Who is Banjo Paterson, Bush Poet

1. Waltzing Matilda of course! Infinitely preferable to God Save the Queen.

2. His Anglo Saxon style. His poetry is commonly alliterative verse, the poems develop an internal rhythm due to the repetition of consonants and vowels, an epic, heroic style reminiscent of Anglo Saxon verse.

Popular belief has Banjo writing the lyrics in 1895 at the Macpherson family Station in Queensland.

Christina Macpherson adapted the tune from one which she "had heard played by a band at the Races in Warrnambool" ...almost certainly the Scottish song 'Thou Bonnie Wood of Craigielea".

Styled in the form of a traditional song with a contrived union of melody and Scottish poetry, Craigielea is typical of many Scottish and Irish 'folk' airs arranged with piano accompaniment for the lesuired class in the 19th century.

An Irish Melody?
There are many who say the melody is Irish. Perhaps it's an old tune called 'Go to the Devil and Shake Yourself'. Indeed if the music is played, not as a march, but as a jig in 6/8 time, it's unmistakeably Irish.

German Origins?
many scholars believe that Waltzing Matilda refers to a German phrase, auf der walz, for going about the countryside practicing a new trade.

Young apprentices in those days traveled the country working under a master craftsman earning their living as they went - sleeping where they could. Waltzing Matilda said to tell the true story of a despondent German migrant who killed himself during the Great Shearers Strike of 1891.

The story of a swagman who steals a sheep and then drowns himself instead of surrendering to the law has never really gained friends in official circles.

Many Australians, however, regard the defiant stand against authority as part and parcel of a past penal colony and sing the praises of Waltzing Matilda with great gusto.

Originally called Pelican Waterhole, Winton in the heart of Queensland, is one of Australia's best known towns of the Outback.

Up until 10 years ago, Winton was known chiefly as the little town placed under martial law during the Great Shearers' Strike in the 1890s. An estimated 500 shearers had camped just south of town in a show of workers' solidarity.

The Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton opened in April 1998 as a permanent memorial to Banjo's work.

It includes a display re-creating the ghost who narrates the story of Waltzing Matilda, and many interactive displays and exhibitions.

Much of Banjo's early life was spent around horses, and his life-long love of horse-racing and polo is reflected in many of his poems. His pseudonym, "The Banjo", was the name of a racehorse his father had owned.

He was educated at the prestigious Sydney Grammar and on finishing school, became an articled clerk for a Sydney lawyer.

The first of many ballads he had published in The Bulletin (the top newspaper of the time, and still very influential) was El Mahdi to the Australian Troops, in February 1885. This was the beginning of a long and productive relationship with the newspaper.

Banjo's first book, "The Man from Snowy River" (1895), has sold more copies than any other book of Australian poetry.

In 1939 Banjo was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire). He died in 1941, just short of his 77th birthday, leaving a valuable heritage of enduring myths.

His vivid images, written with an obvious love of the bush, still have today a real sense of the townsman's longing.

And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of The Overflow.

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan years ago;
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just on spec, addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow."

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar);
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."

In my wild erratic fancy, visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush has friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plain extended,
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city,
Through the open window floating, spreads it foulness over all.

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street;
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me,and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal
But I doubt he's suit the office, Clancy, of The Overflow.

Vale, Banjo