It is with great sadness that we record the passing of Central Australia’s premier scholar, one of our most outstanding editorial contributors and all up a very fine man, Dick Kimber, after a long illness.
He will be missed throughout the community.
We send our heartfelt condolences to Margaret and family – Erwin Chlanda and Kieran Finnane.
“Real True History: The Coniston Massacre” was an 18-part account, painstakingly researched, impressively written, about a dark part of Central Australia’s history.
Find more about Dick and his work at Dick Kimber: premier scholar of Central Australia with links to his writings in the Alice Springs News.
What a person, who lived among us. Amazing dedication and decency.
Condolences to his family.
Thank you, Erwin and Kieran.
A remarkable man with immense knowledge of Central Australian history. I learned a great deal from him.
Sorry to hear of his passing. A generous and dignified man who shared his knowledge and made a wonderful contribution. RIP.
A brilliant, kind, gentle and self effacing man.
His work was patient, thorough and meticulous.
A great loss to the community of Central Australia and the nation.
Our thoughts are with Marg and family.
Charlie Carter and Deb Clarke.
A real inspiration and generous mentor to me in my younger years out at Yuendumu.
I miss his long hand written letters (never less than five pages), long yarns at the post office about bush footy, and the occasional lengthy conversations exploring Central Australian history.
I reckon if there was a call out for letters from Dick then there’d be a lengthy book in it! One of a kind.
RIP. So sorry. A great sense of humanity you contributed and we are all the lesser for your passing.
I have probably known Dick longer than anyone else here. We sat together in year 8 Latin class at Glossop high school in the SA Riverland in 1952.
We often talked of that and how we gave a new young teacher a hard time and scored 13% between us in the exam. I remember well having to decline a Latin noun for spear Hastae / hastae FEMININE spear and wondering how you could have a feminine spear!
We had a common interest in the history of the Loveday Internment camp near Barmera where both our fathers were involved.
His father was a banker in Barmera and mine an electrician in Berri.
Dick recently reviewed a novel I wrote on that subject. Thanks Dick. We played footy together in the Riverland Junior comp and again at teachers college in Adelaide in the SA amateur league. He was heavily involved in the surf lifesaving movement at Brighton, SA.
It was great to catch up with him again here. One of the great experiences we shared was a trip to the Simpson with Australian Desert Expedition’s Andrew Harper who was going from Batton Hill to Mt Knuckey.
Dick had heard through an elder from Aputula and Molly Clark of an incident involving a group of white men and a group of Indigenous people at Lake Carline in the middle of the Simpson so I took him into the region in search of evidence.
I don’t know what the result was but Dick thought in might have been Leichhart and was determined to chase it.
Dick was an inspiration to us all in the calm and collected way he went about things and his contribution was very significant.
Liam, it’s funny you mentioned the Post Office. I think that was Dick’s alfresco classroom and general consultation area!
I often lingered much longer than I intended to talking to Dick, I always came away feeling it was time well spent in good company with a genuinely kind, funny and erudite man.
We are all the better for having known him, and all the poorer for his passing.
May his legacy live on. Rest in Peace Old Son.
Bless his kind soul. Such a fantastic storyteller and historian, very widely admired and so approachable. Very best wishes and peaceful times to loved ones.