Bea Miles

Born in Ashfield, New South Wales, to Maria Louisa Miles (née Binnington), and the third of five surviving children, she grew up in the Sydney suburb of St Ives. Her father, William John Miles, was a wealthy public accountant and hotheaded businessman who had a tempestuous relationship with his daughter. She studied at Abbotsleigh School and enrolled in an arts course, but opted out, citing a lack of Australian subject matter. Miles also enrolled in medicine, which was unusual for women at that time, but in the first year she contracted encephalitis lethargica. The disease permanently and profoundly changed her personality, but not her intelligence, such that she was unable to finish her studies and became an eccentric and notorious identity in and around Sydney.[2]

In 1923, tired of his daughter's bohemian behaviour and lifestyle, Miles' father had her committed to a hospital for the insane, in Glebe, New South Wales where she stayed for two years.[3] After that Miles lived on the street and was known for her outrageous behaviour. She was arrested many times and claimed to have been "falsely convicted 195 times, fairly 100 times".[3] For a while Miles was living in a cave behind one of the Sydney beaches. It was said that she always carried a A£5 note pinned to her skirts, so that the police could not arrest her for vagrancy.

Miles' most notorious escapades involved taxi drivers. She regularly refused to pay fares. Some drivers refused to pick her up and she would sometimes damage the cab in retaliation, including reputedly ripping a door off its hinges once. In 1955, Miles took a taxi to Perth, Western Australia and back. This time she did pay the fare, A£600.[3] It is also said she would sit in a Sydney bank smoking cigarettes under a sign reading "Gentlemen will refrain from smoking". Music-lovers who attended the regular free Sunday-afternoon concerts given in the Sydney Town Hall by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra may recall how, just before the performance began, Miles often appeared and wandered down the centre aisle, calling out "Ruby? Ruby?"

Miles was well-educated, and very widely read – she was legendary as a fast and voracious reader throughout her life, even in her declining years, and reputedly read an average of two books every day. She spent a lot of time in the State Library of New South Wales reading books, until finally being banned in the late 1950s. Miles was also regularly seen standing on street corners with a sign offering to quote verses from Shakespeare for between sixpence and three shillings.[3] Miles' writings are in the State Library, some in her own handwriting. They are: Dictionary by a Bitch, I Go on a Wild Goose Chase, I Leave in a Hurry, For We Are Young and Free, Notes on Sydney Monuments and Advance Australia Fair. Fiercely patriotic, at twelve years old Miles wore a 'No Conscription' badge to school during the referendum in World War I. In another incident Miles was disgusted when she was severely marked down for an essay about Gallipoli, which she described as a 'strategical blunder', rather than 'a wonderful war effort'.[4]

When ill health started to catch up with her, Miles finally stopped living on the streets, spending the last nine years of her life in the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged in Randwick. She supposedly told the sisters that she had "no allergies that I know of, one complex, no delusions, two inhibitions, no neuroses, three phobias, no superstitions and no frustrations".[3] Miles died on 3 December 1973, aged 71, from cancer. Australian wildflowers were placed on her coffin, while a jazz band played "Waltzing Matilda" and "Advance Australia Fair". It was suggested that Miles had renounced her lifelong atheism and become a Catholic before her death, but her family do not support this claim. Miles is interred at Rookwood Cemetery in the family plot.

As Miles was a well-known figure in Sydney society, in 1961 a portrait of her by Alex Robertson was entered for the Archibald Prize. A musical based on her life, Better known as Bee, was first performed in 1984.[3] The 1985 novel Lilian's Story by Kate Grenville was loosely based on her life;[5] and was turned into a movie in 1995 starring Toni Collette and Ruth Cracknell in the title roles.[6]

A fictionalised version of Miles briefly appeared as a minor character in the 1978 Australian drama film The Night the Prowler (which also starred Ruth Cracknell), directed by Jim Sharman with a screenplay by renowned author and playwright Patrick White. The "Miles" character – a cameo role by famous Australian author Dorothy Hewett – is not named, and is only briefly seen (in a park at night, talking with the main character), however she is dressed in a manner very similar to Miles' characteristic style, with a large overcoat, tennis shoes and sun visor.

Miles is the great-aunt of Matthew Miles, CEO of MS Research Australia.

• "Bea Miles interviewed by James Ricketson, 25 August 1973". State Library of New South Wales Catalogue. Retrieved 15 May 2018.
• Bee Miles / One of Sydney's favourite individualists