Brian Bourke interview 10 October 2005

I've never felt depressed and cynical. I think I was a bit of a wild boy in my very younger days and I think that was what gave me an insight into the other side of things. I mixed with fellows who were pretty rough and tough sort of blokes. I didn't drink, which was a salvation I think, but at all events I think that gave me a view of life. The years I spent out at Pentridge gave me an insight as to the fact that there's good in everybody.

There was a great judge of the Victorian Supreme Court, Sir John Barry who died in 1969, who was really responsible for the setting up of most of the penal reform that we'd had certainly up until the 1950s. He used to talk to me about anything that you can do to alleviate human suffering is worthwhile. He was a great man and a great reformer and he really had an influence on me and I'd known him since I was a kid. He knew my father and he was a great friend of one of my uncles. And a fellow named Tom Doyle who was at this Bar and has been dead for a long time - he was a friend of my father's. When I was a kid of about 13 or 14, I used to go around to the court and hear him addressing juries. He could see the best in everybody and was able to eradicate the worst in some.

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