Skyhooks star Bob ‘Bongo' Starkie opens up on fight with cancer

Herald Sun

24-05-2025

Legendary Skyhooks guitarist Bob 'Bongo' Starkie has revealed music, MAFS, family and fans got him through his toughest days after he was diagnosed with aggressive leukaemia.
Starkie, 72, discovered he had acute myeloid leukemia in late January and was immediately admitted to hospital causing the postponement of a raft of his Bob 'Bongo' Starkie's Skyhooks Shows.
His treatment for AML got underway immediately, however he was confronted by other unexpected health issues that upped the stakes.
Those side issues include an operation on his left eye, the discovery of bleeding on his brain, clots in his leg and sepsis which landed him in ICU for seven days.
'It was pretty scary,' his daughter Indiana said.
'The nurses, doctors and specialists at the University Hospital Geelong Baxter ward were incredible. We can't thank them enough for the way they cared for dad.
'He needed to have a laugh, so we would watch Hard Quiz and MAFS with him.
'MAFS, he called it 'lips and nails'. It was a good distraction.'
Having been out of hospital for a few weeks, Starkie, incredibly, is planning to return to the stage tonight at the Stars of Countdown show on the Gold Coast.
He will then return to Melbourne to start his fourth round of chemotherapy on Monday.
His next goal is to perform in the Stars of Countdown show in Frankston on June 27 before getting his Skyhooks Show back on the road in August starting at Bird's Basement in Melbourne.
'For me, I always need a deadline to work to,' Starkie said.
'Cancelling those (Skyhooks Show) gigs, it was heartbreaking.
'I had got the Skyhooks Show to the point where it was fantastic. I have got this really exciting, razor sharp, band and a great new female singer and that is what is coming back and that is what is going to drag me through this.
'The show brings back that whole '70s thing with photos, crazy costumes and the humour of it all.'
Starkie said he had been humbled by the support he had received from people who had donated to a GoFundMe appeal in his name set up by Indiana which so far has raised more than $25,000.
'It has been amazing because all these people have anonymously donated all this dough,' Starkie said.
'It has taken a bit of the stress and pressure off and allowed me to get rid of my credit cards and reduce my debt and just get on with things.'
'Dad was very resistant to asking for help,' Arabella added.
'Being an artist, it is a choice, but there is a lot of sacrifice and it is not an easy career. There is no superannuation. When things get really hard, you don't have any security.
'He would not ask for help, that is why Indi stepped in.'
Starkie has lived a life of adventure on and off stage.
He joined Skyhooks when the band was in its infancy in 1973 and his brother, Peter, decided to leave the line up.
'Peter asked me to give him a lift to this gig out in Donvale,' Starkie said.
'On the way home Peter said, 'I am actually leaving the band' so I called Greg (Macainsh) and tried out.
'Of course, I turned up with a van and I was good looking and I could play better than I thought I could.
'Shortly after that their other guitarist left and Red Symons joined and that is when I knew we were on to something.
'So, I got into the band, purely by chance. If I had not driven Peter out to that gig I would not have been in the band, it would have been someone else, and as it turned out they got a real little pop star.'
The band broke up in 1980, but reformed briefly in 1983, and again in 1984 and then got back together to record new music in 1990.
'When I left Skyhooks (in 1980) I got into the advertising business doing jingles for the likes of Four 'N Twenty Pies, Vaseline, Allens lollies, and film soundtracks,' Starkie said.
He then bought a nightclub in Collingwood called The Jump Club.
'That was a pretty good rocking joint. I ran that for five years,' he said.
After selling the club, Starkie headed to Brazil, keen to check out the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, where he met British artist Andrew Hewkin.
Through Hewkin he was introduced to Ronnie Biggs, the British rogue who was involved in The Great Train Robbery in 1963. Biggs was living in Rio.
'Andrew had a book on the Great Train Robbery, he had all the other signatures and arranged to get Ronnie's signature,' Starkie said.
'I said 'tell him I am from Melbourne', Ronnie used to live in Melbourne, and I was at my hotel and got a call, 'Ronnie says come up, this is the address'.''
The pair hit it off and soon he and Biggs bought a house on an island about 90 minutes south of Rio.
'We ended up spending months and months doing up this little house. We would go there for two days or three days at a time. We were just like the odd couple in Rio,' Starkie said.
Starkie returned to Australia after about two years, but continued to visit and stay in touch with Biggs up until the UK crime figure suffered a series of strokes and was taken back to England by his son in 2001.
A planned documentary on Biggs never got off the ground, but Starkie has a trove of filmed interviews with the colourful crook and those who interacted with him.
'I still have all the footage,' he said.
'I interviewed Paul Seabourne (who helped Biggs escape from HMP Wandsworth prison), (Scotland Yard detective) Jack Slipper, Malcolm McLaren, because Biggs wrote a song called No One Is Innocent with the Sex Pistols, and his wife Charmian in Melbourne. It is all still there.'