Kathleen Gee
Teacher, music specialist
and choir accompanist
Date of Interview: 1994
Interviewer: Robyn Buchanan
This interview is available on CD
Kathleen Gee and pupils on retirement day from Central
State School 1972
Track 01
Interviewer: When I was a small child at Blair State
School, Miss McGuire and Miss Gee used to come once
a week to give us music lessons. For most children, that
was our real introduction to music in Ipswich. Could
you tell us about how it all started?
Lyla and I were great friends for years. It started when
she took a little Bundamba choir - a little state school
choir - down to Brisbane for some function or eisteddfod
or something, and they sang so beautifully that they won
their piece. Now, Mr Llew Edwards was there, and he
was so enraptured with the music of these little people,
he became great friends with Lyla. It was through her
friendship with him, I think that she asked for me as her
pianist. [Note: Not Sir Llew Edwards - this Lewis Edwards
was born in Silkstone and later became Director-General
of Education]
Now I wasn’t qualified with Letters or anything, but she
knew I could do what she required. And without any
further ado, I was appointed from Girls’ Central to be her
pianist.
I was a teacher at Girl’s Central, Girls and Boys it was
then, and I was allowed to go with her. I had been at Girls’
Central for 9 years and I went as pianist with Lyla for 11
years.
We did the rounds of Ipswich schools, 16 all together...
small schools and large schools. Big schools, we went to
weekly, but the smaller ones we went to once a fortnight.
Because we had a variety, we walked, and we went by
bus and by train .
Kathleen Gee - oral history interview
Interviewer: So you didn’t have transport or a car, you
just had to find your own way there?
We just had to find our way there, Shank’s pony came to
the rescue. [ie walking]
Interviewer: What sort of lessons did you give? What did
you teach the children?
For music? Oh well, I just sat at the piano and they learned
the Soh Fa names. They always had a little exercise, and
they worked out the names, and had to be able to sing it
perhaps. Well that was quite an easy little exercise, then
she did the theory with them. Then there were the songs,
they kept a copy of them and they would build up quite
a program.
Interviewer: I remember particularly that we used to sing
a lot of Gilbert and Sullivan at certain times of the year...
how did that come about?
Well at that time she was doing the Gilbert and Sullivan
with the senior Cambrian Choir, and she was very
interested in Gilbert and Sullivan so that’s how it came
into the school work.
Interviewer: And when you went from school to school
did you do much the same with each school, or was it a
different program for each one?
Oh, no, different programs, to suit each child, each style
of child and we had a different program for each school.
After 11 years, I was recalled to the academic staff, so I
wasn’t with Lyla. It was ‘57 I think I was recalled. I don’t
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Junior Cambrians singing on radio, date uncertain but about 1950
think we had the Junior Cambrian’s going then, I think
we may have stopped a little while before.
Interviewer: Can you tell me about the Junior
Cambrians?
Yes, we started the Junior Cambrians. We used to go
Saturday morning, about 9 o’clock until about half past
11 or 12 or something, and we just went through songs,
not too many exercises, just singing, for the love of it. We
did that every Saturday morning for many years.
Interviewer: They seem to have done a lot of interesting
things – you have photos here showing the Amateur
Hour.
Yes, we sang on radio on the Amateur Hour, and then we
had other radio concerts. In those days, Mr Bill Johnson
was at 4IP [the local Ipswich radio station], and he let
us make some tapes and sing some of our programs.
But by the time the next concert came round, they were
[recorded] on top of the last ones, so they weren’t kept
unfortunately. We had some wonderful concerts and it
would have been lovely if they’d been able to keep them.
The concert tapes were played over the air.
The choir became a very large choir. [Looking at photos]
You’ll find Blodwyn Edmunds in there, you’ll see there
are names on the back of the photos.
Choir, and at odd times, we’d take them by train for an
outing for something that was on in Brisbane. We didn’t do
much train travelling, it was such a crowd of children.
The rehearsals were held at the Cambrian Hall, Everything
was at the Cambrian hall, it was in South St then. We had
parties, with the children, the Junior Cambrians, it was
very nice.
Track 2
Interviewer: You said you didn’t have formal letters in
music. When did you learn piano?
When I was very young, I went to St Josephs. [at North
Ipswich] I had two brothers ahead of me, they were
learning violin or piano. Later on there were two sisters
coming to learn music, so I just learned every week, I’d
have a lesson over at the school.
But thanks be to God, I must have got some tuition that
stuck to me. I only went for two theory exams, and the
second one, at the Technical College night, I got a prize
from the Governor, Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams.
I still go to all the Cambrian Concerts, I saw “Call Me
Madam” just the other day. I love the concerts, I think
whatever they have is going to be good.
Sister, she had such confidence in me, one time she was
getting a concert ready - this was quite a few years on
after I was learning - and she wanted a quartet, she had
the violins and the piano, and I learned the cello, “Simple
Ave”, and “Perfect Day” - I learned that on the cello and I
sat there and played them and I wouldn’t know a note.
We didn’t go away for Eisteddfod work, but we used to
go to Brisbane, we went down to hear the Vienna Boys
In those times, the boys were singing the darkie songs,
minstrels, so I learned on the banjo “Swanee River” and
Kathleen Gee - oral history interview
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Coronation Day in Ipswich, June 1954. Lyla McGuire can be seen conducting, Kathleen Gee was pianist. Outside the
Old Town Hall, Brisbane Street
Kathleen Gee (left) and Lyla McGuire (right) with the Junior Cambrian Choir
Kathleen Gee - oral history interview
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some of those pieces for them. I’m just trying to tell you
how the little bit of tuition I got stuck to me.
Interviewer: You must have had a lot of natural talent.
Well, it might have been a bit of talent. I was teaching
there then and one of the girls there was going for the
ATCL on the violin and her cousin was an ATCL player
and she was going to be her accompanist but the two
fathers - brothers - had a disagreement and she wasn’t
allowed to play for the little violinist. So what did Sister
do? She got Kathleen. So away I went and learned it. She
got her letters, thank God I had that power about me that
I could do it.
Interviewer: Did you take part in a lot of concerts with
the church? Did they have a lot of musical functions?
Oh not too many, I can’t remember them but whatever
they had, I was always taking part - oh they had dances,
I should tell you that and they had St Patrick’s Concerts
and things sort of celebrations, but not many.
Interviewer: You mentioned St Joseph’s, was that at
North Ipswich?
Yes, Liverpool Estate was the name of the district. In
Sister Mary Carthagh’s admission book, I was down
with a lot of others at the age of six. But I was still at St
Joseph’s when I was 20 - not too many can skite about
their schooldays lasting from six until 20. I just finished
the ordinary tuition and there were a few of us that Sister
had studying for pupil teachership, so I did four exams
for pupil teaching, then I did my classification, so I did
all that at St Joseph’s before I tried to get admission to
the State School.
Interviewer: You learned to be a teacher actually at the
school? You didn’t go to Training College.
No, I didn’t go to a training College, there’s not too many
had done that. Of course, these days, it is all Training
College and University and everything else. But that was
like that in those days.
Track 03
Interviewer: So at the end of the time at St Josephs, you
joined the State School system?
That’s right, I was admitted to North Pine State School
at Petrie - that was the name of the school, there was no
Petrie School in those days.
These days, girls in their teens go overseas, work in
different countries and everything else, but there was I
at 20 and my Mother went with me wherever I started,
to see where little Kathleen was going to live and what
she was going to face! I was very happily placed there at
Petrie, I was there a few years then I was transferred to
Bajool up near Rockhampton.
Mum went to Bajool with me for the first day, can you
imagine that! just to have a look and see what the place
was like and they’d be satisfied. That’s a terrible admission
Kathleen Gee - oral history interview
to make these days when young people are doing so much
travelling and working elsewhere now, but that’s just how
it was those days.
From Bajool, in the next year, I started in a one-teacher
school at Kentville. Now Kentville is a small school
outside Forest Hill and it was beyond Glenore Grove. I
was there at Kentville for four years and I drove a horse
and sulky with some of the school children in the family
where I was boarding and I picked up another little boy
[to take to school].
Interviewer: Had you ever driven a horse and sulky
before?
As a family, we always had a horse and sulky when we
were young so I didn’t think driving a horse was anything.
Well, I was there for four years but it was a different life
altogether, I was the only teacher there.
You get wrapped up in the children, you get so interested
in them, and I had some funny little experiences apart
from teaching. The children used to come along on their
horse, such a lot of horses, and later on we got bicycles
but with the school, you are teaching so many different
classes.
This particular time I am going to tell you, it was not
very far off the New Year and those were the days when
you had a wall sheet “a cap, a rat and a mat”, all those
things.
From one of the bigger classes, I asked one of the girls
to come down and look after five newcomers and I asked
her just to keep them going and she was a nice girl and
she was following the chart and she was taking me off
when she had heard me teaching, “Now have you a cat
somebody”... and she got to this little boy and she said
“Have you a cat Gerard” and he said “What” He let out a
mighty “What “ and he said “You ought to know, you’re
living in the same house, ain’t ya?” It was his sister, she
was no teacher, she was his sister, the poor little fellow,
that was the end of the lesson, school was bedlam,
everyone having a good laugh.
Track 04
The next year, I was transferred to Oxley and I went down
by train every morning but in the afternoon, there was a
difficulty about returning to Ipswich, getting a train that
would get me back to Ipswich - there was no Ipswich
train stopping at Oxley. The first train I could get in the
afternoon was the Mail train, I think they called it, which
stopped at Corinda.
Other teachers would have gone home and I had to spend
my time racing out on the verandah to see if the bus was
coming from the bacon factory, a busload of men, so I
got out into the bus and on to Corinda and sometimes I’d
be still in the bus and I’d hear the train, then there was
panic. By the time I got out, I would run to the station and
someone would open the door, the train had just pulled in
and I’d fall in, the whole year was spent like that so I was
a bit of a nervous wreck.
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Lyla McGuire (at rear) and Kathleen Gee (rear right) with Junior Cambrians at Ipswich Railway Station,on their wayto
Brisbane to hear the Vienna Boys Choir c1950
The next year, I was transferred to Central Girls and
Infants and I taught nine years at Girls Central, in the
various classes, mostly with a split Three/Two. That was
when I went teaching music with Lyla, I stayed with her
then 11 years so that made 20 years program.
I had many happy years at Girls’ Central, being involved
with everything that was going. I finished on my 65th
Birthday in 1972.
At this age, I can still play a tune, nothing classical. I did
have a little classical playing but not much, it was mostly
popular music. I had music with me all my life.
I still play for singalongs here at St Mary’s Hostel, I can’t
play the way I used to. It was my birthday last week, I
was 87.
Chronology:
Kathleen Veronica Gee born 20th September 1907
Started at North Pine School July 1928
Transferred to Bajool October 1929
Started at Kentville January 1932.
Started at Oxley January 1936
Started at Central Girls School Ipswich January 1937
Appointed pianist to Lyla McGuire April 1946
Transferred back to Central February 1957
Retired from Girls Central September 1972
Pianist for Junior Cambrians 1947 to 1951
Program cover for the first Junior Cambrian
Concert. Details of items are on the next page.
Kathleen Gee - oral history interview
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Kathleen Gee - oral history interview
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Queensland Times article June 1965
Kathleen Gee - oral history interview
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