During a visit from Queen Elizabeth in 1954, Uncle Joe Timbery was asked to make his way to Wagga Wagga showground for demonstration for the Queen and all of those who flocked to see her.
The Queen had heard of a Blakfulla down in Lapa who could make carved wood fly and also return to him.
At the time, not a lot was known about the boomerang outside of Aboriginal communities, and further Aboriginal knowledges and culture were seen as primitive and having little value.
Joe Timbery and his family meet the Queen in Wagga Wagga Credit: Dawn Magazine (Vol 3, Issue 5), AIATSIS
"They never seen nothing like that. How does he get the stick to come back to him?"
"How does he make that boomerang fly right around in a circle and take it with his feet? How does he get the two boomerangs going at the same time and they come in one after the other and catch them?" says Aunty Joanne about people's reaction to her Grandfather's boomerangs.
The Queen shared a similar experience with all those people who had witnessed Uncle Joe do demonstrations on the weekend in Lapa.
Joe Timbery and his family throwing Credit: Dawn Magazine (Vol 3, Issue 5), AIATSIS
"And as a as the last one left his hand, the first one that he threw was laminated, speak, and they all followed behind and it made it in the same spot."
"Very accurate. He was very accurate," says Uncle Glen.
It's reported that the Queen stayed an extra ten minutes past her royal schedule to continue watching, and acquired a number of Uncle Joe's boomerangs to take back home where they reportedly still remain in Buckingham Palace.
A cultural man who knew times were changing
Various accounts of Uncle Joe Timbery refer to him as having an entrepreneurial spirit, this in part due to the many roles he played, having a regular stall at the Rocks Markets in Sydney Harbour where he employed his family and mob from Lapa, to him establishing a museum in La Perouse, and travelling the world demonstrating the Boomerang.
Whilst his family agree that he had an entrepreneurial streak, they reflect on him as being a smart cultural man who understood that the times were changing.
"He was so humble. I can remember when I was growing up with him that he sort of silent he didn't talk much," says Aunty Joanne.
"But his brain was always thinking, you know."
A descendant of Timbere, King of the Five Islands, Uncle Joe was an expert knowledge holder who had witnessed the establishment of missions and his culture, language and people ostracised.
"Time's are hard now but it was even harder back then, so much racism, white man was the superior," says Aunty Joanne.
"My grandfather's time was much harder than it was today, because they had nothing them fellas, they would have told them stories of what happened to their ancestors, and that I mean out Lapa, this was first contact."
Timbery family standing outside their boomerang shop at the Joe Timbery Museum, La Perouse, New South Wales, 1963 Credit: Jeff Carter
"He was an entrepreneur, and he had to look after his family," says Aunty Joanne
"They had to survive, you know. And they survived white man's way by living off their culture."
Amongst his broad catalogue of achievements of establishing a muesum, one that was reported to be a popular stop for international tourists, writing poetry, going to various countries around the world doing demonstrations including throwing in front of the Taj Mahal and reportedly demonstrating the boomerangs engineering feats to the like of NASA.
His legacy is most astutely viewed as one of survival and keeping his culture alive and strong in extremely difficult circumstances, and it continues today.
"We've got a little bit of that knowledge left and we're trying to keep it going," reflects Uncle Glen
"It's got to survive."
