Dame Jools Topp, one half of the Topp Twins folk-and-comedy duo with her twin sister Dame Lynda, died on Saturday May 23 at her home in Helensville, north of Auckland, at the age of 68. [1] Her family confirmed the death in a statement issued Monday morning New Zealand time. Jools had been living with breast cancer for twenty-two years, first diagnosed in 2006 and again in 2021 after the disease metastasized. She died surrounded by Lynda, her brother Bruce, close friends, and the dogs and horses she had spent her last years caring for at her Liberty Circle Ranch.

The Topp Twins — born Julie and Lynda Bethridge Topp on 14 May 1958 in Huntly to a Waikato dairy-farming family — built a four-decade career as the country's most-loved comic singing duo, with characters including Camp Mother and Camp Leader, Ken and Ken, and the Bowling Ladies. They busked on Auckland's Queen Street in the early 1980s, performed at the protests against the 1981 Springbok tour, and recorded songs that became part of the political playbook of nuclear-free New Zealand. The 2009 documentary feature The Topp Twins, Untouchable Girls broke domestic box-office records and won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Both sisters were appointed Dames Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours. They were inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame in 2008. The twins received the 2026 Country Music Honours for Contribution to New Zealand Country Music at the Country Music Honours in Gore on Friday May 22 — the night before Dame Jools died. [2] Dame Lynda described the loss in the family statement as "deep sorrow and unimaginable grief." [3] The death of Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini the same weekend means two senior cultural figures of comparable institutional reach are being mourned in one news cycle.

-- CHARLES ASHFORD, London