Community & Business
21 July, 2026
Characters of Clifton: The curious life of Bernard (Bernie) Jose Lopez
This week The Clifton Courier sat down with Clifton local Bernie Lopez. A member of the Clifton Historical Society and Clifton’s Men's Shed, the spirited old Algerian-French, Spaniard has lived quite a remarkable life.
Bernie was born in Sout El Thozlane, Algeria in 1947.
Bernard Lopez’s family, hailing from Spain, had farmed their land in French-Algeria for four generations.
He and his friends grew up ‘grave-robbing,’ old Roman graves, finding pottery and most of all, lamps.
“Even as a five, six year old, I was always somewhere venturing, always curious,” he said.
Bernie will tell you that the Romans had lamps for everything.
If they wanted a child, they’d light a particular lamp.
Bernie grew up to watch it all fall apart.
As the nation inched towards its bloody war of independence, Bernie was inching toward manhood.
At 7 he found the family on the neighbouring farm, massacred.
At 13 his aunt and uncle were captured by the rebels and as Bernie puts it, were ‘cut to pieces’.
An angry young man, undoubtedly traumatised and watching the country he knew fall apart, Bernie was radicalised.
He and his family had to leave the farm.
His suitcase was mainly filled with the lamps and other artifacts he’d collected from around the place.
They had moved from the farm and to Satif, where Bernie’s mother ran a restaurant.
By thirteen he was running messages for dissident paramilitary group the OAS - the Organisation Armée Secrète wanted to do whatever it could to stop Algerian independence from France.
But by the end of the war, the family had to leave quickly.
“My mum got told by a colonel and he said please if you want to live, pack up and go.”
So Bernie, his siblings and his parents packed up their things, and headed to France.
They arrived in Marseilles, already bereft of family, country and most of what they knew.
Which is why it stung so much when Bernie’s trunk of artifacts, was stolen.
This only made that young lad even angrier.
“I had rage that I had lost my country... we were treated terribly... and my hatred against the French people became worse when they stole my stuff in Marseilles,”
His parents and three siblings all had to share a small room
Toilets were outside, there was no shower, they slept where they ate.
He made his way through school in France, without finishing.
But in his late teens Bernie would meet Augustus Frank, a German, who would go on to be one of Bernie’s life long friends.
But their first undertaking, was not so wholesome.
They were involved with French far-right group, REL or European Rally for Liberty/Rassemblement Européen pour la Liberté.
He said they would particularly target Muslims,
“In the end, I regret that, because some of them would have been genuine and decent people.”
When asked if he was just a young man full of rage, after having lost so much, Bernie agreed.
“I regret it. I’m not proud of it but I did it. At that time, I didn’t think,” Bernie said.
However, when Bernie went along with the REL to disrupt a Labour meeting, and a plan to disrupt went terribly wrong, Bernie and Augustus fled the REL, and joined the French Foreign Legion (FFL) in 1964.
He and Augustus spent five years in the Legion.
Largely stationed in Africa, Bernie is obviously conflicted by his time in the FFL.
He has pieces of ivory gifted to him by a family whose life he saved in the Congo, by getting them to the airport in Kinchasa.
It’s easy to see that his time in the Legion still sits uneasily with Bernie.
As one could imagine, any time in conflict would stick with anyone who lives through it.
Maybe warfare should never sit easy with those who’ve witnessed it.
At that time the French Foreign Legion was more of a mercenary force, answerable only to the French president.
But there was only one way for Bernie to describe the Legion;
“Extremely, extremely hard,” he said.
“If a job needs to be done and nobody can do it, the Legion will do it,”
Every day they would be conditioned by gruelling training, they’d be sent into the worst conflict zones.
“Nobody quit the legion,” Bernie said.
But Bernie did, after meeting his wife, a Belgian, in the Congo.
Now if you want to see Bernie as truly as he can be, you ask him about his wife.
The white haired, staunch little bloke, with his WW1 general moustache, seems to get a little bit lighter when the topic turns to his late wife, Annie.
They were married for 57 years and Bernie will be the first person to tell you how much he loved his wife.
“I didn’t win the lottery, but I married her.”
But Bernie’s adventures didn’t end there.
He mainly worked in construction after moving to Australia, first settling in Sydney, then Gladstone, then Sydney again, before heading back up North.
But what stands out for Bernie is how this country made him feel, after such tumultuous early years.
While working at a migrant camp, he had to go and see the manager.
Worried he couldn’t pay his way, Bernie explained his situation.
“I’ve got no money, I’ve got nothing, I don’t even speak the language,” he said.
Bernie remembers the manager being over six foot,
“I tell you I was petrified, I was saying I have nothing to give them.”
“And he stood up, came across the desk and I thought by the way he was looking at me I was like oh, he wants to fight me.”
“He came up, grabbed me and he said ‘give me a hug’,” Bernie recalled.
“He said that’s the way we treat people around here...I have never forgotten this, I don’t want to forget that.”
Bernie has not held back since arriving to Australia.
Then again the man has likely never held back much in his life.
An embodiment of the Greek ‘Thymos’, indeed.
From gaining minor celebrity status in Gladstone, to befriending Joh Bjelke-Peterson, to being named Logan’s Volunteer of the Year for his work with the Logan Museum, Bernie is one to get stuck in.
But one story, embodies this better than any.
While working in the Thursday Islands, he was thrown some money by his then head office to throw a Christmas Party for his workers.
One of the items he picked up was a Santa costume.
“We had the boys choose somebody to get to be Santa and he was a white boy but I saw all the islanders moving away,” he said.
“And I thought, they’re also my workers so its altogether or none.
“So I called one boy, Jacko and he was a lovely man mountain, he was a good footy player from Badua Island.
“I say, Jacko, you become Santa!
“He said no, no Santa is white,”
Bernie didn’t like this.
“Santa is who I want him to be and today it’s you!”
After this, if Bernie wanted to see any of the islands, Jacko and his tribe would take him.
True to Bernie style, he saw just about every one. Jacko and his tribe accepted Bernie in.
He also still has a turtle shell, from a turtle caught by Jacko, when the Thursday Islanders took Bernie traditional turtle hunting.
Bernie’s house is a collection of collections, fossils, gemstones, books of all description.
He’s a self confessed collector.
But what’s evident about Bernie is that aside from things, he collects experiences.
Although, some of the things he does love collecting at the moment, are Game of Thrones figurines.
“I love Game of Thrones!” Bernie said showing his extensive collection.
This masthead can also report that Bernie did not know about the two spin-off shows, and is excited to start watching.
Bernie has not lived an ordinary life, but what’s clear when talking to Bernie, is that that little lad from a farm in French Algeria, never stopped collecting.
Things nor experiences.
He tells one story about how he and his colleagues would come together at his house, set up lead soldiers in line with an historic battle and play it out on the table with rulers and dice.
‘Thymos,’ Greek for ‘spiritedness,’ ‘heart,’ or ‘soul,’ could be synonymous with Bernie.
“If I do something I do it 100 per cent,” he often says with gusto.
But that spiritedness is undoubtedly what has wrought Bernie such a life.
Curious to his core, he has always been driven to see further and understand.
“I think I’m very inquisitive, I’m never happy; What’s beyond this? What about this? What’s beyond that? I always want to know,” Bernie said.
At any one time Bernie could have been seen through his moments: An angry young man, a soldier, a foreigner, a husband, or a construction worker
But these are all parts to the far greater, and more interesting whole of Bernard Jose Lopez.
A man who has lived, fought and loved.
But amongst it all, it was Annie who meant the most to Bernie.
His family and friends next.
Bernie is still incredibly close with his siblings, and his five grandkids.
He believes that he has had a good life.
“Be kind to others,” is the wisdom Bernie would impart.
“That’s what I learnt here in Queensland, in Northern Queensland, we were living in Halifax and we got flooded.
“But a couple of neighbours, from 3 or 4 hours away.
“They came up to help. They didn’t even ask.”
“They just came in and said where do you want this?” Bernie said.
