“I SUPPOSE I’d be the oldest piper in the south east,” Penola resident Jim Childs posited, speaking to The Border Watch a week after he celebrated his 90th birthday.
“We made our debut in 1950 and I’m the last of the foundation members.”
Jim is a familiar face around town, in large part due to his 67-year involvement with the Penola Caledonian Pipe Band.
“On our debut we had 14 pipers and five drummers and we marched from the Prince of Wales hotel to the Royal Oak – we played one tune all the way,” Jim said.
“It was the biggest crowd ever seen in the street in Penola – a bigger crowd than when Miss Australia, who was a local girl, came to town.”
Though numbers have dwindled since the band was formed, the love for music and connecting with the community remains.
“We have played at every Anzac Day service in Penola since we were formed,” Jim said.
“I’ve been leading the parade at the Kalangadoo service for over a decade.
“The band attends a lot of functions around the place but the Anzac Day service is one we cherish.”
He added the band was down to “about six pipers” but “still going on well.”
“You really do have to go away from your own town to be appreciated,” he said.
“Locals think, ‘oh there’s the band, they’re part of the scenery.’
“I haven’t played for several months – I had a fall and broke three ribs and haven’t played since, but I intend to play again.”
From dance floor to dusty rodeo circuit, Jim boasts a lifetime of various accolades.
“I was reared in Coonawarra which is a great place to grow up in – my sister Val used to reckon that anybody who wasn’t reared in Coonawarra missed out on something,” Jim said.
“Everybody knew everybody and none of us had much money, but we had a lot of friends.”
Jim competed in rodeos and “rough riding” competitions as a young man and recalled one occasion when the State Governor applauded his “bulldogging” prowess.
“Bulldogging is when you gallop alongside a steer, grab him by the neck and pull him down to the ground – it’s a timed event,” he explained.
“When I won the bulldogging at the Hahndorf rodeo Willoughby Norrie, who was the governor at that stage, congratulated me and asked me if I would bulldog a steer as a demonstration, which I did.”
An incident at the Mundulla Gymkhana one year prompted Jim to take on a role as a rough riding judge.
“The only protection the crowd had was a rope between iron posts and a steer came through the crowd and knocked an old lady off her wheelchair,” he said.
“I didn’t mind him charging me but he started blowing his nose on my clean white shirt, so I grabbed him and bulldogged him to put him on the ground.
“The rodeo association president came along and said ‘tell me, have you done this before?’ and I said ‘yeah I’ve done a bit.’
“He said, ‘perhaps you’ll come and judge our contest next year,’ so I did and I judged about five state championships after that.”
In 1947 Jim left the region to work on stations “up North” before returning to Penola some years later.
Upon his return to the region, Jim and his sister Shirley competed in dance competitions and quick-stepped their way to three consecutive wins.
“We used to have a pair of professionals from Adelaide come to judge the dancing competitions,” he said.
“Shirley and I won three years in a row dancing the quickstep, foxtrot and modern waltz – the last trophy we won was in 1959.
“Christina turned up and I wanted to dance with her, but she said she wasn’t going to upset a winning combination – she wouldn’t dance with me.”
Although she initially declined his invitation to dance, Christina would later become Jim’s wife.
“Christina came to Penola from Inverness in Scotland,” Jim explained.
“She had a brother over here working in the South East, so she came here and worked at the old Penola Estate.”
After a two year courtship, Jim and Christina were married in 1962 and raised three sons together.
“Our eldest Gordon and our youngest son Stewart are still alive, but we lost Andrew eight years ago – he touched a power line,” Jim said.
“That’s a very real photo of him – that’s how he was,” he added, pointing out a framed photo of a beaming Andrew.
Jim’s continued community involvement earned him a Citizen of the Year award in 2002.
His reputation as a generous citizen was evidenced again when 100 locals attended his 90th birthday party.
“We had a birthday party last Saturday at the RSL Hall and about 100 friends came along,” Jim said.
“It went off pretty well and was quite a pleasant occasion – I’ve had a lot of favourable feedback since the party.”
With lung capacity to rival most people 40 years his junior, Jim attributed his good health to an active lifestyle and his loving wife.
“I’ve lived an active life, I farmed at Coonawarra until 1970 and I still go for a half hour walk per day and we have a treadmill and a rowing machine at home,” he said.
“I think my wife’s tender loving care has helped quite a bit and, as I said in my speech at the birthday party, my waistline is ample evidence of her tender loving care.”
