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the Philippine Islands in 1894. He worked as a diver on a pearling lugger that McKeddie owned. Delfin was the
eighth of the couple’s 10 children.
After education from Catholic nuns, Delfin started work at the age of 15. His first job was as a messenger
boy for the Postmaster General’s Department. In this capacity he switched the call from Fannie Bay Gaol to the
Telegraph Office advising southern Australian cities of Amy Johnson’s arrival in Darwin in 1930 on her record
breaking solo flight from Britain. He later left the department for a couple of years and worked for Ted (Cowboy)
Collins as an assistant rigger, employed on projects around Darwin which included the boom wharf at Fort Hill,
the Don Hotel, the Star Theatre, the Qantas Hangar at Parap and numerous other sites. Despite being a very small
man, he was an outstanding Australian Rules footballer. He was first selected for an A grade team with Wanderers’
Football Club in 1929. He was 16 years old and had to get his mother’s permission to play as he still looked like
a 10 year old.
Delfin worked with Collins until 1936 when he secured a position as a cleaner in the Darwin surgery of dentist
Robert Boody. His interest in Boody’s laboratory and his obvious aptitude prompted Boody to appoint him a
dental technician, Darwin’s first. During his employment with Boody he was under government contract rendering
dental services to prisoners at Fannie Bay Gaol, the armed forces and the leprosy patients at Channel Island near
Darwin.
On 19 March 1936 Delfin married his childhood sweetheart, Teresa Josephine Clarke, and she shared his
life for nearly 50 years. They had three children, Murray (Muriano), Inez and John. On 12 January 1942 Teresa,
Murray and Inez were evacuated by aeroplane to Sydney, where they stayed with relations. They did not return
until 1945.
Delfin remained in Darwin as a civilian. At the time of the bombing on 19 February 1942 he took charge of
two young nieces, Elsa and Rosie, and a nephew, Leo, and led them to safety by heading towards the quarry near
Dinah Beach. They had to run down the ramp through thick muddy water, where previously trucks and front-end
loaders had driven. Delfin placed the two little girls into a hole in the side of the wall and he and his nephew acted
as a human shield. The noise of Japanese aircraft became very close with a spray of machine gun bullets circling
the hole where they were hiding. After the bombing raid they returned to the house where they had been living.
They saw machine gun holes across the top of the roof. While the three children were cleaned up, Delfin slipped
away to the Red Cross to arrange their evacuation. In the meantime George Tye suddenly appeared in the doorway
covered in oil and soaking wet. He was very upset and said, ‘John’s [Delfin’s brother, Juan Rocque Cubillo] gone,
I yelled to him ‘swim to the shore’ but he continued to run along the wharf. When I looked back while swimming
to the shore, where he was running, there was a direct hit.’ Delfin went down to the wharf to look for his brother,
who had gone to work at the wharf earlier that morning. But by the time that he arrived the water was littered with
bodies and he could not tell if these people were black or white because they were all covered in oil. Delfin helped
carry bodies from the water but he never found John.
Enlisting in the Army Medical Corps on 18 March 1942, Delfin served in Alice Springs, Melbourne, Sydney
and Cairns. His small size prevented him from seeing overseas service. He was discharged from the Army on
6 February 1948. Returning to Darwin with his family, he worked briefly in a mosquito eradication gang before
resuming his career as a dental technician with the Commonwealth Department of Health at the Darwin Dental
Clinic. He was later gazetted as the Territory’s first Senior Dental Technician in the late 1950s.
In 1969 he resigned from his dental post to commence a new job as Security Traffic Officer with the Department
of Civil Aviation, a position he occupied for seven years until 1975. Immediately after Cyclone Tracy in 1974 he
worked long hours helping to evacuate people from Darwin. The consequent strain, together with the loss of his
house and almost all his personal possessions, left him with a heart problem and he was placed on an invalid
pension in early 1975.
A remarkably talented man, he and his brothers were part of a Filipino string band that played at functions in
and around Darwin and at Government House. He made lovely pieces of jewellery, pearl rings, bracelets and pearl
crosses that he gave to brides on their wedding days and his granddaughters on their first Holy Communion days.
He once painted on the skeleton of a catfish. The back section showed the blue robe of the Virgin Mary standing
with an arm outstretched and the front showed the crucifixion. In 1980 he covered a table with used match sticks
featuring some patterns and depicting the spade, diamond, club and hearts. This took him approximately three
months to finish and used some 3 000 matchsticks. It was awarded a grand champion’s prize at the Royal Darwin
Show.
While employed at the Darwin Dental Clinic, he made artificial eyes for patients. He developed the technique
of taking a perfect impression of the eye socket using an instrument that he adapted from unserviceable instruments
at the Clinic. He then hand painted the finished acrylic eyeball with water colours using a shaved match stick to
match the colour of the other eye. When completed, he covered it with clear acrylic. The youngest person he treated
was a nine-month-old baby and the oldest was 72 years of age. At the East Arm Leprosarium he made splints,
dentures and artificial eyes for patients. He also assisted noted priest Dr Frank Flynn in devising techniques to
alleviate kerato-conjunctivitis-sicca, a condition generally known as ‘dry eyes’. Cubillo built tear chambers into
the sidepieces of the frames of eyeglasses to Flynn’s specifications. Ophthalmic specialists in Britain and the
United States later took up the technique.
A quiet unassuming man, his personal and artistic qualities enabled him to overcome the racial prejudices
towards coloured people that were prevalent during part of his lifetime. He was intensely interested in the history
and origin of his family and over the years collected many photographs and memorabilia that were an invaluable
source for Northern Territory history.
He died in Darwin on 8 March 1986.