Brian Bourke interview 10 October 2005

I went overseas in 1958. I just forget when I went but I didn't come back until the beginning of, about the end of January 1960 and I travelled in Europe and then in America for about 5 or 6 months and I was in Miami with a school teacher fellow from South Australia. There was a flight going down to Cuba, Castro had just taken over. We went down to Cuba and we were there for a week. It was lovely, all the attention in the world because there were no tourists there - accommodation a couple of dollars a night. We go out to Havana airport to fly back to Miami and there's a fellow there loading boxes and all this stuff on the plane. There's only three of us on the plane, Bill and myself down the back and this bloke up the front. I said to Bill Mayfield, "I reckon I know that bloke". He said "You know everyone, Bourky, that's the trouble with you". Anyway, I walked up the old DC3, and I sat just across the aisle from him and I said "I'm Brian Bourke from Australia" and he said "Well, I'm Ernest Hemingway from the United States". He then looked after us for the rest of the day and autographed my passport for me and I got photos taken with him. I mean I'd read a lot of his stuff and he was essentially the same - very clipped in his attitude, but knowledgeable about Australia and knowledgeable about a lot of things.

So what did you discuss exactly?

Oh, we just discussed For Whom the Bell Tolls. I'd just read For Whom the Bell Tolls, he'd written it a bit earlier, but a great book and he told me about his involvement in the Spanish scene and also about his years in Paris. I go to France every year and it was fascinating to hear him talking about Paris in the thirties. It was only about 12 months or something like that (later) that he shot himself. It didn't surprise me just from my quick meeting of him that he would be the sort of fellow who would attend to things rather than go through punishment and suffering and illness. I don't know whether he was sick or not but he certainly disposed of himself.

But why weren't you surprised?

He just had that attitude that, I think there's a certain masculinity about some people in relation to suicide. I think suicide must be a very difficult thing to contemplate but to a fellow like that I think he had such a big vision of things that he would just knock himself rather than suffering. It really didn't surprise me that that's what happened to him.

Conducted for the Bar Oral History project by Juliette Brodsky in Owen Dixon Chambers East and filmed by Stewart Carter (People Pictures)