G'day Abby,

Well, there is no trace of The Gay Fusilier ... anywhere in collections until roughly WW 1 ... 20+ years after 'Banjo' Paterson cobbled up the words of Waltzing Matilda to fit Christina McPherson's remembered version of WS Barr's 1805 tune to Thou Bonnie Wood of Craigielea.

The chances of a 1701 song being totally missed by the fervour of folksong collection in the 18th - 20th centuries ... and then being remembered by several unrelated Australian families on the far side of the world and 2 centuries later - but all of them having had male relatives in the Boer War and WW 1 - strains more than mere credulity! The Gay Fusilier was, almost certainly, a short (one verse) parody flung together by British troops (either in South Africa or france) starting to get heartily tired of the Aussies singing Waltzing Matilda.

When the Aussies pinched that one back - well ... got around to singing it in beery gatherings with their mates at the the local R(eturned) Soldiers L(eague) ... their descendants decided it must be "really old" ... even before Peter Coe added his own pastiche.

Regards,

Bob Bolton