The inaugural meeting of what was then known as the Australian Bone Marrow Transplant Foundation (ABMTF) was held on 25 February 1987. Some 35 years later, we talk to one of Arrow’s founding members Barrie Beck, who underwent a bone marrow transplant at St Vincent’s Hospital in 1985 at the age of 39 for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

It was a roll of the dice back then: around a 50% chance of survival. But with a transplant from his twin sister Evelyne who was a perfect match, survive he certainly has.

Perhaps it’s his larrikin nature, topped with a healthy dose of humour and a regular gin that has kept Barrie afloat throughout life’s challenges.

“I looked like a local,” says Barrie as he recalls that Spaghetti Bolognese was on the menu at an Italian restaurant near St Vincent’s Hospital on his first day out post his bone marrow transplant. With ‘salt-stinging’ ulcers and looking more than a little ragged around the edges, “I was one of them,” he jokes.

Now 75-years-old, Barrie reflects on his good fortune of having Evelyne as a donor without whom he wouldn’t be here. “I didn’t have a choice of treatment, the choice was to stay alive.”

During his time in St Vincent’s hospital, Barrie was visited by Meredith Ashby, whose husband had died of leukaemia. They had a shared vision for the future of bone marrow transplantation: research, and the need for accommodation for transplant patients who were not from Sydney. They were both instrumental in establishing the ABMTF along with fellow members Vic Jacob, Julie Jones, Professor James Biggs, Bob Warren, Roger Whitfield, Barbara Crouch, Peter Grant and Professor Kerry Atkinson. As a member of the Northern NSW Group based in Newcastle, Barrie contributed considerable time and effort into raising funds for Arrow with the hopes of targeting a cure.

“We need a cure. We’ve got to have it.”

Barrie hopes to toast that day. As well as the day kidney failure can be treated with medication, rather than dialysis. Barrie’s kidneys started failing around six years ago and he has now been on dialysis for the last two years. In his endearingly pragmatic style, he refers to ‘the curse’.

“My twin sister Evelyne was in a head-on collision with a nurse driving home late one night from her nursing shift. Evelyne lost her kidney as a result.” So a donation from his sibling is not on the cards.

The curse came in other ways also. Barrie had testicular cancer in his 20s. Then it was leukaemia and the bone marrow transplant. Then in Redcliffe, Queensland (‘Redfern by the Sea’ as he fondly calls it!) a locum saved the night. A hotelier for 35 years, Barrie was chasing robbers he surprised in the Redcliffe Hotel, when their stolen motor car ran over his right foot, severing it. After a five-hour operation, his foot was reattached. How did he deal with all that was ‘afoot’?

“You’ve just got to have a ‘get on with it attitude’,” he says.

And got on with it he has. After retiring at 60, Barrie got a caravan and travelled around Australia. He has seen some beautiful places, his favourite being Darwin where he would live now if it weren’t for the heat, even though it would seem, after all he has been through, that he can ‘take the heat’!

Now in Port Macquarie Barrie says it is very satisfying to know the Foundation is still strong.  “I hope medical research can work out how this thing (cancer) occurs.

“Because of research, we have a higher chance of success with bone marrow transplantation than we did back in my day. If we can work out a cure for leukaemia, that would be the best thing ever.”

True. And at Arrow, we think Barrie is the best thing ever; he was just the tonic we needed in 1987.

Cheers to you Barry.