145 women perform in Melbourne City Square after Tartan Day parade
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 other players’ reactions to the presence of girls in the historically all-male band.
“There were generally no co-ed groups in those days,” Dilks said. But it was the 1960s, change was in the air, and the sisters were the first girls to join the group.
Sixty years later, the Dilks are still in the Golden City and old school students would choke on their porridge at the sight of 145 women breaking a world record by playing bagpipes and drums in Melbourne’s City Square on Sunday.
The group, including Dilks, Brave Scotland And Matilda’s waltz to break the record with Australian Book of Records For the women’s largest pipe band performance.
Organizer Chris Bouwmeester said the record attempt was inspired by AC/DC’s performance last year. It’s a Long Road to the Top (If You Want Rock and Roll)The match played by 374 pipers in Federation Square in November.
Sunday’s performance followed the annual Tartan Day Parade in the CBD, which also marked the centenary of the Australian Ladies Pipe Band’s epic two-year world tour in the 1920s.
Led by Drum Major William Darwin, a Gallipoli veteran, all members had lost loved ones during the First World War.
National Archives of Australia researcher Julia Church reported that the band came to the attention of the prime minister’s department in August 1924 after the father of two prospective band members warned the officer in charge of passports that the trip was “a risky venture, both financially and morally”.
Tragically, just before the group left Australia, 19-year-old piper Marjory Cook fell to her death. The seven members, who were minors upon arrival in New Zealand, were deported back home because there was no documentation showing parental consent.
Ladies in Glasgow were welcomed by more than 40,000 people. They played for King George V and Queen Mary at Braemar in the Scottish Highlands.
When they finally returned to Melbourne in February 1927, the women performed at radio station 3LO and the Tivoli Theater before embarking on a nationwide tour.
Six years later, Dolly McPherson, the band’s pipe master, and Darwin were married.
Bouwmeester said the self-financed tour to Canada, the United States, England and New Zealand was groundbreaking at the time.
Dilks similarly described the tour as an incredible success “at a time when people thought women shouldn’t play the bagpipes.”
Fast forward to 2026, when pipers also play on Sunday Australian LadiesThe song was composed 100 years ago by Scotsman William Fergusson to honor the band.
One of the youngest pipers to take part in the record attempt was 13-year-old Scarlett Cai, who plays in the Haileybury Pipes and Drums band.
Like Dilks, Scarlett started playing the bagpipes at the age of nine.
“It’s a special thing to be a part of,” he said at Sunday’s taping.
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