Sid Barnes - Life Outside Cricket

Life Outside Cricket

Barnes married a schoolteacher, Alison Margaret Edward on 11 June 1942. Alison was the daughter of Kenneth Edward, a Scottish Professor of Theology at the University of Sydney. The couple met at a country dance, when Barnes, on his way back from an exhibition match in Katoomba, was bet the price of the meal that he could not get the young girl to dance with him. Within twelve months the pair were married.

Outside of cricket, Barnes followed his mother into property development (see above) and at various times entered into partnerships with Keith Miller and Norman Von Nida. His suspicious nature, which grew as time passed, saw these partnerships and developments end in arguments and recriminations. While Barnes was not a millionaire, he was a successful and organised businessman.

As a writer, Barnes had no claims to literary talent; his copy was ghost-written, in all likelihood by his friend Jack Tier and later by former rugby league player Peter Peters. His writing was of a provocative tone; his column in the Daily Express during the 1953 tour was called "The Aussie They Couldn't Gag". His forthright opinions certainly cost him friends and hardened the opinions of others about him. At the end of the 1953 tour, he published Eyes on the Ashes, and his autobiography, It Isn't Cricket. He also wrote The Ashes Ablaze in 1955, and turned to full-time writing, mostly for Sydney's The Daily Telegraph. His columns were perceived as being deliberately controversial, and, as time went by, increasingly regarded as carping.

In later life, Barnes suffered from depressive illness. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with a combination of medication, mainly diazepam, and electroconvulsive therapy. He spent much of his last years in and out of clinics seeking treatment for his condition. In 1973, Barnes died at his home in Collaroy, one of Sydney's northern beach suburbs, from barbiturate and bromide poisoning. Although the medications were certainly self-administered, the coroner could not "determine intent". He was survived by his wife and three children.