Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 31 May, the Bundaberg region lost one of its greatest characters and one of Australia’s most renowned axemen, Donald Earle Dingle, who passed away after competing in a woodchop event at the Gin Gin centenary show. He was 73. His passing was in one sense poignant but in another sense a copybook ending to a life well lived. Don and his brother Arthur had just won second prize in one competition. Don then spoke to the show patron, Hazle Marland. He had a photo taken with his and Arthur’s families, and then stepped up to the block for his next event. He had scarcely commenced when he collapsed.

Don Dingle was a competitive woodchopper for 51 years. He had been a member of the Australian veteran woodchopping team for the past nine years and was a life member of the Queensland Axeman’s Association. He won countless national, state and local woodchopping events. The name Dingle is synonymous with royal shows from state capitals to tiny towns and hamlets like Mount Perry. Despite these honours, his daughter Kathy tells me that his most treasured prizes were the local Kolan Shire sportsman of the year and Bundaberg News Mail sports award. He was never seduced by the bright lights of the big cities and national competitions.

Don was born in Mount Perry on 10 December 1935 and was educated at a small school at Drummers Creek near Mount Perry. Deciding he had had enough of school at the age of 12, Don spent a few years working on local cattle stations and doing the mail run on horseback, and when the time came he did his national service stint at Wacol Barracks. When he returned home he turned his hand to ringbarking for six months, followed by six months of cane cutting. These are the toughest of all lifestyles, and that went on in sequence for 13 years.

In 1952, Don met the love of his life, Marlene, in Mount Perry and married her in 1956. Together they raised six children: Anthony, Kathy, Carol, Robyn, Rodney and Susan. His legacy lives on through these children, 15 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. It was said at Don’s funeral that the three loves in his life were family, woodchopping and cattle. On their Moolboolaman Station, Don and Marlene bred some of the finest santa gertrudis cattle in the nation, and his passion for the industry was known throughout the country. In fact, it was said at his funeral that if Marlene ever needed Don’s full attention all she had to do was bellow like a cow.

His other great love was family. He worked side by side with his sons for many years, and at the end of every day Don would make sure that he called his kids to see what sort of day they had had. There was an even gentler and unexpected side to this rugged man. He and Marlene loved roses. He had a magnificent rose garden, and every Sunday this tough man picked a bowl of roses for his wife. Don Dingle was one of the great characters who will live on in the hearts of his family and in the stories of locals for generations to come. He will be sorely missed.

Along with 1,000 locals and visitors, I attended his funeral at Moolboolaman Station. The family followed behind the hearse—in this case, the station’s Hilux tilly—for some 500 metres from the homestead to end up at a grassy knoll surrounded by gums. After a homily and blessing by Father Boase, the Anglican vicar, and eulogies by Councillor Wayne Honor and son Tony, his casket was carried some 75 metres through a guard of honour of 90 axemen from all over Australia. His final resting place was a tiny white-railed cemetery, put there in earlier times by the Barton and Elliott families. There, surrounded by his axemen brothers, sons, nephews and wives and families, everyday rural people and civic leaders from the district, and with his horse Chestnut looking over the white-railed fence, Don Dingle was gently laid to rest. Standing there, I could not help reflecting on the text of Consider the lilies of the field and feeling, in that setting at least, that Christ might well have referred to the ‘flowering gums of the hillside and the creek’—a fitting place for Don Dingle to rest.