G'day Teribus,

A Bushman's Song, by Paterson is well known in Australia - generally called Travelling Down the Castlereagh. It is, of course, described as a song ... and works well as one. A lot of people contend that this isn't "really" one of Banjo's poems ... well, he did collect and re-publish - and this appears first in the context of a story ... so that may be so (but Paterson gets a rather unfair reputation as a toff!).

I can't place the singer in Scotland ... but she probably did the Wallis & Matilda "Clancy" - it is pretty well known.

Paterson was in a very strong place to write a poem on the same theme as Wee Eric's As If He Knows. He went to WW I as a "remount Officer" - a contractor supplying fresh horses to replace worn out, lost or killed mounts. He must have felt the pain of the decision (to preserve quarantine and freedom from many equine diseases, here in Australia) to leave the horses behind - or shoot them - a thousand times over!

BTW: When Wee Eric left Sydney many years back - to live in cheaper Adelaide ... on the dubious returns of songwriting ... I presented him with a Sterling silver fob ornament, which (after slight emendment with my burin) now read: E. Bogle, Castlereagh!

Regards,

Bob Bolton