Wave Jackson got the idea for the song after Mustering on Darkwater west of Injubne and at a 21st birthday party for Ted Farndon.

    The Farndon's were contract musterers and were good horsemen and scrubber runners and were often hired to remove wild cattle from properties and paid so much a head for their work. During the party Wave recalled how Ted described one episode of the muster as he swung his arms about.
"We bulged them through the timber and swept them down the plain" and that triggered in my mind some lyrics for a song. It wasn't till much later though that I finally wrote "Once When I Was Mustering" and it was recorded by Slim Dusty in 1959.


Merv Webster