THERE is a special place from my childhood near Kempsey, NSW. Millbank is a beautiful place where I recall mud fights, our annual choko festivals at the hall, and riding my pushbike to the nearest bus stop – a piggery.
I never dreamed that in Mount Isa, more than 2200 kms away, I would find a man who knew where it was. Yet Earl Kyle, 63, who leaves to return to Kempsey with his wife Vicki after almost 40 years in North West Qld, went to the same primary school as me. It’s as special to him as it is to me and we are both saddened to hear the school closed this year.
I knew of Earl for a while as ‘the sound guy’ in the Mount Isa live music and events scene but it’s only this year we met. His brother Neil used to help with school sports and I admired him so much that I called him my uncle. It’s only this year when I visited Millbank that Neil mentioned his brother Earl in Mount Isa. The connection was made.
Earl Kyle was in his mid-teens when he left Millbank to find work at a cattle station in the Northern Territory. “I came in at the Mount Isa rodeo time and I did not come back,” Earl said. “It did not really appeal to me out there.”
He worked as a tyrefitter under businessman Darryl Blunk – known for being among 38 men blacklisted from working from Mount Isa Mines after the notorious 1964 strike. Earl soon returned to Kempsey where he reconnected with childhood sweetheart Vicki, a Willawarrin girl. They worked across the country, married and had three children, and eventually at some point in all this returning to live in Mount Isa. His brother Ross had been a horse trainer, and another brother John lived on a cattle property in McKinlay.
Earl worked as a driller at Mount Isa Mines for more than 30 years – retiring in 2014. “I had enough of underground. When you’ve been down there for 31 years your ears are starting to get pointed,” Earl joked. “No. I just did get sick of it and could not wait to get out of it.”
Yet within a year he worked in the Hard Times Mine tourist attraction as a guide. The tourists were “bloody unreal”.
He leaves Mount Isa with half a truck full of sound equipment and a shed remaining full of amps. It should not be a surprise this man’s passion is country and live music. Earl does come from the birthplace of Slim Dusty.
“I took a bit of an interest in doing sound and then I ended up buying my own gear. And more and more it took over my life. And I really have got to start living for me and Vicki now because it (live music) kept us apart,” Earl reflected.
“Looking at your days they sometimes can turn into 25-26 hours and that’s no bull.”