Almanac Boxing – ‘Diamond in the Dust Heap’, Episode 3: Father Jim

 

 

 

In Episode 3 we learn more about the back story of Herb Barkle’s larger-than-life father Jim, the shaper of his son’s boxing career. Damir Dokic almost seems a mild character by comparison. Among other exploits, Jim fathered five children after the age of 72, the last of them when he was 81. In 1944, Brisbane’s scandal sheet The Truth newspaper became interested in his “mode of living” – described as “a tangle of bigamy and illicit union”.

 

 

Herb Barkle’s father, Jim Barkle, was a farmer, an entrepreneur, a gambler and a rascal. He was a lover and a fighter, though hardly an admirable figure in his personal affairs. Throughout his life, Jim demonstrated risk-taking panache in buying properties in new rural areas of Queensland that were being opened up for development, including large holdings in Southport at the back of the Gold Coast. At times he would have been quite a wealthy man, but many of his properties ended up being sold in line with the undulations of his gambling exploits.

In 1901 Jim had his horse–racing trainer’s licence suspended for six months due to ‘alleged suspicious running and riding’ of a black gelding he owned, Countryman, at the Woolloongabba pony races. The year before he and one of his brothers (William) were each fined 5 shillings (with 3s 6d in costs) in the Laidley Police Court (in default twelve hours confinement in cells) for “having made use of obscene language”.

Jim bought a block of land in the Kingaroy district in 1906, took to land clearing, and moved his young family (wife Lily and son Cecil) out from Laidley. Herbie was born in Kingaroy that same year, on 16 May 1906.

Jim would have prospered when the Kingaroy Butter Factory started up in 1907 and when the railway was extended to Kingaroy in 1910. The entire South Burnett district boomed. Over the ensuing decades, Jim acquired additional properties in the district, cleared land, dairy farmed and invested in a general carrying business and a livery stable. His business activities at one point included the contract for operation of Kingaroy’s ‘nightsoil’ carrying business. His young sons were an important source of labour for his various ventures.

Jim’s first marriage to Lillian (nee Pittman) lasted nearly 45 years until Lillian’s death on 7 April 1946 at age 65, but they frequently lived apart. Jim was not a faithful man and had “a reputation as Casanova” according to a family history which noted that “he is reputed to have fathered several children to a Mrs Smith while he was living at Kangaroo Point in Brisbane or at Bribie Island”. Jim owned a guesthouse at Kangaroo Point.

In 1941, in the midst of World War II, Jim set up a house at Sunnybank in Brisbane where he’d invested in a piggery. He installed a young housekeeper, Phyllis, with whom he’d struck up a relationship. Phyllis had been previously married, in 1938, to a Mr Lawson Lisle (‘an Englishman’) and bore him a daughter, but she subsequently discovered that Lisle was a bigamist due to a prior marriage in 1913. Wartime in Brisbane!

Jim and Phyllis’s life together was unorthodox. Their relationship was initially an affair. Then they produced three children together out of wedlock, born in 1942 (when Jim was 65 and Phyllis 22), 1943 and 1944. During this period, Jim’s ‘first family’ were based in the Kingaroy district while he maintained his second, informal, family in Brisbane. The Kingaroy mob knew of the existence of the Sunnybank branch.

When Phyllis applied for a divorce in order to gain an order of custody of her eldest daughter with Lisle, the “real-life drama in the Brisbane Divorce Court” caught the attention of Brisbane’s scandal-sheet The Truth newspaper. The Truth edition of 9 July 1944 reported on the proceedings and delighted in detailing Phyllis’ and Jim’s mode of living which was described as “a tangle of bigamy and illicit union”. Phyllis was nevertheless awarded custody of her daughter.

After Lillian’s death in 1948, Jim and Phyllis married, which somewhat legitimised their brood of children. In their dozen years of married life, leading up to Jim’s death at the age of 83 on 22 August 1959, they had another five legitimate children together, for a total of eight. All five were born after Jim turned 72.  At the time of the birth of their youngest son Ashley, Jim was 81 and Phyllis 37.

Jim Barkle therefore fathered a total of thirteen offspring (eleven male and two female) with his two wives, not counting Phyllis’ eldest daughter from her bigamous marriage or Mrs Smith’s “several children”. He sired his last son at the age of 80. There was a 55 year gap between the birthdays of his first and last surviving children, so his death certificate is an interesting read. It sets out the ages of each of his thirteen issue who were alive at his death, ranging from 57 to 2!

It’s not hard to imagine the vicarious pleasure Jim Barkle would have taken from his son Herb’s success in the ring. He must have felt his dreams had come true. During the golden years of Herb’s career, from 1926 to 1928, Jim was in his early 50s. It’s likely his philandering was in full flight and his lifestyle would have been well suited to the sporting scene. Jim became a prominent identity in Brisbane boxing circles.

Jim was also a frequent visitor to Sydney where he regularly exhibited prize–winning pigs at the Royal National Show. In four consecutive years from 1930 to 1933 he was presented with the silver Cup awarded for the “best registered Tamworth sow exhibited at the Australian Royal National Show”, conferred by the English breeders of Tamworth pigs to “a member of the Queensland branch of the Australian Stud Pig Society”. His winning sows were Gatton Rose (1930), Glenburra Millie (1931 and 1932) and Wattledale Queen (1933). Jim would have combined his responsibilities at the Show with visits to the Leichhardt Stadium on fight nights.

He acted as Herb’s business manager. Jim arranged large side wagers on the outcomes of his son’s fights (and collected most of the time), and he liked to claim credit (especially with newspapermen) for his role in training and grooming the bantam champion.

Unlike his three full brothers, Herbie was not a farmer. His father had a career in the ring mapped out for him. He was a true boxing prodigy.

 

 

Read all of the episodes of Diamond in the Dust Heap HERE

 

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