G'day All,

Anglo: I play mostly traditional dances on the Anglos (although my main instrument is button accordion, these days since The Backblocks Musicians have three other concertina players ... my wife, Patricia who plays (my previous favourite) 22 key Anglo, Sue who plays a 38 key Lachenal and Ralph who plays a 56 key Triumph/Crane duet as well as fiddle.

Callie: A powder monkey is the explosives expert on a construction site, (probably inherited from British Navy usage for the lad who loaded gunpowder into the cannon.) They are not always good people to live next to ... Back in 1966, when I was working on Meadowbank Hydro Dam in Tasmania, the powder monkey lived in the diagonal adjacent hut. It was long after I left that site that I found out that he was scrounging all the spare gelignite and keeping it under his hut - until he had 3 or 4 cases to sell on the black market ... !

'Duke' had already been bitten by the gold bug before the depression and, when he worked on 'Sustenance' jobs, like the infamous Sandy Hollow Railway Line, he got the job of "powder monkey" because of his experience with explosives.

I just checked the DigiTrad, and I notice that Duke's song The Sandy Hollow Line is not there ... so, perhaps, I should post that as well.

Regards,

Bob Bolton