Hamilton

From this point I will call June ‘Mum’ for obvious reasons. I must back track here: not long after Dad moved from Brisbane to the Gold Coast, about 1950/51, he made a visit to Sydney to visit his mother, Bernice, in Auburn. He found Bernice  suffering from dementia and living alone in the house and almost crippled with arthritis. Dad made arrangements for his mother to be moved to a hospital in Goodna, just outside Brisbane, where she would be cared for and where he could visit her more readily. Dad sold the house in Auburn eventually. Bernice continued to live in the hospital at Goodna until her death.

In 1956 Dad and Mum moved down to Sydney, first living at Northbridge. It was about this time that Dad received news from Brisbane that his mother, Bernice, had died. They then bought a house in High Street Willoughby in 1958. During this time Dad established himself around Sydney as a solo cabaret act; also in 1959 Dad and Mum both had small roles in the 1959 film Summer of the Seventeenth Doll appearing alongside Ernest Borgnine, Sir John Mills, Angela Lansbury and Anne Baxter. Mum said their scenes were filmed at the Atranza Studios, later called the ABC studios, in French’s Forest north of Sydney. Dad and Mum then regularly toured rural NSW with the ‘Rick and Thel Show’ as part of the tour troupe headed by the popular Australian country music husband & wife duo in 1960/61.

Dad established himself as a successful act, fiddle player/comedian/compere, in the clubs and nightspots of Sydney in the 1960’s. He often had regular spots at the Silver Spade Room in the Chevron Hotel at Kings Cross as well as Chequers, and worked with international artists such as Ethel Merman, Tony Martin and Nat King Cole. After I was born in 1962, and then my sister in 1965, Dad was at the height of his career and sometimes took us, along with Mum, on tours taking in many towns of rural NSW as well as Victoria where he played at the Hampton Hotel  in Brighton for two weeks as the headlining act. In the 60’s he also appeared on In Melbourne Tonight hosted by Graham Kennedy.

In 1971, after we had moved to North Manly, Dad signed on with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to tour Vietnam with fellow entertainers to do shows for the soldiers in places like Vung Tau. I remember the whole band coming to rehearse in our house just before they left…what a day that was, the house literally shook with music! during the rest of the 70’s Dad regularly worked the clubs of Sydney and NSW but towards to late 70’s complained about the work slowing down due to the clubs’ new practice of importing second rate acts from the UK…those which we saw on the Royal Command Performance on TV. The club managers claimed that audiences wanted to see more acts from abroad. In 1972 Dad was compering a show at a club in Sydney and introduced to the audience a new act; a young woman from Galga with a beautiful voice…Julie Anthony.  Dad often worked on cruises; the Orsova, Arcadia, Fairstar among many. Sometimes he took a drop in salary in return for taking us along with him and having an A deck family suite cabin.

In 1973 Dad’s friend, the country music legend Tex Morton, asked him to play the fiddle part on a new song he was recording about the 1972 Melbourne Cup winner Gunsynd.  The song was called ‘The Goondiwindi Grey’  and was a number one chart hit. I sat in on that recording at the old EMI studios in Sydney on a rainy day in 1973. It was during the late 70’s that Dad got back into acting and appeared in many TV commercials and series such as Certain Women.  In 1979 Dad declared himself semi-retired and wished to devote more of his time to his gardening and had even set up a nursery called the Willow Glen Nursery at our home at North Manly. He bought his first plants for the venture from a young bloke named Don Burke who ran a plant nursery at Terry Hills, north of Sydney. Trouble was Dad was such a devoted gardener that he fell in love with most of the plants he bought and subsequently could not bring himself to sell them!

Popularity: 63% [?]

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My Dad was born George Reynolds Reid on June 8th 1912 to Bernice (Reynolds) Reid and George Albert Reid. He was a very small baby, possibly premature, and weighed just over a pound at birth. Dad, and his sister Doris (born 1902), were the only two children out of the 12 born to Bernice and George who survived to adulthood. Dad, as a baby, had lovely golden curls and his mother doted on him; as a baby he was one of the series of Arnotts Biscuit Tin Babies when the company used to put a picture of a baby on each tin of biscuits.

Dad was born at Kogarah and then spent his childhood at at Auburn where he attended the primary school ‘whenever he felt like it‘ as he used to say. He was given his first violin by his mother at the age of eight and took lessons but preferred the modern style of the times - jazz, country/bluegrass. His very first job playing the fiddle at the age f 15 was standing in the foyer of the old Mayfair Theatre in Sydney and playing to patrons as they arrived for the movie matinee. He was drawn to showbusiness it seems from a young age and chose to make the stage his life. He joined a group calling themselves The Hillbilly Boys and they played regularly at venues such as the Old Tivoli in Sydney.

In 1937 at the age of 25 Dad married a girl, Hilda Fitton, and they had three children together: Faye, Pamela and Lawrence. Dad joined the RAF during the war and was based at Lithgow where he met several people who would become lifelong friends including Alec Cuthbertson (Cuthy) a jazz pianist. During the day Dad and his friends would carry out their usual duties and at night they would meet in the Mess for music and Jamming sessions.

After the war Dad felt extremely restless and decided to pursue a career fulltime in showbusiness. In 1946 Dad played the role of Scottish aviator James Mollison in the Australian film about Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, ‘Smithy’ .  It was just after this time that Dad decided to end his marriage to Hilda. This decision caused bad feeling between Dad and his father but nevertheless in 1948 Dad left his young family at Auburn and moved to Brisbane to become a professional entertainer. Dad’s father, George Albert Reid, died soon after. His mother Bernice remained living in the family home at Auburn.

Dad arrived in Brisbane at a time when the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise was being developed as a holiday destination. He counted among his friends the local personality and property developer, Bernie Elsey. Dad played double bass in the band at the well known Cloudland Ballroom in Brisbane with Bill Smith (Bandleader) and Jack Thompson (piano). From 1950 onwards he lived in Surfers Paradise and played in a group at the Surfers Paradise Hotel with John Goldner (piano), Frank Sampson (clarinet) and John Sangster. 

These were the halcyon days of the Gold Coast when families would come up from NSW and Victoria for their holidays; the well-heeled would stay at the hotel and the working man and his family would stay at one of the many guesthouses along the beach. Dad also said many high profile politicians made Surfers Paradise their refuge and would point them all out on the TV news saying…‘That bloke, he had a girlfriend in Surfers and a wife in Canberra’.  Moving in the circles that he did Dad saw and heard enough to have penned a book or two regarding the activities of many politicians and prominent names who were supposedly family men…

Dad was a very handsome and charismatic man, very popular with the ladies and enjoyed a wide circle of friends from the well known to the infamous. In 1954 Dad met a young woman, June Hopkins, holidaying with some friends in Surfers from her NSW home town of Willoughby and who was doing some part time modelling as well. She caught his eye from the very start; 17 years younger than Dad, they made a very attractive couple and soon after June left her home in Willoughby and moved to the Gold Coast to live with Dad. June is my Mum.

Popularity: 54% [?]

Charles Joseph Reynolds was the grandson of Charles Wagner Reynolds and Sarah Willis and first cousin of my father, George Reynolds (Reid).

Date of birth…

29th July 1918

Marriage (1)…

Charles Joseph married Anne Matthews  (died 19th August 1973 ) 16th September 1939.

Children…

Carol - 1945 (married spouse Harry Raymond Smith, 1963)

children…

Cheryl Anne - 1963 (2 children: Luke Raymond b. 1994 & Alexander Joseph b.2002)

Deanne Louise - 1966 (2 children: Louise Susan b. 1982 & James Maxwell b.1987)

Allison Margaret - 1967

Paul Charles - 1969

Sandra - 1952

Marriage (2)…

Married Norma Fairfax (died August 2001) and retired to live on the NSW Central Coast in Terrigal.

Charles Joseph Reynolds died 10th October 2001.

Charles Joseph Reynolds circa 1944/45

Popularity: 33% [?]