Dottie Darwen tribute: Legendary Cairns bartender dies aged 95
With her shock of red hair and her fingers curled around a lump of wood she called her “peacemaker”, pub patrons knew far better than to mess with Dottie Darwen. But there was also a softer side to the legendary Cairns bartender who died last month aged 95.
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WITH her shock of red hair and her fingers curled around a lump of wood she called her “peacemaker”, pub patrons knew far better than to mess with Dottie Darwen.
They knew her as the Queen of the Barbary Coast — a strip of pubs only long-term Cairns locals would remember which stretched along Wharf Street until the mid ’80s.
The Barrier Reef is the last remnant of a time which most of the city has no doubt long forgot.
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But back in those days it was a hard drinking, hard partying spot for the men and women who worked on the wharf or boats.
And no one along the bustling strip was larger than life than Dottie.
For 22 consecutive years, she held the fore at the Criterion Hotel, known as the “Cri”, and she even had a public bar named after her — what would become the first Dottie’s Bar.
She ruled the room with her huge personality and charisma; she would take no trouble from anyone, but was a willing ear, a loyal friend and happy to listen to anyone with a tale of woe to tell.
One day a local Indigenous man walked into the bar and presented her with a wooden tribal waddy, which she christened the “Peacemaker” and if anyone got too rowdy, sections of the wooden bar, or the hands and fingers of misbehaviours, copped the brunt of it.
“She was one of a kind,” close friend and author Robert Reid recalled.
“She had a wonderful smile.
“I was great friends with Dottie all those years and if she called you her friend, she really meant it.
“She was OK unless you started to play up and then you’d find out. When trouble started and she got the waddy out, hard drinkers just backed off.
“She never used it maliciously, only if someone was playing up.
“She was tough in the bars, but she had a warm heart. I was privileged to know her all those years and she never changed.”
So big a character, Mr Reid dedicated a chapter of his popular “Legends of Australia’s Wild North” to Dottie, telling of the incredible day when the bulldozers moved in to level the Barbary Coast while she and a dedicated few stayed drinking at the last bar standing.
The Cri’s death knell was not Dottie’s though, and she found new homes over the next almost-35 years at the Stratford Hotel and the Railway Hotel.
Both became home to Dottie’s Bar No.2 and 3.
After more than 70 years pulling beer, in 2014 at the tender age of 90, she became the longest continuous working barmaid in Australia.
Even up until the Railway closed its doors in 2015, she was still working part-time, walking over from her Grimshaw Street home.
For those who knew her best, though, she was far more than the woman behind the bar.
Over time spent working together at the Stratford Hotel, she became Sharon Bennie’s adoptive mum, who along with husband Allan and their children, Shaun and Jessica, loved her as one of their own.
“Oh, she meant everything,” Mrs Bennie said.
“She was our mum, grandma, nanna, best friend, confidant, and guider.
“She evolved our character, our traits, and our thoughts. She imprinted her sassiness, her strength, her attitude and love on each and every one of us.”
Along with loving her “barmaid life”, Dottie was a tennis tragic — particularly Lleyton Hewitt, a food enthusiast — especially mud crabs, she loved dressing up, getting her hair and nails done, but also heading out bush with her dogs and a billy.
Mrs Bennie said “Cairns changed but Dottie never did” and she would only want to be remembered as “just Dottie”.
“She treated everyone the same, no matter what their background or status was,” Mrs Bennie said.
“She didn’t judge, but she was largely opinionated. She never held back telling you what was on her mind and she feared no one.
“She was fiercely independent, boisterous and bossy.
“She was also soft, loving, sincere, generous and truthful.”
Dottie died aged 95 in Cairns Hospital on August 23 and was farewelled privately.
Originally published as Dottie Darwen tribute: Legendary Cairns bartender dies aged 95