Helen Dilks to receive OAM for services to music through pipe bands

The Golden City Pipe Band life member has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for her service to music through pipe bands.

Ms Dilks, who joined the Golden City Pipe Band in 1959, said bands had been part of her life since she was born, literally.

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"My dad tells me a story that the day my mom brought me home from hospital, because he's played for a lot of years, he wrapped me in a blanket, laid me in the middle of the table and played music to me," she said.

She said the award nomination had left her "gobsmacked" as to her, bands were just a part of life.

"Obviously people see a lot more in what I do than I do, and as long as my bands do well and the people I am teaching achieve to their highest potential, I don't expect any more and I don't ask any more," she said.

"I am totally overwhelmed... I like to fly under the radar, I do what I do and go home."

Ms Dilks had been a pipe major with the Golden City Pipe Band in the early 1990s and 2000s, and then again from 2013 until recently.

She was assistant secretary of the Victorian Highland Pipe Band Association from 2019 to 2021 and has worked as a tutor in various bands.

In 2016 she received the Sir Rupert Hamer Award for Service to Pipe Bands.

She said her fondest memories included playing at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo and at the World Pipe Band Championships.

Not looking to stop anytime soon, Ms Dilks said she would love to play in the United Kingdom again and see her band perform well.

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"Provided you go out and play as well as you can on the day, you can't ask for any more than that," she said.

"It's just a matter of you just roll on and you take it as it comes. If something bobs up, you do it.

"But to win an Australian championship would be wonderful."

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