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Dame Jools Topp, one half of legendary New Zealand folk duo the Topp Twins, has died at the age of 68. The Topp Twins’ management company confirmed that Dame Jools died peacefully at her home on Saturday with her twin sister Lynda, brother Bruce, close friends and pets by her side. Jools died of breast cancer after living with the disease for 22 years. Lynda and Jools Topp. “It is with deep sorrow and unimaginable grief we announce the passing of my beloved twin sister Jools,” Dame Lynda Topp said. “She lived bravely with breast cancer for 22 years. Now she is finally free to ride on Pegasus, her winged horse, and round up sheep again with our dad Peter and all her precious dogs.” Bruce Topp added: “Jools shared with me all the joy and love and special times that a brother needs. I will hold her in my heart forever.” As one-half of New Zealand’s celebrated double act, the Topp Twins, Jools and her sister Lynda entertained audiences at home and overseas for more than 40 years. They created comedy characters that captured Kiwi culture and wrote songs that helped define a generation of social change. Sisters Jools and Lynda Topp, better known as the Topp Twins, performing in Gisborne. Despite the bright lights of international success, Jools always called Aotearoa home. Jools leaves behind a legacy that will live on through the Topp Twins’ music, books, classic Kiwiana TV shows and their film The Topp Twins, Untouchable Girls, as well as through the many contributions the Topp Twins made to important NZ political and social causes. “A mighty totara of the NZ arts world has fallen today,” Topp Twins manager Arani Cuthbert said. “What an immense privilege it’s been to be the Topp Twins manager and close friend for 34 years and witness the love and joy that Jools and Lynda have spread into every corner of Aotearoa, as well as overseas. “It is unimaginable that Camp Leader, Ken Smythe, Raelene and Prue will no longer appear on our stages and screens.” The Topp family thanked the palliative care team at West Auckland Hospice for their medical care and support. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the West Auckland Hospice. A national treasure Dames Jools and Lynda Topp at the 2024 Aotearoa New Zealand Book Industry Awards for their 2023 memoir Untouchable Girls: The Topp Twins Story. Photo / Alyse Wright The name that topped the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours was unfamiliar to most New Zealanders: Dame Julie Bethridge Topp. For almost half a century, they had known her as Camp Leader, one half of the Kens, Raylene to her sister’s Brenda, and a taonga, a national treasure. Jools and twin sister Lynda sang, entertained and prodded Kiwi consciences in concert halls, TV and movie screens, in books and on street corners from the early 1970s until the early years of this decade. But the pair, born on 14 May 1958 in Huntly, had been harmonising since they were 5, growing up on their parents Jean and Peter’s Ruawaro dairy farm. Always close – “Say we’re apart for three days, we become physically sick sometimes,” Lynda said – their brother Bruce gave them a guitar and a Play in a Day manual on their 11th birthday. The Topp Twins imprinted themselves on the nation’s consciousness as the country-singing, golden age New Zealand duo. “It did exactly what it said it was going to do on the front cover,” Jools recalled. “So I learnt all the chords in a day and I’ve never done any other thing with a guitar.” Although, “I spent a lot of time down the back of the bus going home from Huntly College with the Māori kids in the back, where they would teach me the Māori strum.” After leaving school in 1976, they joined the Territorial Force and were posted to Burnham Military Camp near Christchurch. Performing at a city coffee lounge, they met and identified with other radical lesbian feminists. When they came out, “Mum said, ‘Wait until your sister finds out!’ And I said, ‘You’ve got another thing coming, Mum!” one of the twins rememb...
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