The Morning of the Fray/Eugowra Rocks

Trad?/McAlister



It's all about bold Frank Gardiner with the devil in his eye
He said "We've work before us lads we've got to do or die
So blacken up your faces before the dead of night
And its over by Eugowra Rocks we'll either fall or fight"

Chorus
You can sing of Johnny Gilbert Dan Morgan and Ben Hall
But the bold and reckless Gardiner he's the boy to beat them all

We'll stop the Orange escort with powder and with ball
We'll shoot the coach to pieces and we'll down the peelers all
We'll lift the diggers' money we'll collar all their gold
So mind your guns are killers now my comrades true and bold

So now off go the rifles the battle has begun
The escort started running boys all in the setting sun
The robbers seized their plunder so saucy and so bold
And they're riding from Eugowra Rocks encumbered with their gold

And as with savage laughter they left that fatal place
They cried "We've struck bonanza boys we've won the steeplechase!"
And Gardiner their leader he shouted a loud "Hooray
I think we've made our fortunes at Eugowra Rocks today"




Recorded by AL Lloyd. Originally published in "Old Pioneering Days in the Sunny South (1907), a limited 750 copy edition by Charles MacAlister, under the title The Morning of the Fray




From the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

GARDINER (CHRISTIE), FRANCIS (1830-1903?), bushranger, was born in Scotland, son of Charles Christie and his wife Jane, née Whittle. The family reached Sydney in the James in 1834 and settled at Boro near Goulburn. He went to Victoria and in October 1850 as Francis Christie was sentenced to five years' hard labour at Geelong for horse stealing. Next March he escaped from Pentridge gaol and returned to New South Wales. In March 1854 he was convicted as Francis Clarke at Goulburn on two charges of horse stealing and imprisoned on Cockatoo Island. In December 1859 he was given a ticket-of-leave for the Carcoar district, but broke parole and went south and by the end of 1860 as Frank Gardiner he had a butchery at Lambing Flat but skipped bail. Known as 'The Darkie', he began highway robbery on the Cowra Road. In July 1861 at a sly grog shop near Oberon he shot and wounded Sergeant John Middleton; Trooper Hosie was also wounded although allegedly bribed to let Gardiner escape.

Gardiner joined up with Johnny Piesley; after ranging the old Lachlan Road they moved to the Weddin Mountains and were joined by John Gilbert, Ben Hall and others. The police under Sir Frederick Pottinger could not catch the gang for it moved too rapidly aided by 'bush telegraphs'.

On 15 June 1862 at the Coonbong Rock near Eugowra Gardiner's gang held up the gold escort and got away with £14,000. Soon afterwards Gardiner, while visiting his mistress Kate, wife of John Brown of Wheogo, narrowly escaped from Pottinger. With her he went to Queensland where as Mr and Mrs Frank Christie they ran a store and shanty at Apis Creek near Rockhampton. In February 1864 he was traced by the New South Wales police and arrested. Tried for wounding Sergeant Middleton with intent to kill, he was acquitted by the jury but found guilty in July on two non-capital charges. Chief Justice (Sir) Alfred Stephen, gave him a cumulative sentence of thirty-two years' hard labour. In 1872 William Bede Dalley, who had defended Gardiner, organized petitions to the governor to use his prerogative of mercy. Sir Hercules Robinson decided that Gardiner had been harshly sentenced and in 1874 released him subject to his exile. This decision provoked a public controversy with petitions, counter-petitions and violent debates in the Legislative Assembly, and led to the fall of Parkes's government.

On 27 July Gardiner embarked for Hong Kong and by February 1875 was in San Francisco where he ran the Twilight Saloon. The press continued to note his activities, including his death in Colorado about 1903, but most reports were unsubstantiated.

Blue Murder

Alistair Hulett



They say it's easy money
A full page ad in the local rag,
Always nice and sunny.
Come on lad, and pack your bag.

Day in, day out, everyday they drive us harder.
Day in, day out, they're getting away with blue murder.

It's off to West Australia.
Leave the old hometown behind.
Be a winner, not a failure.
There's money to be made in the Wittenoom Mine.

Day in, day out, everyday they drive us harder.
Day in, day out, they're getting away with blue murder.

They took me to my quarters,
A stinking bed in an old tin shed.
Got my working orders,
With a lamp, and tin hat on my head.

Day in, day out, everyday they drive us harder.
Day in, day out, they're getting away with blue murder.

My girl she's a cook and a cleaner.
Works all day in the canteen hall.
Six days since I've seen her.
Some don't have no girl at all.

Day in, day out, everyday they drive us harder.
Day in, day out, they're getting away with blue murder.

Sweeps the fine blue dust up.
Tips it into an old wool pack.
Never had a check-up.
If she did she'd get the sack

Day in, day out, everyday they drive us harder.
Day in, day out, they're getting away with blue murder.

I feel my health is failing
Working down in the thick blue dust.
The kids play in the tailings.
The boss says work, and work I must.

Day in, day out, everyday they drive us harder.
Day in, day out, they're getting away with blue murder.


The late Alistair Hulett's classic song about the mining of blue asbestos in Western Australia. Considered by some to have been Australia's greatest industrial disaster, thousands of miners were exposed to lethal concentrations of asbestos dust in the course of their work. While no deaths were recorded in the ten years following their employment, 85 deaths from malignant mesothelioma were reported between 1976 and 1985. You can read more here.

Shores of Botany Bay

Trad.



Well, I'm on my way down to the quay
Where the good ship now doth lay
To command a gang of navvies
I was ordered to engage
I thought I would stop in for a while
Before I sailed away
For to take a trip on an immigrant ship
To the shores of Botany Bay


Chorus:
Farewell to your bricks and mortar
Farewell to your dirty lime
Farewell to your gangway and gang planks
And to Hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin
She's lying at the quay
For to take old Pat with a shovel on his back
To the shores of Botany Bay

The best years of our life we spend at
Working on the docks
Building mighty wharves and quays
Of earth and ballast rocks
Though pensions keep our jobs secure
I shan't rue the day
When I take a trip on an immigrant ship
To the shores of Botany Bay

Well, the boss comes up this morning
And he says, "Why, Pat, hello
If you do not mix the mortar quick
To be sure you'll have to go"
Well, of course he did insult me
I demanded all me pay
And I told him straight I was going to emigrate
To the shores of Botany Bay

When I reach Australia
I'll go and search for gold
There's plenty there for digging up
Or so I have been told
Or maybe I'll go back to me trade
Eight hundred bricks I'll lay
For an eight hour shift and an eight bob pay
On the shores of Botany Bay

A song that I learnt at school and which I later performed with Alan Salmon and Contraband, busking on the Brisbane mall. The Australian Folk Songs site has it as collected by John Meredith from Duke Tritton, who learnt it while busking.

Bold Tommy Payne

Jack Crossland.






I'll tell you a story, it's sad but it's true,
Of the wild pigs where I come from and the damage they do.
There once was a farmer called Bold Tommy Payne
Who grew some sweet Pindar and Q.50 cane.

It was late in the evening an old boar he came,
And he started a-dining on Bold Tommy's cane,
So up stepped Bold Tommy, the fire in his eye,
He cursed and he swore that the old boar must die.

He reached for his rifle that stood by the door,
And he called for his pig-dogs, and they came by the score.
Then down to the caneflelds, all dressed for the fray
In waistcoat and trousers, Bold Tom made his way.

As he stood on the headland and gazed all around
He heard the cane cracking, and he heard a strange sound.
As the big boar came charging straight for Bold Tom,
The dogs were all barking and the battle was on!

Up stepped Bold Tommy, six feet in the air,
As he straddled the porker he heard his pants tear,
Well, you should have heard the language and the words of Bold Tom
When he found to his sorrow his trousers were gone.

Now out in old Smithfield where the Pindar it grows,
The folks tell the story and they ought to know;
How up on Black Mountain that old boar resides,
And they say that he's still wearing Bold Tommy's strides!


Based on a a true story.

The New Chum's Lament

Trad.
Tune: The Drops of Brandy





I'm out in Australia at last.
But I heartily wish I was back again
My cash is now running out fast,
Or else I'd be off in a crack again.
Since the day I left home to come here.
Misfortune has always attended me:
And if I stay longer I fear
This country will soon put an end to me.

At first I thought all was serene.
That the folks out here nothing did know at all:
I fancied they seemed rather queer.
That they neither could "gas" nor could "blow" at all.
But alas! I found out my mistake;
For they proved to be most artful dodgers
I found they were all wide awake.
And regular "downy" old codgers.

I'd scarcely set foot in the place:
From the vessel I'd been but an hour off:
On the pier, right before my own face.
Some thieves with my boxes did scour off.
I loudly called for the police;
At length appeared one Seargent Newsome;
I told him they'd stolen my valise,
Said he, "That's how they serve every new chum".

i joined with two chaps whom I met
Who were very good hands at gold digging.,
But old habits they couldn't forget,
For I bowl'd them out one day a-prigging.
This opened my eyes to their game.
Although I said nothing about it
And yet I must own 'twas a shame,
And what honest person would doubt it?

When we'd been on the diggings a week,
We put down a twenty foot shicer,
Provisions were dear on the creek,
And my tin had run out in a trice, sir.
Then seeing that my cash was all spent
Perhaps you may doubt my sad story,
They sold both my tools and my tent
And left me alone in my glory.

And now as they'd bolted away
To wind up the whole of the matter
No longer up here will I stay
Because I am now but a hatter
Every man has imposed upon me,
So all of you new chums now be advised
And do nothing rash do you see,
Until you've been thoroughly colonised.


From Ron Edward's Great Australian Folk Songs. Published in Hodgson's Colonial Songster around 1857.

The Broken-Down Squatter

Charles Augustus Flower

Come, Stumpy old man, we must shift while we can
All your mates in the paddock are dead
Let us wave our farewells to Glen Eva's sweet dells
And the hills where your lordship was bred
Together to roam from our drought-stricken home
It's tough that such things have to be
And it's hard on a horse to have nought for a boss
But a broken-down squatter like me

Chorus
For the banks are all broken they say
And the merchants are all up a tree
When the big-wigs are brought
To the Bankruptcy Court
What hope for a squatter like me

No more shall we muster the river for fats
Or spiel on the Fifteen Mile Plain
Or rip through the scrub by the light of the moon
Or see the old stockyard again
Leave the slip-panels down, it won't matter much now
There are none but the crows left to see
Perching gaunt on yon pine, as though longing to dine
On a broken-down squatter like me

When the country was cursed with the drought at its worst
And the cattle were dying in scores
Though down on my luck, I kept up my pluck
Thinking justice might temper the laws
But the farce has been played, and the Government aid
Ain't extended to squatters, old son
When my money was spent, they doubled the rent
And resumed the best half of the run

'Twas done without reason, for leaving the season
No squatter could stand such a rub
For it's useless to squat when the rents are so hot
That you can't save the price of your grub
And there's not much to choose 'twixt the banks and the screws
Once a fellow gets put up a tree
No odds what I feel, there's no Court of Appeal
For a broken-down squatter like me

The recording presented here is from the cloudstreet recording, The Circus of Desires and features Nicole Murray on harmony vocals and octave fiddle.

Charles Flower was a relatively-wealthy property owner on the Darling Downs in the late 19th century. While his own wealth survived, he was moved by the plight of farmers forced to leave their properties in the depression of 1890. This song was first published in 1894.

Another Fall of Rain

Words: John Neilson
Tune: Trad (Little Log Cabin in the Dell)






The weather has been sultry for a fortnight now or more
And the shearers have been driving might and main
For some have got the century who ne'er got it before
But now we all are waiting for the rain

Chorus
For the boss is getting rusty and the ringer's caving in
His bandaged wrist is aching with the pain
And the second man I fear will make it hot for him
Unless we have another fall of rain

Now some had taken quarters and were keeping well in bunk
When we shore the six-tooth wethers from the plain
And if the sheep get harder then a few more men will flunk
Unless we have another fall of rain

Some cockies come here shearing they would fill a little book
About this sad dry weather for the grain
But here is lunch a-coming make way for Dick the cook
Old Dick is nigh as welcome as the rain

But the sky is clouding over and the thunder's muttering loud
And the clouds are sweeping westward o'er the plain
And I see the lightning flashing round the edge of yon black cloud
And I hear the gentle patter of the rain

So, lads, put up your stoppers and let us to the hut
Where we'll gather round and have a friendly game
While some are playing music and some play ante up
And some are gazing outwards at the rain.

But now the rain is over let the pressers spin the screw
Let the teamsters back their wagons in again
We'll block the classer's table by the way we push them through
For everything goes merry since the rain.

So its "Boss bring out the bottle" and we'll wet the final flock
For the shearers here may never meet again
Well some may meet next season and some not even then
And some they will just vanish like the rain

Final Chorus
And the boss he won't be rusty when his sheep they all are shore
And the ringer's wrist won't ache much with the pain
Of pocketing his cheque for a hundred quid or more
And the second man will press him hard again


These lyrics are from Mark Gregory's Australian Folk Songs site and include Dave De Hugard's variation of the chorus.