ALICE ON THE LINE

Ken Ferguson

Stone and iron, wood and thatch
A stockyard and a cabbage patch
Smiling faces from the dawn of time
So this is our home.

Cool verandah, hitching rail
The Stuart Arms could tell a tale
Willis’s, Raggat’s, a home or two
Six house town.

From The Gap to Middle Park, I would go riding with the moon
The hills and stars would take my breath away
And every night the parlour song, the piano just in tune
We’d sing to bed another golden day.

The black men from the camp are working for us on the line
The women in our house become our friends
But it grieves my heart to see, whatever they’ve done wrong
Them dragged off south, neck-to-neck in chains.

Chorus :
The midday sun has drained the colour from your face
But there are garlands of wild flowers in your hair
Powder up your cheeks with the red, red sands of time
That’s how I remember Alice on the Line.

Hill and gully, rock and sand
Silence shrouds the empty land
Stillness hard to understand
Here comes the rain.

Flooding Todd, frothing brown
Lifeline, blood of Stuart town
Green shoots starting from the ground
Born again.

My mother bore four children here without a doctor’s hand
My father had to wield a surgeon’s lance
My brother Mort, like all of us, cherished by this land
Now lies beneath the battlefields of France.

Chorus
I always will remember, Alice on the Line.


Written in 1987 by KEN FERGUSON (died 2009 – see Mudcat Obit). He was one of the Folk Scene’s “singing geologists”, who came from Inverness in Scotland, but also shared his music in Australia from Tasmania to Perth and Alice Springs to Beyond.
Well-remembered here for his co-writing of “Folk Operas” e.g.
“The Singing Wire” with Alice Springs band Bloodwood, re the construction of the Overland Telegraph – and from which this song comes,
and “Franklin” with Tony Phipps, on the life of the lost Arctic explorer and former Van Dieman’s Land governor, Sir John Franklin,
and “Working Man’s Paradise” also with Tony Phipps, re William Lane and the Australian colony in Paraguay.   
Plus, his presence in bands like Blackthorn, McCool and Facial Expressions.

This song can be heard on Ken’s 1997 CD “Basic Blue” (13 tracks), but sadly, I haven’t found it online yet. :(

The story of the engineering feat that was the 2000 mile (3200kms) North-South Overland Telegraph in Australia is here : https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/overland-telegraph   
Soon after completion in 1872, it was also linked to the newly completed Java-Darwin submarine cable – and the world shrank yet again!!
Some books of interest which detail the story of the region and the Overland Telegraph [OTL] include :
ALICE SPRINGS -From Singing Wire to Iconic Outback Town : Stuart Traynor, 2016 and ALICE ON THE LINE : Doris Blackwell nee Bradshaw with Douglas Lockwood, 1965 (and which inspired this song).

Known as Mparntwe to the indigenous Arrernte people, Alice Springs (called Stuart until 1933), is the town of the Red Centre of Australia, on the banks of the Todd River (which is most often dry!)
and the many regional popular events include The Camel Cup / the Henley-on Todd Regatta / the Finke Desert Race / The Beanie Festival. https://alicespringstelegraphstation.com.au/


R-J