Thanks Malcolm I hadn't found that one. Indeed the Billy Barlow songs are a wonderful way to view the world of the 19th century, being as they were topical songs. That's why I became hooked in the first place. (I'm sorry this all became a slanging match because that doesn't help. I'm still stinging from the original barb) About regional differences - no they weren't all that apparent in the cities during the period of Billy Barlow's heyday. Billy was an urban character. He didn't become isolated in remote places like the Australian outback or the American mountains. In the cities people were at great pains to keep up-to-date. Ladies waited at the docks for the next shipment of Paris and London gowns, for the new load of song-sheets and newspapers. Stephen Foster's songs were barely dry from the printer when fast Yankee clipper ships had them in Sydney. They were already in the British Isles. Remember that the period of greatest immigration to Australia happened at the same time as Billy became so popular. Fashions swept the English-speaking world. The language differences were very minor. Stone the crows mate Q you're putting a modern slant on a 19th-century character. Who now has a strange mixture of fact and fiction.