G'day again Bill,

I am now home and have scanned in the words. I seem to remember that the song is usually attributed to "Tex" Morton, who certainly recorded a version. Meredith and Scott note, but do not cite, evidence that it is much older - as you will see from their notes, which I have retained.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

BTW: I am worried that you won with this song ... and can no longer remember it! Perhaps you hit the Resch's pilsener a bit hard at the time.

NED KELLY WAS BORN IN A RAMSHACKLE HUT (From Ked Kelly, After a Century of Acrimony, John Meredith and Bill Scott, Lansdowne Press, Sydney, 1980.

Ned Kelly was born in a ramshackle hut,
He battled since he was a kid,
He grew up with duffers and bad men and thieves
And learned all the things that they did.

Ned Kelly would ride from the back-country hills,
He'd ride into town like a lord,
He'd steal all the squatters' fine horses, and then
He would take them back for the reward.

At sixteen young Ned was a wild, reckless lad,
Helped hold up a coach without fear,
But he was arrested, remanded, and then,
They put him in gaol for a year.

When he came out, he was bitter and hard,
Far worse than he ever had been,
He robbed and he plundered, became a wild boy,
The wildest Australia had seen.

He shot down the troopers who came on his track,
And laughed at the price on his head,
Ten thousand pounds for the whole of the gang,
And two thousand pounds just for Ned.

The bank at Jerilderie next took his eye,
This job brought him lots of renown,
He wasn't contented to stick up the bank,
But he held up the whole flaming town.

Down at Glenrowan they held up the pub,
They were having a drink and a song,
The troopers rode up and surrounded the place,
The Kellys had waited too long.

Ned came out shooting, a gun in each hand,
And wearing his armour of steel,
He was fifteen times wounded before he fell down,
Never more would he plunder and steal.

They took him to Melbourne, and nursed him to health,
The Judge said, 'You're guilty!' to Ned,
A rope from a rafter, the sun in the east,
And the famous Ned Kelly was dead.

Some say he's a hero who gave to the poor,
While others 'A killer!' they say,
It just goes to show the old saying is true,
The saying that 'Crime does not pay.'

Yet when I look round at some people I know,
And the prices of things that I buy,
I say to myself, 'Well, perhaps after all,
Poor Ned wasn't such a bad guy.'

Compiled from the best verses of several variants collected from oral sources. More than one country-western singer has claimed authorship of this ballad, along with several other traditional songs such as 'Wild Rover', 'Bluey Brink', 'Wild Colonial Boy', etc., which were sung long before the claimants were born. However, its origin has been traced to the Darwin area, in the early part of this century.