The Maryborough Miner [ Roud - ; AFS 58 ; Ballad Index FaE078 ; trad.] From Mainly Norfolk

A.L. Lloyd collected The Maryborough Miner from Bob Bell in Condolin in 1934. It is a mining version of Murrumbidgee Shearer which was printed in Paterson's Old Bush Songs. Lloyd sang it in 1956 on his Riverside album Australian Bush Songs and in 1958 for the Wattle LP Across the Western Plains and he commented in the latter album's sleeve notes:

The great gold rushes which began in the 1850's developed a self-reliant class of men. Among the most admirable were the men who raised the flag of stars at Eureka Stockade in 1954 against oppressive authority. Among the least admirable were those who were prepared to get their gold at the point of a pistol, if they couldn't get it by the point of a pick. But often it was hard to tell the best from the worst among the diggers, as with the genial old rascal of this song. Of the Victorian township of Maryborough, Mark Twain said it was a “railway station with a town attached.” The people of Maryborough replied: “Even Mark Twain has to pay tribute to our impressive railway station.” (Some say that the railways people got their plans mixed, and that the station they built at Maryborough had been designed for the centre of Melbourne.)

Come all you sons of liberty and listen to my song:
I'll tell you my observations and it won't take very long.
I've fossicked around this continent, five thousand miles or more,
And many's the time I might have starved but for the cheek I bore.

I've been on all the diggings, boys, from famous Ballarat,
I've long-tommed on the Lachlan, and I've fossicked Lambing Flat.
So you can understand, my boys, just from my little rhyme,
I'm a Maryborough miner, and I'm one of the good old time.

The Miner

The miner he goes and changes his clothes, And then makes his way to the shaft
For each man well knows he's going below,To put in his eight hours of graft

Chorus
With his calico cap and his old flannel shirt, His pants with the strap round the knee
His boots watertight and his candle alight, His crib and his billy of tea

The platman to the driver will knock four and one, The ropes to the windlass will strain
As one shift comes up, another goes down, And working commences again

He works hard for his pay at six bob a day, He toils for his missus and kids
He gets what's left over and thinks he's in clover, To cut off his 'baccy in quids

And thus he goes on, week in and week out, To toil for his life's daily bread
He's off to the mine, hail, rain or shine, That his dear ones at home may be fed

Digging holes in the ground where there's gold to be found, And most times where gold it is not
A man's like a rabbit with this digging habit, And like one, he ought to be shot

Notes; 'The Miner' comes from the later period of gold mining after the alluvial gold was exhausted. It's a song about deep shaft gold mining and this version was collected in 1959 by Norm O'Connor and Maryjean Officer from Mrs. R. Sayers, Bulumwaal, Gippsland. Ron Edwards collected two versions one in 1965 from Mrs T. Jenkins in Cairns and one in Fruitgrove, Qld in 1970 from Tony Davis.

The Miner Words and MIDI