Norman Brown

Words:  Dorothy Hewett
Tune:  Traditional (Bold Nelson's Praise)



There was a very simple man,
Honest and quiet, yet he became
The mate of every working man,
And every miner knows his name.

CHORUS
Oh Norman Brown, oh Norman Brown
The murderin' coppers they shot him down,
They shot him down in Rothbury town,
A working man called Norman Brown.

"An honest man," the parson said,
And dropped the clods upon his head,
But honest man or not, he's dead
And that's the end of Norman Brown.

Coal bosses wiped their hands and sighed,
"It is a pity that he died."
It will inflame the countryside,
And all because of Norman Brown.

At pit-top meetings and on strike
In every little mining town,
When miners march for bread and rights
There marches honest Norman Brown.

He thunders at the pit-top strike,
His voice is in the women's tears,
With banner carried shoulder-high
He's singing down the struggling years.

A miner's pick is in his hand,
His song is shouted through the land,
A land that's free and broad and brown,
The land that bred us Norman Brown.

Last chorus
Oh Norman Brown, oh Norman Brown,
The murderin' coppers they shot him down.
They shot him down in Rothbury town,
To live forever ... Norman Brown.



With thanks to Tony Suttor.  Recorded on the 1974  album, Man of the Earth- Songs and Ballads of the Australian Mining Industry.


Norman Brown, aged 29 was killed and forty-five others were injured by police in 1929 during what becam known as the Rothbury Riot.  These notes from Wikipedia:

In 1929 colliery owners on the Northern New South Wales coalfields combined as the Northern Collieries Association. On Thursday 14 February 1929 the mine employers gave their 9,750 employees 14 days notice, that they (the miners) should accept the following new conditions:


"A wage reduction of 12½ per cent on the contract rates, one shilling ($0.10) a day on the "day wage" rate; all Lodges must give the colliery managers the right to hire and fire without regard to seniority; all Lodges must agree to discontinue pit-top meetings and pit stoppages".


The miners refused to accept these terms, and on Saturday 2 March 1929, all miners were "locked out" of their employment.


In September 1929, the NSW State Parliament introduced an Unlawful Assembly Act designed to suppress the miners, which authorised police to break up any gatherings.


During December 1929 about 4,000 miners were demonstrating against the introduction of non-union labour into the Rothbury mine by the conservative Thomas Bavin State Government who had taken over the colliery. The State Government called in 400 officers from the New South Wales Police from other districts to protect the colliery and allow the entry of non-union labour. On the morning of 16 December the miners had marched to the mine gate led by a pipe band. When the miners charged the gate, they were met by baton charges by the police and hand to hand clashes. Then the police drew their revolvers and shot into the crowd.



This from the Barrier Miner newspaper, 18 December 1930, reporting on the unveiling of the monument to Norman Brown depicted above:

Special trains brought about 2500 men to West Maitland to-day for the unveiling of the monument to the memory of Norman Brown, who was fatally shot in the Rothbury riot last year: A mass meeting had been arranged to follow the ceremony. There was an absence of violence. A brief service was conducted at the Greta Church-of England and at the monument.


Mr. T. Hoare, the miners' northern president, delivered an abusive address before the unveiling of the
monument. His remarks displeased a large section of the crowd.

Sailor Home From The Sea

Words: Dorothy Hewett
Music: Martyn Wyndham-Read



Oh Cock of the North with a dream in his hand
My love has come home to this beautiful land
He bursts through the door with his eyes like the sun
And his kitbag crammed full of the treasures he's won

A coral from Broome and a tall Darwin tale
A pearl and a clam and the jaws of a whale
My kitchen is filled with the smell of the sea
And the leaping green fishes my love brings to me

Oh tumble your treasures from Darwin and Broome
And fill with their glory this straight little room
With the sun of the morning ablaze on his chest
My love has come home from the north of north-west

And deep in our bed we'll lie and we'll be
We'll kiss and we'll listen to the rain on the sea
Warm as the summer, we've lived winter long
My love has come home like King Solomon's song


From Martyn Wyndham-Read's 1973 LP, Harry The Hawker is Dead..


These notes from the folkcatalogue blog:

The poem, by Australian communist poetess Dorothy Hewett, was published in 1963, MW-R wrote the tune “back in about 1964” and played it to audiences in Britain on his return in 1967.

Some time after it morphed into a song called Cock of the North, a staple in the repertoire of Finbar and Eddie Furey. MW-R explains the, erm, folk process:

“I well remember singing my tune to Sailor Home From The Sea into Eddie Furey’s tape recorder circa late 1960′s and then in the early ’70′s being on tour in Germany and staying at Willy Schwenken’s house,” he recalled. “Willy made records of the vinyl variety and also had an extensive collection. While browsing through some of these I saw that there was a recording of the Furey’s live concert at some hall.

“One of the tracks was I think Cock of The North. So, being curious, I played that track, sure enough it was Sailor Home From The Sea having been, as Bob Bolton so accurately describes as ‘being painted green’, something about having learnt the song from their grandmother and it was all about gun running, to be honest I am not too sure about this bit being on the actual record but I am sure that I have heard them introduce it this way.

“One thing I am sure of is that each time I have seen Eddie and asked him about this he has always had a pressing engagement in a different direction.”

Weevils in the Flour

Words: Dorothy Hewett
Tune: Mark Leydon (1965)





On an island in a river
How that bitter river ran
I grew on scraps of charity
In the best way that you can
On an island in a river
Where I grew to be a man.

Chorus:
For dole bread is bitter bread
Bitter bread and sour.
There's grief in the taste of it
There's weevils in the flour
There's weevils in the flour.

And just across the river
Stood the mighty BHP.
Poured pollution on the water
All the lead of misery
And its smoke was black as hades
Rolling hungry to the sea.
In those humpies by the river
We lived on dole and stew
While just across the water
Those greedy smokestacks grew
And the hunger of the many
Filled the bellies of the few.

On an island in a river
How that bitter river ran
It broke the banks of charity
And baked the bread of man
On that island in a river
Where I grew to be a man.

For dole bread is bitter bread
There's weevils in the flour
But men grow strong as iron upon
That black bread and sour.



I first heard this song being sung by Phil Brown at the New Exchange Hotel in Brisbane in around 1982.