Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article contain the names and images of people who are deceased.
EPISODE 25: BROTHER BOBBY AND HIS LEGACY
When Herbie died in 1964, he was the first of the four ‘Fighting Barkles’, the full brothers from old Jim Barkle’s first family, to pass away. The death of Cecil, the eldest, came peacefully enough on 2 June 1984 at age 80. The third of the brothers, Jimmy, died with his boots on, as a result of a heart attack while lifting irrigation pipes on his farm on 8 September 1997, at the age of 83. The youngest of the four, Bobby, was tragically killed on 18 April 1969 following a farming accident.
Bobby deserves special mention in this tale. He was an Army veteran who served Australia in World War 2 as a Corporal. He was a member of the 47th Infantry Battalion, which did some of the tough fighting against the Japanese in New Guinea from 1943 to 1945, at Milne Bay, Lae and Bougainville Island. Bobby’s service was for an extended period – he was out of Australia for 494 days from 1943 through 1944. Having been a successful professional boxer in 1940 and ’41, during 1943 he became involved in organising intra-unit boxing tournaments in New Guinea and training soldiers to compete in those events. Bobby boxed professionally again for a time in 1950.
Post-war, Bobby was trainer of the Kingaroy Boxing Club for many years and active in competitions all over Queensland. He took a special interest in the fostering of young indigenous talent in the South Burnett with a particular focus on boxers from the Cherbourg settlement.
The sport of boxing had been popular in Cherbourg ever since the Tommy Burns-Jack Johnson fight in Sydney in 1908. Before a massive crowd of 20,000, on Australian soil, Johnson became the first black man to hold the world heavyweight title. This fired the imagination of the people of Cherbourg.
Three of the aboriginal fighters Bobby trained, Eddie Barney, Adrian Blair and Jeff Dynevor, were selected to represent Australia at the Empire Games in Perth in 1962. This led to Bobby being appointed Trainer for the Australian boxing team at the Perth Games.
Left to right: Jeffrey Dynevor; Adrian Blair; Eddie Barney.
Eddie Barney was the son of the famous Cherbourg cricketer, Eddie Gilbert. Eddie Gilbert played for Queensland and bowled Don Bradman for a duck in December 1931, with Bradman describing the spell he faced (just five balls) as “the fastest bowling I can remember.” Eddie Barney was Australian amateur flyweight boxing champion in 1962.
Adrian Blair was a featherweight who won three national amateur titles. He also represented Australia at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964 as a lightweight, where he lost his third round contest on points to the eventual silver medallist, Vilikton Barannikov from the Soviet Union. Along with Michael Ah Matt and Frank Roberts, Adrian Blair was part of the first group of indigenous athletes to compete as part of an Australian Olympic team.
The third of Bobby’s charges, Jeff Dynevor, won gold in Perth, becoming the first Aboriginal person to win a gold medal for Australia at an Empire (Commonwealth) or Olympic Games.
Jeff Dynevor, pictured below, was an early inductee into the Aboriginal and Islander Sports Hall of Fame. He was born at Cherbourg in 1938. Obstacle Race, Colin Tatz’s history of “Aborigines in Sport”, records that “Jeff Dynevor won four national titles and the bantam gold for Australia at the 1962 Commonwealth Games [sic] in Perth.” [In 1962 the Games were still the Empire Games.] Dynevor won the Australian flyweight amateur championship in 1957 and the Australian bantamweight amateur championships in 1960, 1961 and 1962.
Colin Tatz wrote,
In the 1962 Commonwealth Games [sic], Adrian Blair, Jeff Dynevor and Eddie Barney boxed for Australia: all were Cherbourg boys. That three men from a government-run institution of 1000 people could represent their country in an international event must be some kind of a record. In the 1962 national titles, four of the eight members of the Queensland team were Aboriginal. A fourth Cherbourger, Jimmy Edwards Jr, joined his three colleagues. He was to win two national amateur championships and the Queensland pro welterweight title. Another three Cherbourg men won titles in 1962.
Bobby Barkle played a key role in moulding these outstanding, pioneering Indigenous athletes. Bobby’s contribution to Indigenous talent development was acknowledged at his funeral in 1969. This is perhaps the most enduring legacy of the Fighting Barkles.
Bobby was killed in horrific circumstances. He was using an auger to empty a load of peanuts from newly acquired steel storage bins in order to transfer the peanuts to the Kingaroy silos. The flow of peanuts stopped coming onto the conveyor belt. Bobby climbed up on top to establish the reason. He walked out onto what he thought were firmly compacted peanuts. Instead, there was a hollow chute below into which he was sucked. The peanuts above bore down on him with their full weight pressing down. Bobby died a slow death from suffocation as his son Kevin and other family members tried desperately, in a race against time, to free him from the storage bin.
Kevin and the other family members who were on the scene struggled for the rest of their lives with their memories of that horrendous day. For one thing, seemingly everyone in the district had an opinion on whether they had made the right decisions on what to do as they tried to save Bobby. Should they have searched out oxy-acetylene equipment and cut a section of steel out of the base of the mobile bin? Could they have piped oxygen down to where Bobby was wedged? Would events have been different if they’d phoned the fire brigade more quickly? But, true to their upbringing, they’d taken a self-reliant approach. Their subsequent mental demons would have been enormous, at a time before the expression ‘mental health’ had been invented. It was small comfort that the ensuing inquest recommended a host of new practices that improved safety in the harvesting of peanuts.
Bobby died on 18 April 1969, a dark day for his family, when he was 51. All too often, the good die young.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Unearthing the details of Herb Barkle’s career as a fighter has been a rare privilege. I am grateful to the members of his family who have assisted this project, especially Mrs Wendy Tully of Kingaroy who, over recent decades, was chief custodian of Herb’s scrapbook.
For me, this project has been something of a labour of love. Herbie was my Great Uncle, the brother of my maternal grandfather Ivan James (Jimmy) Barkle, one of the four ‘Fighting Barkles’. I was born just a few months before Herbie died so I never knew him. But I knew well the family members who extended generosity to him and cared for him during his dotage.
The sadness of Herbie’s later years is an all too familiar tale. Not many professional fighters of the 1920s lived out their lives without significant health effects. It seems clear that an enduring legacy of Herbie’s years in the ring was the brain damage he sustained.
As a child, I used to listen to the stories shared between my grandparents and their siblings, my parents and my aunts and uncles about Herbie’s achievements. We were all immensely proud of him. I’ve often wondered about the course of Herbie’s life and, having now explored it, I’m satisfied the tales told by family members about his skill and his courage were not exaggerations.
The author wishes to acknowledge the contributions made to the ‘Herb Barkle project’ by his nieces Mrs Wendy Tully, Mrs Jan Plastow, Mrs Michelle Smith and Mrs Kay Goodwin (and, before them, by their late mother Mrs Doreen Barkle). All of them, at various times, have played roles in preserving the scrapbook of Herb’s boxing career, and other paraphernalia. This story would remain untold if it were not for these women.
Particular thanks are due to Wendy Tully, who produced a well-researched family history document in time for an October, 2010 family reunion at the ‘family farm’ in Kingaroy. This is an exceptionally interesting document which has been an invaluable resource. Wendy compiled a thorough record of the life and times of Jim Barkle (Herb’s peripatetic father) and his various descendants, including Herb’s three full brothers Cecil, Jimmy and Bobby, the ‘fighting Barkles’.
Wendy’s research was supplemented by a eulogy delivered by retired journalist Mr Roger Plastow a little further back in time, at the funeral of Jimmy Barkle (junior). This funeral was held at the Kingaroy Uniting Church in 1997.
The South Burnett Times newspaper has been an important source. A number of articles from its archives have been referenced.
It is important to acknowledge various books that were of great assistance in developing Episodes 25 (‘Brother Bobby and His Legacy’) and 26 (‘The Writing Game’), penned by the following seven authors:
Arthur Brittan, Masculinity and Power (Wiley-Blackwell, London, 1991) at pp 7 and 9.
Tim Hill, Boxing: Unseen Archives (Parragon, Bath UK, 2002) – especially its Introduction.
Grantlee Kieza, Boxing in Australia (NLA Publishing, Canberra, 2015), pp 36-44.
Michael Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History (Third Edition, Oxford University Press, New York, 2011).
Mario Magris, The Encyclopedia of Australian Boxers (Bas Publishing, Melbourne, 2006).
Colin Tatz, Obstacle Race: Aborigines in Sport (UNSW Press, Sydney, 1995).
Jeff Wells, Boxing Day: The Fight That Changed the World (Harper Sports, Pymble, 1998), especially its p 105.
The author is particularly grateful for the editing assistance of Ian Hauser of The Footy Almanac for his help in readying this material for publication. Ian attended to all requests, big or miniscule, with a minimum of fuss and a sense of fun. Thanks Ian.
And finally, posthumous thanks are due to the colourful, long-dead sportswriters of the 1920s and early 1930s whose works have been showcased in Diamond in the Dust Heap – especially the inimitable L. H. Kearney, the Gamester.
Read all of the episodes of Diamond in the Dust Heap HERE
Images sourced from Commonwealth Games Australia.
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About Dave Goodwin
Dave Goodwin is a Queenslander by origin. He was born in the country town of Kingaroy but he’s been based in Melbourne for the past 40 years which makes him a fish out of water. Along the way he’s developed a passion for the Hawthorn Football Club. His musings on Aussie Rules (including applying nineteenth century bush ballad forms to sports reporting) were part of The Footy Almanac editions from 2007 to 2015. As a cricketer he played in four losing grand finals in Melbourne’s Mercantile Cricket Association for the Yarra Park Club -– albeit he's taken four career hat tricks, bowling leg spin. He’s an appreciator of athletics and of the noble art of boxing.
Bravo, Dave.
This has been epic. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.
Thanks for sharing this story.