Monday - wow! No Itis

Came home from a weekend of work and relaxation in Sydney town. Oh Joy! an e-mail telling me a crossword puzzle I had compiled is going to be published by Australian Puzzler. For that effort, I get $50 and the hope that its readers would have a crack at my work. Still no news on my little Feelgood: "He Said She Said.

Okay! here's today's effort.; A ghost story. Allaine, make sure your huster, kids, cyber and bricks 'n mortar doggies are safe - this is sc........ary. I think :)

WALTZING MATILDA - THE TRUTH

JOLLY SWAGMAN EXPOSED

Having sang my heart out with Waltzing Matilda over the past week or so I got to thinking about the origin of the song – purists say Banjo Paterson wrote the song in 1895 and was put to music with an old Scottish air Craigielea.

Banjo just might of got it wrong – then it is a fair distance from Bathurst to Orange by foot, via Lucknow and messages have a way of getting garbled.

Here's a bedtime story for you, Oh yes. Later I'll reveal Australia's best kept secret.

It was a dark and stormy night (Dammit, I will use that sentence). The rain hammered down and the window wipers of my Toyota Camry Station Wagon worked overtime to keep the windscreen free.

I had just finished the late night radio shift and was heading home. An earlier traffic accident had closed the main highway and I was forced to drive home along Durham Creek Road.

As the wipers beat out their "tackata tackata", I was reminded of Walter Mitty and in my mind I pictured himself as a hero, saving our mayor, Councillor Ian Mann (I'd have rather it was Kathy Knowles) from the ravages of drunken, marauding Koalas, which infested Machattie Park.

But being a romantic my mind wandered and I found myself as a Confederate Captain. Holding back a battalion of Yankee infantry to save the plantation and house of Miz Honeydoll Beauregarde. (If you're from North of the MD Line - then the alternative is yours)

Cut to an Anzac Private saving his CO from a blistering Turkish attack and winning a VC, and a kiss from the Resident Redhead.

It was the figure standing by the bridge at Durham Creek, all luminous and shimmery, which brought me back to reality.

"Sensible bloke" said I to himself -" using reflectors as a traffic warning, I'll ask him if he wants a lift - anyone would on a night like this."

I pulled the vehicle over, wound down the window. "Hey mate, too bloody wet to go walking, want a lift?

"Yair mate" he replied. I opened the car door and the man got in.
I looked him up and down.

The man was dressed like what could only be described as a swagman: floppy hat, moleskins, bowyangs, and a tattered weskit. A rolled blanket was strapped to his back and hanging from it a billy can.

"Where are you off too"? I asked.

"Anywhere mate - not too many people stop for me. I've been humpin' me bluey here for nigh on a 'undred years. Anyone who meets me gets scared shitless. Ya see - I'm a ghost."

I smiled. "Eccentric old fella" I thought, "Harmless enough though."

"Ya 'ear me mate, I'm a ghost, ya s'posed ter stop this 'ere 'orseless carriage an run screamin' down the road. Aren't ya scared mate? Want me to do a couple of moans ter convince yer."

"Not necessary", I said. "Look, there's an all night servo and café a couple of klicks down the road, let's go in for a coffee, I'll shout (treat) you to a meal.


"Cawfee! That bloody foreign muck. No mate a good cuppa tea and an ' some syrup on a damper's good enough for me.

Can't take this new-fangled stuff, I've 'eard talk of 'amburgers 'an fried chicking - only 'appened since the govmint let in the bloody foreigners."

I pulled the car into the service station parking lot.

"Now mate, I'll get you a cuppa and some cake. Let's go."

"Not going' in there mate." Said the swaggie. "Jeez mate aren't ya even a bit scared?"

"Sorry mate" I replied. "I don't believe in ghosts for one thing and two I'm hungry and I'm looking forward to a good burger with the lot. So let's go."

"'Ang on a minute ya disbelievin' wacka. I am a ghost. I'm the ghost of the jolly swagman who was s'posed to 'ave dived into the billabong."

"Oh yes. C'mon mate. Banjo Patterson wrote that poem. It's now a national song- we call it Waltzing Matilda.

The swaggie groaned. "Bloody 'ell, 'e picked that up story when 'e was on the wallaby, 'e sold it to a bloody newspaper. Ya wanna 'ear the truth mate? Eighteen bloody ninety five was a mongrel of a year – I'll drum yer, mate."

"If you must," I replied now resigned to my fate.

"It ain't like the song says. Yairs I was jolly, an yairs I did camp be a billabong, an' yairs there were a coolibah tree.

But me pinchin' the jolly jumbuck, no ways mate. The jumbuck, great woolly idiot came down orright. 'E did drink at the billabong, but I did not stuff 'im inter me tucker bag. 'Ow the bloody 'ell can I stuff a full grown sheep inter a flamin bag big enough fer a hunk o' damper an' some small cuts o' mutton.

"It was the bloody squatter an' them coppers. The flamin' squatter an' them troopers came down orright, 1-2-3 in a bloody great cart. They knocked orf the jumbuck put it inter the cart an' then saw me.

"It was a no show mate, they 'ad guns an' I 'ad nuthin'. Bang an' it was curtains fer me. The mongrels tossed me in the billabong - I didn't dive in as Patterson reckons, I'm not stupid mate, nor can I swim.

So I gotta stay 'ere until I fix them bloody troopers or someone tells the real story an' mate, bein' a ghost I can't drink yer tea. Thanks fer offerin' an' mate, go and tell the real story eh?"

Then he was gone. Later I relayed the story to my own true love.

The Resident Redhead, half awoken from her sleep, murmured "Yes darling, whatever you say."

Aaah, but she wasn't there. But I still can't explain the rolled up blanket or black billy can she found in the car.

Now the secret. For years we've been wondering what was the name of the jolly swagman – well:

The name of the swagman...it was Andy.

Andy sang as he watched
Andy waited till the billy boiled..

Now some Aussiespeak:
Anzac - Australian and/or NZ soldier, derived from the WW1 acronym Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
Billabong - a creeek
Jumbuck - a sheep
Bluey - swag or backpack of blanket, change of socks etc.
On The Wallaby. Humping (as in carrying - okay:) ones Bluey - going on the lam.
Squatter - a land owner.