Snap and Scribble

At the end of November, i will have been in Australia for 22 years. Within three months of arriving in Sydney, i got involved with Radio Skid Row – the inner Sydney community radio station. There, i met all sorts of people – blackfellas, crims, migrants, feminists, anarchists, communists, weirdoes, agitators and general ratbags. The people i got to know during that period – some of whom are still close friends today – largely defined the course of my life over the years that were to come. Directly and indirectly, being involved with Radio Skid Row then has led me to where i am right now.

One of the people i met back in those days was a bank robber called Bernie Matthews. He was one of several bank robbers i got to know through Radio Skid Row! Bernie’d spent many years in jail for armed robbery before i met him, but he was one of the nicest people i ever met – and he was bloody good on the radio. He was eloquent and he liked to talk. And he was dedicated to fighting the injustices of the New South Wales prison system. I operated the panel (mixer) in the broadcast studio for the prisoners program on quite a few occasions.

In those days Bernie and his wife Cheryl worked at Glebe House, a halfway house for prisoners, in Glebe Point Road. I used to call in there every now and then to say hello. Darcy Dugan, another old bank robber who was retired by then, lived there too, and i’d usually see him and say hello when i called in. Having only been in Australia for a couple of years at that time, Darcy’s name didn’t really mean much to me – apart from the fact that he was a friendly old crim who used to live at Glebe House – but i believe he was a household name for a decade or two before i arrived on this side of the planet.

Anyway, i left Sydney at the end of 1988 and didn’t spend much time there after that. I don’t remember much about that period, but i may have called in at Glebe House a few times in 1989 – during occasional visits to Sydney. But i lost touch with Bernie and Cheryl sometime around then..

In the intervening years, i often wondered where Bernie was and how he was going. But, apart from a rumour a few years ago that he was living near Coffs Harbour, i never heard anything of him. Until a couple of weeks ago – when i came across an article by him on onlineopinion.com.au and made contact again after nearly 20 years. I also ordered a copy of a book he’s written, from an online bookshop. Weirdly, about a week later, he was featured in one of those “two of us” type articles in the Saturday Australian magazine. After 20 years without a word, suddenly he was everywhere!

It turns out he did a couple more stretches inside after i saw him last. The first time he was wrongfully imprisoned – and then let out again after about a year, when they caught the people who really did the crime. But, due to a weird quirk of geography and legal jurisdiction, he could never get any compensation for the wrongful imprisonment. After several years of banging his head against a brick wall trying, he decided to get his own compensation – by robbing another bank. Not a particularly smart move, perhaps, but i can understand how circumstances like that could drive you to it.

Of course, he ended up inside again almost straight away.

Anyway, Bernie’s out now – this time for good, i’m sure – and he’s writing. His articles on onlineopinion are worth a read. And so’s his book – Intractable, published by Pan MacMillan. It’s the story of some of his life in jail. I’m about a third of the way through, and i can’t put the bloody thing down! Inevitably, there’s a fair bit of violence in it – because that’s what the NSW prison system was all about during the period Bernie’s writing about – it probably still is to a certain extent. But while he doesn’t play down the violence, he doesn’t overdo it either.

So far, it’s a well balanced and fairly fast paced book – and it’s well worth a read. Get hold of a copy and see for yourself!

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