John, it's taken a while but here it is!

------------------------------------------------------

The Basic Wage Dream

I dreamed a doctor told a judge
from the arbitration court,
that he would only live to preside
on one more case being fought.
The judge, whose concience was ill at ease,
thought, "If this case will be my last,
to hand down a fair decision
might make up for my unjust past."

The very next case that was to come before
this very worried sage,
was a request to raise by fifty two bob,
the weekly basic wage.
The old chap granted the raise in full
and to assure his place in heaven,
made the payment retrospective
to nineteen hundred and seven.

On the first pay day after the trial
I couldn't believe my luck.
The paymaster brought my wages out
on a fork lift truck.
I dreamed we got paid on a Friday
and on that lovely night,
Mayne Nickless sent out an armoured car
to get me home all right.

On the way we stopped at the R.S.L.
and as I walked inside,
a poker machine took a look at my pay
and committed suicide.
I turned around as I heard a man behind me softly speak.
It was Dr. Coombs trying to borrow a quid
to see him through the week.

Then the alarm went off and I recall,
as I was waking up,
how people dream they saw the horse
that won the Melbourne Cup,
but they can't remember what number it was.
Well, my dream was just the same,
for I can't for the very life of me
remember that judge's name.

Written 1963. From "A Quiet Century: 100 songs and poems" by Don Henderson, published 1994 by Sally Henderson and the Queensland Folk Federation, PO Box 840, Nambour, Queensland, Australia.

Cheers, Tony.