Return to home Return to articles about Diddychwy list

Diddychwy History

Diddychwy is a South Australian folk band playing Celtic and various forms of music around Adelaide. For the most part ‘I,’ (Tony Gill) am a founding member along with my son, Dominic Gill.

I have a practice room out the back where Diddychwy often rehearse. On the walls are posters of some gigs the band has played in over the years. I had almost forgotten how old the band really was until I was reminded by my grandson Davin, who is himself a budding 20 years old musician who’s not bad at punching out a few jigs and reels, although heavy metal music is his first love. “Hey Grandpa,” he says, “You were out gigging on the night I was born.” Pointing to a poster on the walls advertising a gig we did at Semaphore on the 25 of November, 1983. The poster featured Diddychwy, Barry Hickey, Eve Repin, and others on the bill. My initial reaction was one of shock, “have we really been going that long!?”

The band started when my son (Tony ) was at the Kingston Area School in the southeast of S.A. Alan King (a past member of the band) was also teaching there and they got together with a few then locals, Ted Truan (played fiddle,) Frank Pulic, (accordion,) Tony (on Guitar,) Alan King (mandolin,) Julie Henderson (on drums) and Ray Thomas on (Largaphone.) They had learnt a few Bush Whacker tunes and ran a bush dance in the local hall. They called themselves “Wallaby Stew.” They remained in Kingston for the next three years; and when they came back to Adelaide they wanted to keep going. I could play a bit of flute and one of my other sons Dominic could play guitar, so we joined Alan and Tony, because they had left behind the local’s from Kingston. At that time we found out that there was a band with the same name in Victoria, so we set out to find another name.

My wife “Dolores” who is Welsh said, “Well you look like a mob of Tinkers, why don’t you call yourselves, Diddychwy? And so we did. We learnt a few tunes and songs and found that we weren’t too bad at harmony singing and so it wasn’t long before we felt the itch to perform.

At that time Joe Gigliotti, Julia Modra and Aurthur Bower and others were in a band called, “The little Para Bush band.” They held a blackboard concert once a month at the Abbey restaurant in Gawler. It has since been bulldozed down. It was just the right kind of venue for new groups like ours to try out our skills. We became regulars there. Soon we were asked by various people to do bush dances and so the whole thing grew from there.

We made a promo tape and sent it to Derrick Moule, who at that time ran the very successful folk club called ‘Traitors gate’ at the Earl of Liester hotel in Parkside. Over the next few years we played there quite a few times and also started doing more Bush dances around the state.

I remember traveling to Lucindale for a Didddychwy gig, hearing on the car radio that a band called Diddy- Chai-Chewy would be playing there that night. Yes we’ve had a bit of trouble with the name. You may laugh at the name, you may debate it’s meaning, but after 20 odd years, it’s a bit late to change now, eh!!

So those are the beginning days of Diddychwy. Since then band members have come and gone as you can see from the photos.

It’s been a memorable part of my life and we’ve had many good times. There’s one thing you can say about performing, it may have its ups and downs, it may be quite hard at times, but it is always ‘memorable.’ I feel sure in saying that all the people who have played in Diddychwy over the years look upon the experience with happiness and fondness.

And so in a way, the pictures and this article itself is a kind of tribute to all the members of Diddychwy. It has been a privilege working with all these people. I just love this kind of music, the performing, the smiles on people’s faces and I still enjoy being in the band to this day. I enjoy it so much that perhaps one day, my great grandson or great grand daughter (not even born yet) is going to turn to me and say, “Hey great grandpa, you know you were playing in a gig the night I was born!?”

Tony Gill.