Gunnedah born entertainer’s ‘heart of gold’ | History page with Marie Hobson

A former Gunnedah musician who became an international guitarist, Tommy Emmanuel, is back in Australia for a celebration tour to mark his 70th birthday.

His arrival brings back memories of the good old days of country halls and swinging dance bands, touring from town to town every weekend to provide quality entertainment for the locals, keen to dust off the worries of the day and have a great time.

One such band was the Kirkpatricks, led by George Kirkpatrick on the violin and his wife Molly on piano.

Often described as ‘the grand old man of music’ in Gunnedah, George and his wife played as a duo but were later joined by Lennie Pike and Keith Riley on saxophone, with Mert Palmer on drums.

A grocer by trade, George was a born entertainer with a heart of gold, bringing pleasure to thousands of people in his lifetime, not just through his music but with his infectious good humour and zest for life.

In his younger days, he was a pioneering rugby league player in the early 1920s and later became a leading referee in the area. But music was his great love.

He had his own dance band for more than 30 years, playing all over the North West. He was also a member of the Gunnedah town band. All his life, he sang and played his violin at functions with the Gunnedah Musos, longtime friends who met regularly to play at functions at Gunnedah clubs. Each month George entertained elderly residents at the community centre, church functions, 2MO Radio Club get-togethers, McAuley aged care centre at the convent and Tandara Wing at Gunnedah Hospital.

George was also an active member of the Gunnedah Amateur Musical & Dramatic Society and played leading roles in several productions.

In 1981 George Kirkpatrick was named Gunnedah’s Senior Citizen of the Year.

A lifelong local, George was the grandson of a former Gunnedah mayor, John Kirkpatrick, who came to Australia from Scotland, via New Zealand where he was apprenticed to an uncle as a tailor.

After chasing gold unsuccessfully in Otago, he tried growing cotton in Fiji and finally came to Australia in 1871. He settled briefly at Gulgong, where new gold diggings had been opened up, and then moved to Coonabarabran, returning to his trade as a tailor and storekeeper. He served as mayor of Coonabarabran for two years.

John Kirkpatrick came to Gunnedah in the late 1870s and was appointed to the first Gunnedah Municipal Council in November 1885. He became mayor in 1891, serving for about 18 months, and was on council for almost 10 years. He was elected the state parliamentary Member for Gunnedah in June 1891, when he was mayor, and served until July 1895, a total of four years and nine days.

John Kirkpatrick became chairman of directors of a successful local co-operative butchery. He had six sons and three daughters. He died on December 8, 1904, aged 64, having lived in Gunnedah for 26 years.

His grandson George Kirkpatrick married Mary (Molly) Walton in 1927. Born at Picton on January 9, 1903, Molly graduated from the Sydney College of Music, playing the piano and the violin. She came to the Gunnedah district as a young schoolteacher at Curlewis Public School.

Apart from her musical life, Molly Kirkpatrick was a keen worker for St Joseph’s Church and the Convent of Mercy and had a very large circle of friends.

George’s wife, Molly, graduated from the Sydney College of Music, playing the piano and the violin. She came to the Gunnedah district as a young schoolteacher.

Her death occurred in June 1977, just three months after the couple had celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.

Friends reported that George became very despondent after losing Molly but when the Gunnedah Musos invited him to join their fledgling group, he was “just like the old George again” as music filled his life once more.

George played with The Musos at the Gunnedah Shire Ball only a few weeks before his death on July 7, 1985, at the age of 83.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Emmanuels was a family group but its capacity for entertaining all generations was unsurpassed.

The family was living in Muswellbrook when their father, an engineer who loved music and musicians, brought home an electric guitar with the intention of finding out how it worked. Piece by piece, he took it apart to discover its secrets but his sons Tommy and Phil were much more interested in music than mechanics, so when their dad was away at work, they would sneak away with the guitar. Driven by sibling rivalry, they developed contests that were both fun and extremely educational. Soon their older brother Chris was enlisted to play drums, while Virginia, the eldest sister, was given a lap steel guitar called a Moody in 1960-61 when she was 12 years old and the family was in Gunnedah. She travelled to Tamworth once a week for lessons.

The family band was called the Trailblazers when they arrived in Parkes and they won first prize in a band competition – a national TV appearance, with the producer on that show advising their dad to take the band on the road – and the rest is history.

In June 2010, Tommy Emmanuel was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia and the following year was inducted into the Australian Roll of Renown.

Phil Emmanuel died suddenly of an asthma attack in Parkes on May 24, 2018, aged 65. He was honoured with a posthumous induction into the Order of Australia, with a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) – one of several Australian musicians to receive honours.

Gunnedah can boast many more successful dance bands who brought joy to many as they filled the halls with the sound of music and the art of dancing with a partner was still alive – but that’s another story.