Long-serving Newcastle publican Barrie Barnett is being remembered as a "cheeky bugger" with a "heart of gold".
Mr Barnett died at Maitland Hospital on Monday after suffering a fall a month ago. He was 89.
In the colourful world of Newcastle pubs, there weren't many publicans with as many shades as Mr Barnett.
He was a BHP worker, a teacher, a real estate agent, a rugby league footballer, a surf club member, and a thoroughbred owner, and above all else, he loved sharing a drink and a yarn with the various people who waltzed through the doors of the Royal Oak Hotel.
After buying the Tighes Hill pub's lease in 1979 for $180,000, Mr Barnett lived at the venue until his recent hospitalisation.
He also continued to work as the publican into his 80s before handing over the licence to Andrew Dunne in 2023.
In an article published in the Newcastle Herald in 2000 to celebrate his 21st year at the Royal Oak, Mr Barnett described pub life as "the most satisfying thing I've ever done. And I've done a lot."
There's been an outpouring of love and stories about Mr Barnett this week on the Royal Oak's social media, with many describing him as a "larger than life" character and "never boring".
"I knew he was loved by many, but you didn't realise how many people he'd touched until now," Mr Barnett's granddaughter Brooke Plain said.
Fellow granddaughter Karley Barnett said he was beloved by his four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, with two more on the way.
"He was a cheeky bugger, but he had a heart of gold," Karley said. "He had a colourful life."
Brooke and Karley had drinks at the Royal Oak on Tuesday night and said customers and staff relayed how beloved he was.
"Old men were crying," Karley said. "You could tell that he really left his mark."
Mr Barnett was born in 1936 and grew up in Mayfield.
As a baby he modelled in a newspaper ad for Arnott's Milk Arrowroot biscuits, and it was the beginning of a lifelong passion for the Australian classic.
"I found a pack of them in his room when I was cleaning yesterday," Karley said with a laugh.
"He's actually like an Arnott's kid from the day he was born."
As a kid Mr Barnett was a paperboy around Mayfield East before leaving school at 14 to become an apprentice fitter and machinist with BHP.
While working at BHP, he completed his Leaving Certificate through night school and became a teacher at Newcastle Boys High School for almost a decade.
A career in real estate at his own business in Broadmeadow followed before he finally found his true passion behind the bar at the Royal Oak Hotel.
Mr Barnett was also a passionate sportsman.
He was a life member of Stockton Surf Life Saving Club and regularly swam at the Newcastle Baths. He was involved in the surfboat rescues of people trapped in the 1955 Maitland floods.
On the rugby league field he played for Waratah-Mayfield as a hooker.
In 2000 Mr Barnett said, "The only claim to fame I had with football was being sent off in the first half of the under-20 grand final [in 1956] at District Park. I got in a fight."
Far greater success was to come on the racetrack. In the 1970s Mr Barnett became a part-owner in the Max Lees-trained Luskin Star, which won the 1977 Golden Slipper by seven lengths in a record time.
"It was an electrifying day, but no, I didn't do a Singo [John Singleton]," he said in 2000.
Luskin Star went on to complete racing's two-year-old triple crown by also winning the Sires' Produce Stakes and Champagne Stakes.
In 2016 Luskin Star was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame.
Horse racing remained a lifelong passion. Just three days before he died, Mr Barnett listened on the radio in hospital as his three-year-old filly Listen Jani won a maiden handicap in Ipswich.
"That was the last race he listened to," Karley Barnett said.
"He couldn't see it, but he heard it."
Listen Jani was named after his daughter Janelle, who died in 2019. Mr Barnett also has two sons, Gary and David.
A funeral service for Mr Barnett will be held on Tuesday at the James Murray Chapel in Broadmeadow, followed by a wake at the Royal Oak Hotel.
There wouldn't be a more fitting place for a man who dedicated more than half his life to serving people in the Tighes Hill venue.
"As long as my health stays all right, I'll be here to the day I die," he said in 2000.
"No matter where I am in Newcastle, I can call into any pub, and there's always somebody there from the old school.
"It's been a pretty bloody good life."
