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ADELAIDE’S Kym Bonython might have been a character taken straight from the pages of a Boys’ Own Annual.

He was a daring fighter pilot, racing car driver, speedboat racing champion, jazz musician, playboy, larrikin, concert promoter, radio broadcaster, author and art connoisseur. He was also a very successful businessman, and a prominent and respected Australian in several of his chosen fields.

My recollection of him was in the late 1950s and the ’60s as organiser and daredevil driver at Rowley Park Speedway.

As a youngster, I would head off with my elder cousin on a Friday night by bus and tram to soak up the excitement and atmosphere of “the pug hole”.

With an amazing ability for publicity and a large dollop of sheer daring and showmanship, Kym was the driving influence of the speedway during its heyday in Bowden.

As the organiser he brought in many prominent competitors in both bikes and cars, some with already established international reputations. But he was more than the lease owner and promoter.

As a speed car driver, he was extremely competitive and had considerable success, winning the South Australian Championship twice, in 1959 and 1960.

He was also involved in some of the more spectacular crashes seen at the speedway, though luckily didn’t suffer any serious injuries at the wheel. This was an era when driver safety did not seem a major concern and injuries – even death – were almost an accepted part of the sport.

Born Hugh Reskymer (Kym) Bonython, a traditional family name, his father had been voted lord mayor of Adelaide twice.

His grandfather, Sir Langdon Bonython, was a member of the first Australian Parliament, and owner and publisher of The Advertiser until his retirement in 1929.

He reportedly sold his interest in the newspaper for more than a million pounds, a massive fortune at that time.

At an early age, Kym developed a great love for jazz music. While he was still at school, a neighbour returned home from Britain with some records by Duke Ellington and several other jazz greats of the era. So enthused by the music was the young Bonython that he took up drumming and later joined a band.

On leaving school he tried accountancy but that love of music saw him join ABC radio as compere of his own jazz program. Ever the entrepreneur, he personally imported records from the USA and the UK to introduce new artists and music to his listening audience.

The show ran for almost 40 years (disrupted only by the war years) and was broadcast nationally. It ended in 1976, a victim of budget cuts.

At the outbreak of war, Kym began training as a bomber pilot with the Royal Australian Air Force. He saw service in Timor and New Guinea, and faced some perilous moments, including the Japanese bombing of Darwin in 1942.

During his time with the RAAF he rose to the position of aircraft captain and chief flying instructor with the rank of squadron leader, later awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross as well as the Air Force Cross for his tour of duty.

Returning home, Kym took up dairy farming briefly before returning to his earlier love, music. In 1952 he joined a jazz band as drummer and two years later opened “Kym Bonython’s Record Shop” in the arcade of the now demolished Bowman Buildings in King William St.

Along with his adventures at Rowley Park – and almost at the same time – he formed his own concert promotions company, staging performances by some of the world’s jazz greats, later expanding operations to include popular rock acts.

Apart from music and racing cars, Kym’s other great love was contemporary art. His interest in paintings came from his mother who purchased the more traditional works of Hans Heysen and George Whinnen while Kym became interested in some of the new works by artists like Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd.

He opened his first gallery in North Adelaide in 1961 and began to amass a personal collection including early Russell Drysdales and works by Sidney Nolan. He also published the first edition of what would become a series of art books on modern Australian painting and sculpture.

In 1967, Kym expanded his interests by opening a gallery in Sydney, an old factory which he converted into one of the biggest commercial galleries in Australia. He began promoting new and rising young stars of the art world such as Brett Whiteley and “Pro” Hart.

In the 1979 biography Ladies’ Legs and Lemonade, Kym writes about his lifelong passion for modern Australian art and the part he played in “breaking down some prejudice against it”.

Throughout his years Kym also played an active role in the community. In a wide and varied public life he was an active board member of Adelaide Festival of the Arts and the Australia Council, chaired the (SA) 150th Jubilee committee, served on the Adelaide City Council and took on the role of South Australian delegate at the national Constitutional Convention in Canberra in 1998. He married twice, was father of five and had 15 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren .

Kym suffered the loss of most of his art treasures in the devastating Ash Wednesday bushfires of 1983. Most of his lifelong collection of paintings, personal record collection, prized library, antique furniture and a lifetime of memorabilia was destroyed when the ceiling of his home collapsed.

He died at his North Adelaide home in March 2011 at the age of 90. The Advertiser described his state funeral as; “one of the most memorable in Adelaide history” .

“He was waved across life’s finishing line by racing legend Glen Dix and his chequered flag…with jazz blasting from the steps of St Peter’s Cathedral and a coffin bedecked in Vili’s pies and chocolate Clinkers, two of Bonython’s favourite foods.”

BOB BYRNE IS THE AUTHOR OF ADELAIDE REMEMBER WHEN AND POSTS MEMORIES OF ADELAIDE EVERY DAY ON FACEBOOK.COM/ADELAIDEREMEMBERWHEN/

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Advertiser - Monday, 5 Aug 2019