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| Peter Ryle's book |
On a list of subjects to be researched during a too short visit to the Cairns Historical Society was Michael "Tarzan" Fomenko , who gave up city life to roam about Far North Queensland , living mainly in the open , building canoes, one of which he paddled 800kms from Cooktown to Dutch New Guinea .
The athletic son of a supposed "Russian Princess " and a father who was a master at Sydney Church of England Grammar School, Fomenko received much media attention, dubbed The Wild White Man of North Queensland .
By Peter Simon
When I was a reporter on the Cairns Post in the early l960s, a Sydney newspaper asked me to track down Fomenko and write an article about him .
While I did not find Fomenko , I spoke to people who had seen Tarzan , had hearsay anecdotes , had seen him from a distance getting about in a loin cloth with a knife at his hip, a bag over his shoulder in which he carried sugar cane he obtained from the Babinda sugar mill. It was said "wild looking " Fomenko once camped on a beach to which there was a bus service that he occasionally used , never paying , the driver too scared to ask for money from this strange man carrying a knife.
A straight story I wrote as a result of my search got a run in Sydney and up came a renowned beat up reporter who went to Cooktown and then south to isolated Cedar Bay resulting in an exclusive in which Tarzan Fomenko supposedly gave his last interview before forsaking civilisation forever and dashing off into the wilds of Cape York , scattering tropical flowers along the way. There was even a photograph purporting to show him in the jungle when in fact it was a well known Cedar Bay identity who was paid to stumble through the undergrowth and pretend to be Tarzan .
Cairns Post photographer John Ellison and I both chortled over and made highly disparaging remarks about Tarzan's bogus last interview story ; John , a caring individual who along with his wife had been involved in helping Aboriginal communities , later worked for East West Airlines in Tamworth, where he committed suicide in his photographic darkroom .
Cairns Post photographer John Ellison and I both chortled over and made highly disparaging remarks about Tarzan's bogus last interview story ; John , a caring individual who along with his wife had been involved in helping Aboriginal communities , later worked for East West Airlines in Tamworth, where he committed suicide in his photographic darkroom .
By sheer good luck , when I called at the Cairns Historical Society in attendance was a member , historian , Peter Ryle, of Kuranda , who in February this year had launched the above book, Michael " Tarzan" Fomenko The Man Who Dared To Live His Own Exotic Dream .
The book nearly did not eventuate . Author Ryle details how Harold Jung , into body building and martial arts , had befriended Fomenko and over 20 years had gathered a wealth of material-taped interviews , newspaper cuttings , radio reports , photographs , intending to write a book about him .
Harold's parents, Bruno and Jutta Jung, had owned a cane farm at Deeral , south of Cairns , where Fomenko had built his first canoe while living on the banks of a river.
Over the years, Harold Jung called into the Cairns Historical Society in his search for more information about Fomenko and came into contact with Canadian Gil Jennex who, after retiring in Darwin, where he had worked in the education department , got the library into order at the historical society.
Jennex said the intention was that Jung would write a book about Fomenko ; chapters had been discussed and other book writing related aspects. However, Jung developed cancer and died .
His brother , Ingram , later came to the historical society and discussed what could be done with his brother's Fomenko archive . Jennex directed him to Peter Ryle who, after working at various jobs including with the Queensland Railway, Queerah Meatworks , near Cairns , and 30 years as a brickie , retired and began studying history and politics at James Cook University , Cairns. He had written several books on North Queensland , including the history of the Cairns Port Authority . His wife, Lorraine , typed book manuscripts for the late Northern Territory and Queensland author and publisher , Glenville Pike .
Ryle put a solid year into double checking the information , recontacting people interviewed over the years , the book launched at the German Club .
Fomenko is now in a retirement village in Gympie, Queensland. Author Ryle can be contacted at peter.ryle@bigpond.com
