G'day Teribus,

Christina was visiting her brother's sheep station (property) Dagworth, in Queensland ... up for an holiday from Warrnambool, in Victoria, where she lived ... and where she had heard a sprightly band arrangement of Craigielea, the year before. She noodled out the tune on the station accountant's autoharp and Paterson asked if had any words. She didn't know of them (brass bands don't usually sing!) ... so he came up with the words now known as Waltzing Matilda (the poem version, not the Marie Cowan re-arrangement). Christina wrote out several copies, music and words, and handed them out to family and friends.

There is a lot of suggestion that this was much more than an idle gesture by 'Banjo': Paterson's 7-year engagement, to an old school chum of Christina's, broke up after this event ... and the papers of the McPherson women suggest they acquired the opinion Paterson was ".. a bit of a cad ...". He may have been making a line for Christina ... or he may have been dropping hints that Bob McPherson's involvement in the "suicide" (by revolver shot, near Combo Waterhole [billabong]) of Hoffmeister - the shearer who set fire to the Dagworth woolshed - may have been more than just presiding over the coronial inquest.

The use of the distinctively "German" term 'Waltzing Matilda' (from auf die walz ... mit Mathilde) may have been a deliberate pointer to the German identity of the swagman. Several of Paterson's later poems seem to contain some degree of "dig" at the McPherson clan ... I don't think they parted friends! (This is about where Denis O'Keefe's research partnership with Richard Magoffin foundered. Magoffin was just looking for a nice, believable account of the origins of a pleasant little song - not murder, perjury and lust ... no wonder he has troubles with folksingers!

Regards,

Bob Bolton