At 99 years of age, Darcy Hancock says technology is not a barrier; Darcy has taught himself how to use a computer with a lot of help from his sons Bruce and Grant.

Darcy was born in Kadina in 1910, the son of Bert Hancock who owned the barber shop and billiard saloon in Taylor Street.

His grandfather, Fred Hancock, had immigrated to the Copper Coast from Cornwall and began work as a miner before starting the barber shop.

Darcy attended Kadina Memorial High School and was one of the first pupils there when it opened in the early 1920s.

“I remember it was the first year it was open because there was heaps of sand and bricks as they finished the building,” Darcy said.

After school Darcy found he was quite handy with electrical objects and he started his own business repairing crystal sets and wireless radios.

He was one of the first people and probably the youngest in Australia to get his Ham radio licence in 1926 and became one of South Australia’s first disc jockeys at age 16, playing records on his own radio show.

Darcy started up Han­cock’s Radio Service and would repair or ser­vice anything electrical.

“I used to go out servicing refrigeration later when that became available — I would repair anything electrical,” Darcy said.

“When television arrived I was one of the first shops to have a TV, everyone would stand out the front of the shop and watch it.”

Darcy on saxophone with Jack on trumpet, during their time in The Rhythm Kings.

“The biggest change when I was in Kadina was when ETSA came through and supplied power and the closing of the outstation, then television.”

But Darcy’s true passion was music — he sold it in his shop and started his own band The Rhythm Kings.

“I started off playing a banjo, then ukulele and guitar then I got interested in the saxophone and for the rest of my life I played saxophones,” Darcy said.

The Rhythm Kings — Lloyd Davies (Kadina mayor in the 1970s) on piano, Jack Altmann on trumpet and the various drummers including Ted Fleet — played at the Kadina Town Hall every Saturday night and travelled around the peninsula playing at balls, soirees and events.

In 1946 Darcy married Jean McDonald (from Bute) — a telephonist in the Kadina Post Office — at the Methodist Manse in Moonta.

They shared 61 years together and had three children: Bruce, Grant and Gail, who were all born in Kadina and Wallaroo.

Bruce has followed in his father’s footsteps musically, but playing keyboard and clarinet, and is now a well-known professional musician after first playing with his dad at a dance in Kadina when he was 14.

Darcy has three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

After living a life filled with technological change, Darcy is looking forward to reaching that quintessential age milestone of 100 on Decem­ber 18 of this year.

“It’s not easy reaching it, there always seems to be something going wrong with the body when you get this old but on the whole I’m pretty good,” Darcy said.

A 99 year old who knows how to use a computer, brew his own beer and make pasties in his own kitchen — pretty incredible!