The World Championship (yes, there is one) began in Maryborough but it was Maryborough in Victoria, not Queensland and was part of the Golden Wattle Festival. The first championship was a very low key affair with only three entrants. It was put on as a floor show in the middle of a bush dance that we played for and I think it was 1976 but I don't have my books here. The local champion was a bloke called Charlie French if I remember rightly but he was beaten by a Queenslander who kept his leaves pressed in as book. He was a superb musician but there was a lot of argument after the event that his leaves by being dried were a reed which gave him an advantage. The rules were revised for the next year and a branch was brought in fresh from the bush and competitors had to pick a leaf from it to play. The same Queenslander won, hands down and after winning a third year, it was becoming so depressing for the other players that he retired and took up a position as one of the judges. For some reason, the championship moved to South Australia and now attracts many players and hundreds of spectators. I don't know who won this year mut my old mate Jeff Willmott from Warburton has won it a few times. I have to disagree with you Bob that it's not much like comb and paper. Anyone can play comb and paper as that is done by humming the tune like a kazoo. Gum leaf is like a cross between playing a clarinet without the mouthpiece, and whistling which is the sort of action needed to vary the notes. Despite years of Jeff trying to teach me, I still can't get a note out of a gum leaf. There is also a lot of debate about the Aboriginal history. According to Jeff, who has made a study of it, it's more likely that it stems from American miners bringing over their ability to play on a blade of grass and transferring it to the leaves. There doesn't seem to be any evidence for aboriginal playing in early Australia and it's more probable that they learned to do it from stockmen in the bush and took it on at first as a means of signalling and later as a means of producing white man's music. There were certainly many aboriginal virtuosos early in the last century. There's probably enough research for a doctorate if anyone's interested