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Date: May 2005
Location: Bundaberg, Queensland Australia
Gladys Moncrieff, Don Tallon and Bert Hinkler - not a bad trio of icons. Miss Moncrieff, a world renowned opera singer; Don Tallon, arguably the best wicketkeeper of the 20th century; and Bert Hinkler, aviator extraordinaire.
Apart from having left their marks on the world, they each have one thing in common: Bundaberg was their home.
The Tallon family is remembered by the Tallon Bridge over the Burnett River, Gladys
Moncrieff has a theatre named in her honour and Hinkler House Memorial Museum
in the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens
commemorates one of Australia's earliest aviators.
With no disrespect to the cricketer and the opera diva, it is the latter name which attracts the greatest interest from visitors to Bundaberg.
It was not far from the gardens where Bert, as a school boy, watched and studied the Ibis birds which would later provide the basis for building his first 'set of wings.'
They didn't work quite as effectively as he had hoped, as leaving the fowl house roof, he dropped to earth rather quickly. Undeterred, his next move was to build a glider. This and his subsequent gliders proved to be successful, making his first flight on Mon Repos beach, which is better known these days as a turtle rookery.
A visit to the museum which bears his name tells the life story of the former
Bundaberg lad, from his boyhood days in the
sugar town, through his wartime experience when he served as a pilot with No 28
squadron in Italy, through to his final flight
which ended in disaster, crashing in Italy.
The museum houses replicas of Bert's aircraft, including his glider, his Ibis and his Avro Avian.
Lex Rowland, the president of the Hinkler House Memorial Museum is quite protective of Bert when it is suggested he may have had some 'cowboy' traits with his earlier flying.
However, Lex does mention that Bert did happen to fly under the Burnett traffic and railway bridges, but Lex reckons these were really only demonstration flights.
In 1983, with three economy class airline tickets donated by Qantas and $5,000 in the bank - a donation by former Queensland shoe king, Sir Robert Mathers - Lex and two other local enthusiasts travelled to England for the express purpose of dismantling Bert's English home at Southampton, brick by brick.
It took just four weeks to chip away the bricks, remove the timber frames and items such as the timber staircase, the kitchen sink and any other fitting which could be salvaged.
Today, Hinkler's English home forms the centrepiece of his memorial museum in his hometown. It is a fitting memorial and a lasting tribute to the outstanding aviation achievements of a remarkable man.
Bert perished on 27 April 1933, when his Puss Moth CF-APK crashed at Pragomagno in Italy, en route to Australia. His remains are interned in the Florence cemetery.
The museum at Bundaberg is open daily 10am-4pm, except Christmas Day and Good Friday. Full time staff welcome guests during the week and at the weekends local volunteers report for rostered duty.
For more information:
Hinkler House Memorial Museum
Tel +61 7 4152 0222
Bundaberg Region Limited
Tel +61 7 4153 8888
- By Richard Hughan
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