Phil Mahoneys Recollection
A Buddy Story From Phil Mahoney
“So very happy you are putting together some stories and history of Australia's first born Australian country music star Buddy Williams…”
A couple of years ago, I spoke to an elderly cousin who had lived in Dorrigo all of his life my cousin's name was Bill Mahoney he was a piano player a drummer and an actor in many musicals staged to Dorrigo. And knew everybody in the town my late grandfather James Mahoney was born in Dorrigo one day I asked my cousin.
Had he ever heard of Buddy Williams in his younger days or seen Buddy Williams he then told me a story that has lived with me ever since with sadness My cousin bill said that he'd seen Buddy Williams as a young kid with bare feet running on the hard gravel road past his family home with another couple of young orphans running into church.on.a Sunday morning Bill said that the kids have to run two or three miles from the potato farm where they were orphaned out to this family who used them for slave Labor and they weren't good enough to ride in the rubber tied sulky they had to run behind the sulky and only the mum and the dad Foster parents could ride in the sulky they were a member of a very queer sort of a religion called The plantation church Buddy Williams hated this church so much and his life as a slave on the potato farm that he escaped when he was a teenager had enough of being a slave but my cousin said he returned a few years later and he had some Tom thumb packets of crackers and one morning he drove past the church when it was quiet and people were praying he lit up some of these Tom thumb crackers which were strung together about 24 in a pack and through them inside the church door and took off.
My cousin said that Buddy he was asleep in the park at Grafton when and elderly couple who were very nice old people took buddy in and looked after him and Buddy spent many of the next few years riding the Freight trains down to Newcastle in Hunter Street which was well known as a very popular buskers Paradise with people with friendly people and generous and it wasn't that long before buddy had saved enough money up to buy himself and old Sorley Brothers circus tent and then started traveling with his Buddy Williams show from the top end of Australia to the West coast of Tasmania every year
I finally got to meet Buddy Williams in.person.in.1982 at the Shortland RSL Club where I was the co.host and Producer of "The Radio.2HD Geoff Gregory Jamboree " I would get there early for sound checks and setting the stage up when i was setting up the Microphone for Buddy Williams he said "would I be able to have an extra microphone please in front of my acoustic guitar Phil as I never plug my guitar into an amp I always like to have one in front of the guitar that way.it still gives you the genuine sound of an acoustic guitar," I said "No.worries Buddy that's easy to do " I remember thinking at the time i.wonder how Buddy will go over tonight as he also did not want any other musicians on stage just Buddy and his guitar.". Well my silent fears were allayed that Buddy might be too quiet and you could have heard a pin drop he had the big capacity audience.mesmerised . It was a very memorable performance and the audience loved every song and the applause was deafening towards the end of his final song I will never forget that show Buddy and I got on very well. And when I told him that I worked at the Newcastle Star newspaper he said I'll give you my life story which he had typed out on an A4 sheet of paper I know there would have been much more to his life than an A4 sheet but it's still contained a lot of incredible information and we sat and had a great chat over a cold drink with Buddy telling me many stories of his childhood how he had came out of Glebe Point orphanage as a young child .
