends with a young Gough Whitlam at Canberra Grammar School. Decades later Whitlam, having become prime minister and established diplomatic relations with China, used his diplomatic dexterity to have his old friend James released from prison.

Just as Australia’s political leaders today are carefully avoiding doing anything of worth to help WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange in his attempts to avoid being extradited to the United States - where he, an Australian citizen, like him or loathe him, would likely face a life sentence for espionage - Whitlam’s predecessors had actively disowned James.

Liberal Prime Minister John Gorton had sneered in Parliament that James was a “well-known apologist for North Vietnam”, as if he deserved to be left in solitary confinement or worse in China.

Today James would be seen as on the right side of history: a committed Christian, he opposed the Vietnam War and visited North Vietnam twice.

In the end, nothing could destroy his extravagant dash.

After his release, while being interviewed in a Hong Kong hospital by Creighton Burns of The Age, the gaunt James phoned his tailor, apologised for being out of touch for so long and ordered striped pants, a black jacket and purple velvet court breeches. It seemed fitting for a fellow who often employed the jester's art in telling truth to power.

Francis James died 28 years ago. His was such an unlikely life that we could do worse than honour him as the epitome of what a free spirit meant before the world turned its current shade of grey, suffering a shortage of magnificent ratbags.