Shearing At Wargundy (1944)
It was somewhere in the country,
In a land of rock and scrub,
We formed an institution
Called "Wargundy Shearing Club."
They were wild and woolly shearers,
As the rouseabouts would say ;
They had very little talent,
But a mighty lot of pay.
Now Bob and Fitz walked up the board,
With Harry in the rear.
Bob said, "Well now, my bonny boys,
I'll teach you how to shear."
He grabbed a woolly monster,
And dragged him to the deck--
He knocked aside the belly wool
And then flew up the neck.
There stood Reg on No. 3 stand,
Grasping the machine in his long bony hand ;
Fixed is his gaze on a bare-bellied ewe ;
Thinks, "If I get her, I'll make old Bob go."
Clive Mac. is the boss,
The best I've seen yet,
For he don't give a damn
Be the sheep dry or wet.
Now, move along, you penner-up,
And shove the sheep along ;
For Tuckey is bringing them
A couple of hundred strong.
Now, Wally is the classer,
A shearer used to be,
And to see him in his white coat,
You would think he was Frank Lee.
Young Leo is the piece picker,
A gallant lad, no doubt ;
He'll sit and gaze and wonder
While the wool lies all about.
The picker-up, a jolly chap,
He's always on his feet;
Is always in a hurry,
And very hard to beat.
Now, Jack, he is a goer,
He can press a bale, no doubt ;
But as for poor old Frankie,
He's all his time flat out.
We've told you all about the team
And the way they knock them out,
So now we'll roll our blueys
And shift to stations further out.
THE TALBRAGAR CUSSES.
Notes
From the NSW Newspaper the Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative Thursday 21 September 1944 p. 19.
It is interesting that this Second World War shearing song makes use of verses and phrases from earlier songs:
Grasping the machine in his long bony hand ;
Fixed is his gaze on a bare-bellied ewe ;
Thinks, "If I get her, I'll make old Bob go."
borrows from the earliest version of "Click Go the Shears";
So now we'll roll our blueys
And shift to stations further out.
borrows from Banjo Paterson's "Old Jig Jog."
Wargundy is close to the Western NSW town Dunedoo.