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In 1963, when 12-year-old Helen Dilks and her sister Ruth wanted to join the Golden City Pipe Band in Bendigo, their father, Fred, felt nervous about the other players’ reactions to having girls in the historically all-male band.
“In those days, there were generally no mixed bands,” Dilks said. But it was the 1960s, change was in the air, and the sisters became the first girls to join the band.
Six decades later, Dilks is still with Golden City, and old-schoolers would be choking on their porridge at the sight on Sunday in Melbourne’s City Square, where 145 females played bagpipes and drums to set a world record.
The group, which included Dilks, played Scotland the Brave and Waltzing Matilda to set a record with the Australian Book of Records for the biggest ladies’ pipe band performance.
Organiser Chris Bouwmeester said the record attempt had been inspired by last year’s performance of AC/DC’s It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll), in which 374 pipers played in Federation Square in November.
Sunday’s performance, which followed the annual Tartan Day Parade in the CBD, also marked the centenary of an epic two-year world tour in the 1920s by the Australian Ladies Pipe Band.
Led by Gallipoli veteran Drum Major William Darwin, all members had lost a loved one during World War I.
National Archives of Australia researcher Julia Church reported that in August 1924 the band came to the notice of the prime minister’s department, when the father of two prospective band members warned the officer in charge of passports that the trip was “a risky undertaking, both financially and morally”.
Tragically, just before the band left Australia, 19-year-old piper Marjory Cook died in a fall. Upon their arrival in New Zealand, seven minor-age members were deported back home because there were no documents giving parental consent.
In Glasgow, the Ladies were greeted by more than 40,000 people. In Braemar, in the Scottish Highlands, they played for King George V and Queen Mary.
When they finally returned to Melbourne in February 1927, the women performed on radio station 3LO and at the Tivoli Theatre before embarking on a nationwide tour.
Six years later, the band’s pipe major, Dolly McPherson, and Darwin were married.
Bouwmeester said the self-funded tour, of Canada, the US, the UK and New Zealand, was groundbreaking for the time.
Dilks similarly described the tour as an amazing feat “at a time when people seemed to think that females shouldn’t play the bagpipes”.
Fast forward to 2026, when on Sunday pipers also played Australian Ladies, composed 100 years ago by Scotsman William Fergusson to honour the band.
One of the youngest pipers in attendance for the record attempt was 13-year-old Scarlett Cai, who plays in the Haileybury Pipes and Drums band.
Like Dilks, Scarlett started playing bagpipes at age nine.
Of Sunday’s record, she said, “It’s something special to be part of.”
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