In 1923 Bribie Island’s first bakery was started by Joseph Kerr who with his son, built a brick oven in Toorbul Street, Bongaree.  Unfortunately, after two years Joseph Kerr closed the bakery and went to Redcliffe and opened the Peninsula Bakeries.

Mr Denis Heenan in the 1930s opened the next bakery in Foster Street, Bongaree. The original bakers’ ovens were wood-fired with timber cut from the Bribie bush by Col Watson, who had the Forestry permit; he cut to size and delivered to the Bakery.

The next baker was Tom Read who had been a Naval Ship’s baker and he arrived on Bribie in answer to an advertisement for a baker at Bribie Island ‘who must be a returned service man’. He applied and started work. When he came to be paid, his boss offered the business instead. In 1932, with his brother Walter, they purchased land at 22 Banya Street and built a bakery. The brothers soon parted company and Tom stayed on. Tom’s nephew, Fred Kling, came to Bribie from Brisbane to help his uncle during Christmas and Easter holidays and took up the trade.

Tom Read who was a naval reservist, went off to war as a ship’s baker in 1942. Fred Kling, after marrying local Bribie girl, Mavis Ormiston, in 1937 and operating a bakery at Woodford for some years, returned to Bribie with his family in 1942 to run his uncle’s bakery. The family built a two-storey house next door to the bakery.

At the end of WW2 Tom Read retired and Fred Kling took over the business. Fred and Mavis’s son Peter joined the business in 1960. When Fred and Mavis retired in 1982 their son Peter and wife Judy took over the business.

70 YEARS OF FAMILY SERVICE

In 1987, the Klings Bakery in Banya Street closed, and their new Bakery opened in Cornett’s Arcade on Welsby Parade. Peter and Judy Kling’s son Mathew and daughter Caroline later became involved in the business for a further 15 years, until it was sold in 2001.

Written by Lynne Hooper/Barry Clark from information from the Kling family and the BIHS Database.