G'day again,

freda: I think Sydney singer / songwriter / tunesmith Phyl Lobl has done a very good job of editing Henry Lawson's long verse down to a singable length (I think it's on her CD Alcyone) ... and she set a tune to it. I'll scan in the edited song version and post it ... sometime!

fergie: I'll check to see if I have the tune in a book ... I certainly know the song well, but that's by osmosis! If you can't get a published version, you can PM me and I can send a scan of the appropriate page - or an image from a setting in my music program.

I have a song I wrote ... based on the fact that the Southern-English-collected song The Isle de France, which has a peripheral connection with the convict era in Australia, was half-collected in Australia. John Manifold found a woman who knew the tune from her father, who sang a version about a convict sailing "home" after release, but being shipwrecked on the south coast of Victoria ... from where he made his way to the Goldfields and was involved in the Eureka Uprising. Manifold's Penguin Australian Songbook has the tune with the English-collected words. As there has never been any subsequent trace of this Australian version ... I wrote my own, using the known tune (and we used to sing it in Selectors Bush Band).

It might be worth a look (if I dig it out quickly enough, I might sing it at the "James Craig" Shanty session (probably not tonight!).

Regards,

Bob Bolton