Was born in Yeppoon near Rockhampton, Queensland. She was eight years old when the 1942 Japanese air raids on Townsville alarmed the whole eastern coast of Queensland. Schools were closed down for a time, and for Joan it meant a very wonderful three-month period at her Uncle George Allen’s cattle property at Clermont. During that three-month spell she listened eagerly to the country music programmes on radio, and taught herself to sing and yodel. Her two favourite artists were Harry Torrani and June Holms, on whose singing she based her own style.

Back home again, she kept up her singing. At 11 years of age she started to sing on Sunday nights with Danny Driscoll’s Lakes Creek Revue Company. A year later she got her first guitar and started to provide her own accompaniment. Charity concerts occupied much of her time for the next three years, and at 14 she made her first appearance on Australia’s Amateur Hour.

The year 1949 saw her win a contest at the famous Rocky Round-Up, billed as the Yodelling Championship of Australia. She also won a talent quest worth £50 at the Earls Court Theatre in that year. And in 1950 she went in front of the Amateur Hour microphones again, this time as part of a duo with sister Muriel. They got a lot of offers from this, but as Muriel was married by that time, they accepted only the local ones.

A two-week job with Bullen Brothers Circus in 1952 extended to two years. She used to sing while Stafford Bullen spun his ropes. She also doubled as secretary for Mrs Bullen and tutor for her children. Joan regarded the circus days as a means of getting known around the country, a stepping stone to a recording career.

Back home, she went to work in a fashion store, also gaining a weekly half-hour on radio 4RO, Rockhampton. In 1954, when holidays came around, she armed herself with 4RO tapes and a string of references and went to Sydney for a carefully planned raid on the record companies. She had contracts and letters of introduction to all the labels, but most of her careful homework was not needed - on the first call, to Festival, they said, “Yes please”, and she cut eight sides in their warehouse, with a single microphone.

The recording shows her considerable talent as a yodeller, but unfortunately it also exposes the limitations of the recording companies in those days. Her extreme nervousness is very apparent. Obvious blemishes in breathing and technique show up, which one suspects could have been easily overcome in a better recording studio atmosphere, with better direction. Certainly at least another take was warranted. After all, she was a country girl in a strange city, with all the trains of a do or die venture to cope with, and it seems a pity that her reputation for posterity has to rest on the product of one afternoon’s performance under the worst possible conditions. One gets the clear feeling that it does not show the best of Joan O’Farrell.

On her return to the north she won three beauty contests: Miss Central Coast, Miss Mount Morgan and Central Queensland Sun Girl. The following year she married manual arts teacher Allan Dobbs, who soon after was transferred to the Darling Downs, then to Brisbane, where they live today. They have five children, and Joan has never sung in public since her children began to arrive.