A TALENTED footballer and dearly loved family man, Curly Quinn enjoyed the simple things in life – home-cooked meals and visiting family and friends to catch up on their news.
Curly loved his entire family – the whole Quinn clan. He and wife Dell had eight children, 18 grandchildren and was Granddad Curly to 19 great-grandchildren.
“Curly had this uncanny way of making everybody feel like they were his personal favourite, and they were,” son Greg said.
Greg, the third eldest of Curly’s and Dell’s children, read the eulogy at Curly’s funeral at Sacred Heart Church, Booval.
Colin Gilmore Quinn – known as Curly to almost everyone – was born in Booval on March 8, 1928. Curly’s father and mother James and Jessie had five children – now all deceased. Curly was the youngest.
They were all raised and educated in Ipswich. Early life began in Burton Street near the Booval butter factory.
“Curly was the youngest by a couple of years. Consequently, he found himself off-siding to his dad, whether it be knocking the head off one of the chooks for Sunday lunch or fixing a leaky pipe for the nuns at the convent across the road here,” Greg said.
“Also, being the youngest, he became particularly close to his mum – close as in ‘mummy’s boy’ close. This remained the case until Jessie passed away.”
In those early days, Booval was largely farmland and, from a young age, Curly was allowed to wander off to the farms where he was befriended.
“Often, he would come home with a bag of tomatoes or mangoes or a sack of manure for his mother’s gardens or some fresh milk from the dairy farm at the bottom of Station Road or maybe just some local gossip,” Greg said.
“This theme of displaying interest in people and being able to communicate became a hallmark of how Curly lived his entire life.”
He started Year 1 as a four-year-old at Sacred Heart School in 1932 and went on to St Mary’s (now St Edmund’s) in his secondary school years.
He had one year at boarding school at Warwick during World War II as fears grew of the Japanese bombing the air force base at Amberley and the Ipswich railway workshops.
From a youngster, Curly was sporty; he liked tennis, was good on the athletic track and showed promise at rugby league.
“Like many in this era, Curly’s father steered him into the railway workshops after school – into a metal worker’s apprenticeship,” Greg said.
But Curly got himself transferred to the office as a clerk in Queensland Rail where he stayed for the next 45 years, spending the last 15 as an auditor travelling around the state.
He played rugby league for Brothers (or CYMS as the club was known then), representing Ipswich in the Bulimba Cup against Brisbane and Toowoomba.
In 1950, as a 21-year-old, he played five games for Queensland – including three against NSW and one against Great Britain, which Queensland won.
Curly continued to play club football but retired, aged 24, to focus on his family. He also devoted himself to sports associated with his children and was awarded life membership of Brothers Club.
Curly and Dell set up the family initially at Harlin Road, Coalfalls but moved to Ebbw Vale in 1961, which was Curly’s home for 58 years.
Curly penciled for bookies on Saturdays for more than three decades so he could pay the bills and to give the family some extra treats.
Jude came home one day and asked Curly why some other kids in her class had a colour TV and they didn’t. The biggest and best TV with a remote control from RT Edwards arrived the next day.
“It was also a ritual on Saturdays after Curly had worked at the trots for him to drop into his mate Denis Flannery’s Ulster pub for a couple of beers before stopping off at KFC to pick up a bucket of Kentucky with potato and gravy – the whole family would be waiting at the dining room table when we heard the car pull in at Ebbw Vale,” Greg said.
When Jude started school at Sacred Heart primary in 1958 it had little sport on offer. Within months, Curly kicked off the Sacred Heart sports committee to ensure every kid had the opportunity for athletics, basketball, footy and swimming a bit later.
“He organised other parents to also contribute. Only a few years later and Sacred Heart was involved in just about everything,” Greg said.
Curly and Dell had a big circle of friends including the Flannerys, Brennans, Doyles, Currys, Bromleys and Curly’s brother Jim and wife Mary.
“In 1986, dad and mum separated and subsequently divorced,” Greg said.
“They lived no further than three kilometres apart for the rest of their lives and neither of them had anyone else in their lives.”
