Wings of Life – Proudly Supporting the Royal Flying Doctor Service

I first meet Barry in 1953 when I enrolled at St Joseph’s College Brisbane. We lived in Camp Hill, just one street away from each other. Immediately we became firm friends. In his youth, He was quite the larrikin and great fun to be with; always getting into mischief, laughing, joking, telling yarns; and engaging in discussions about almost every topic under the sun. We played the violin together in the school orchestra and were both cadet pilot officers in the Air Training Corps. Barry was a brilliant student and academic. He was dux of the College and achieved 3rd in the States examinations. At this time Barry’s father would not allow him to fly, however I achieve my private pilot’s licence before leaving school. Barry acquired his pilot’s licence in the mid 80’s when in England. Joining the Cambridge Flying Group and became a regular and an extremely skilled aerobatics pilot in the Tiger Moth. By the time Barry left College he could speak Polish and Russian fluently and a little Chinese mandarin. These he learnt from his father and the employ-ees from his father’s engineering works at Coorparoo.

In 1954 Barry joined the Jesuit Order at Watsonia in Melbourne where he studied for 9 years before retiring from his religious studies. While at Watsonia, Barry achieved his Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics & Physics. During this time he kept in regular contact, with brilliantly written letters describing his experiences and escapades. He was always a great story teller like his father. Once Beverley (my wife) and I spent a week in Melbourne, during this week Barry went AWOL from Watsonia by scaling the walls with makeshift ropes and meeting us in the street outside. He directed us to a number of local restaurants where he introduced us to the pleasures of the liqueur Dom Benedictine. We could not swallow more than a sip of the liquid so Barry helped us along by sculling all three glasses one after the other. How he scaled the walls of Watsonia on our return and climbed to his second floor room without serious injury confounds us to this day. Returning to Brisbane for a few short years after he left the order he completed a Masters degree in physics at the University of Queensland, before moving on to Cambridge University in the UK in 1965.He was at New Farm in 1963 to see Beverley, me and baby Anne-Maree, set sail for PNG for a 9 years stay. Barry’s wonderful letter writing again kept us in constant contact. In 1964 Barry was the proxy Godfather for our son Dominic.

At Cambridge, Barry worked in the Mathematical Sciences. His research work was highly classified. During the cold war NAT funded his research with solving the theoretical problems of Russian submarine detection in the North Atlantic under the polar icecap. After the fall of the iron curtain, Barry’s research was funded by the EU and dealt with understanding of the ocean current dynamics of the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. His office was Spartan, and con-tained a table and chair, a white board, a computer for emails, and pencil and paper. His main equipment was his own brilliant brain.

In 1976 Beverley I and our 2 children visited Barry in Cambridge and met his wife Barbara and daughter Kasia for the first time. This was the first time we experienced Barbara’s wonderful hospitality, sense of humour, and marvelous Polish cooking. Barry delighted in showing us around Cambridge taking us to places nearby noted as being the haunts of famous English poets including Lord Byron and his pet bear.

Whenever we travelled to the UK or Europe, Cambridge was always our base. Barbara would cook her sumptuous meals and Barry would usually take me flying in a Tiger Moth over Sussex and East Anglia. He frequently became involved in verbal sparring with Beverley (who is a drama teacher and actress,) by quoting excerpts from Shakespeare; Shelley; Keats; & Byron; to see if she could recognize the origins of the quotations. Likewise whenever Barry or members of his family visited Australia they always stayed with us. While in Australia, Barry would fly tiger moths & Yak aircraft with Hempel aviation at Archerfield. I was frequently in the 2nd cockpit flying over Moreton Bay or the beautiful coastal hinterland.

Once Barry was in a local aerobatics competition and was in the middle of doing a slow roll in a Tiger when he suddenly dropped some distance out of his seat before his un-tightened seatbelt took effect. He was in radio contact with the ground and was describing his maneu-vers as they were performed, everyone heard the loud “F—-” expletive that suddenly exploded from the speakers. Needless to say he was soundly chastised by the organizers of the competition when he returned to base after his performance. Barry has laughingly repeated that story many times ever since.

Barry and Barbara enjoy classical music (every time Barry came to Australia he would borrow my violin and relax by practicing a consider-able classical repertoire) and last year while their guests in Warsaw, Poland, we enjoyed a presentation of the opera “Faust” and a fantastic open air piano recital of Chopin in the palace gardens.

We also knew Barry to be a skilled home renovator from the many changes he had made to his Cambridge home over the years. After taking delivery of his replica spitfire 4 years ago Barry had a new hanger constructed with a 2 bedroom Air Chalet at Watts Bridge aerodrome near Toogoolawah. Over the past years during bi-annual visits to Brisbane to fly his spit, Barry with his great friend Peter Raffels, painted the hanger and Barry skillfully installed all the kitchen and bathroom fittings in the chalet. Beverley on Barry’s invitation took over the task of fur-nishing and decoration of the unit. This was finally completed in time for Barry’s most recent visit to Brisbane. He was delighted with the color-ful end result.

Barry had a great love for the Australian bush. During the late 50s and early 60s he bushwalked extensively around Victoria and south east Queensland.

In recent times he was forever ranting about the spread of suburbia around Brisbane and the destruction of the neighboring native bush, all of which were so readily visible from the air. He loved visiting the country towns in the Brisbane & Lockyer River Valleys and in partaking of the tasty home cooked meals in the nearby Toogoolawah pubs.

Barry!

you have always been the best and most loyal of lifetime friends.

Farewell dear friend.

May your spirit be forever free

May you continue to enjoy roaming the clouds and the blue sky with which you have always been as one.