#39: Randall "Animal" Nelson
Bikie. Preacher. Saint. This Animal's a gentleman
By Angus Fontaine
The elegant wreck of a man they call the Saint of Kings Cross sits in the feeble Ultimo sun, smoking like a chimney and laughing like a drain.
He is beaten down and broken up by illness, misfortune and poverty but still he sits, grinning like a loon, sharp as a switchblade, bubbling like a busted dunny and radiating curious power. To hold his gaze and hazard a guess at the life behind them is to know that he is every bit as colourful, eccentric and screwed up as his Sydney suburb namesake.
Randall "Animal" Nelson is the bikie preacher of bohemian Sydney. Short, shambling and sprouting knotted hair from every tattooed limb, he has for over 50 years been an icon of Sin City's red-light district. For all the low roads he's travelled in his amazing life, Animal has ridden into countless people's hearts.
Truth is, for many of the Harbour City's lost, poor, elderly, addicted, homeless and disenfranchised folks, Animal is the closest thing to a saint they know. To junkies descending into the maelstrom, he's a ladder out. And to the cheering kids that squeal in the wake of his roadhog's vapours, he is Sydney's Santa Claus.
But who is Animal Nelson, really? He is a mystery, wrapped in a riddle and swathed in jail stickers and dirty denims plastered with patches that read: ‘Salvation Army' and ‘Wayside Chapel', but also ‘Certified Crazy Person' and ‘Dip Me In Honey and Feed Me To the Lesbians'.
Digging into Animal's past isn't easy and he's loathe to lend a hand with the shovel. Here's what we know: He was born when Joe Lyons was prime minister and Australia's population was under seven million. Put up for adoption as a toddler, he was raised in Victorian orphanages - a "shithouse" childhood made much worse by the abuse of Christian brothers he calls "Gestapo". "They knocked so many edges off me I gave away my birth name," he says. "I'm not even Randall. I'm Animal."
Put to work aged seven, Animal became a junior jackaroo, leaving school at 12 and living a stockman's life on the plains from South Australia to New South Wales.
Weary of a drover's life and shuttling between stations, Animal was lured to the big smoke in 1956. He mounted a new steed, one of iron and gasoline, and rode fast to a Sydney in the grip of youth rebellion and rock'n'roll. "I loved it from the start," he smiles. "Course we had the crookedest coppers and the craftiest crooks in the land but that was all part of the scene and that's what made Sydney the place to be. The key was not to interfere in other people's business - that way you stayed alive."
He ran with a few bikie clubs "but they were social clubs back then, not gangs." Animal would go on to form his own club - the Kings Cross Bikers Social and Welfare Club - in 1989. But before he did, he "knocked about," wiling away the demon days between the bush and the city, with the occasional stint in "bluestone college" (the first "a sleep - three months" aged 18 and the last "quite a few sleeps" aged 50-odd).
The last time he was released from prison, he made good on a promise he'd made his fellow inmates: that the next time he went back to gaol it would be at the head of 30 shining silver steeds. In 1993 he did it, leading a procession of rare, vintage and legendary motorcycles into the exercise yard of maximum security Long Bay Gaol, with strippers and a live band in tow.
When he wasn't at her Majesty's pleasure, Animal kept busy. He has nine children by three women, ranging from 14 to 39. "I believed in spreading the love around," he grins. "It's only fair, ain't it?" All of the little Animals are good kids. "Two of the girls are models, two of the boys are mechanics, one's an artist and the other three are stockmen. My secret? Give 'em what they need, not what they ask for."
Ever since he formed the KCBSW with his comrades Ferral and Steptoe, Animal has devoted his life to others less fortunate than he. "Our club charter is clear," he beams. "We look after the elderly, we visit the jails, we counsel the sick and addicted (and administer bikie cold turkey in the bush) and we make sure no one gives their family up."
In Animal's housing commission bunker - where the corridors reek of dope smoke - you'll find walls plastered with certificates of merit, commendations for charity and hundreds of letters of thanks. On a mantle, amid old bike parts, is the Order of Australia Medal that Governor Marie Bashir presented him in 2004. "She couldn't stop laughing," he says. "She loves Animal, all right!"
Animal's bathroom tells another story - why he's so funky downwind but also why Sydney holds him so dear. He can't get to the shower for toys.
See, every Christmas, Animal musters hundreds of bikers to his place and what toys he doesn't throw to the Redfern ragamuffins from the window of his sixth storey flat he sends forth to hospitals, hospices, orphanages and half-way houses all over the city.
"The sound of Christmas in Redfern isn't jingling bells, it's Animal revving his engine," laughs
neighbour Viola, who calls him a "t'riffic, true and decent fella."
Last Sunday, Animal left on a nationwide charity ride of 23,000km in which over 10 weeks he'll visit with gifts those he helped and whom he promised to see again. "All I have is my bike, my crazy self, $200 pension and my word," he says. And a mission: to meet his Mum, lost for 63 years. "I started with jack shit and what you see is all I have. But I'm alive and I'll find her... I'm Animal!"
Lifeline
1938 Born in Victoria, raised in orphanages
1945 Set to work as jackaroo and stockman
1956 Arrives in Sydney, joins bikie gangs
1989 Founds Kings Cross Bikers Social Club
1993 Leaves Long Bay Gaol never to return
1994 Fathers the last of his nine children
2004 Awarded OAM for services to charity
2008 Embarks on epic ride around Australia to keep many promises