Gday MMario,

The Maryborough Miner shares a tune, as well as a lot of its structure with The Murrimbidgee Shearer, which was in 'Banjo' Paterson's 1905 edition of Old Bush Songs, his book of collected material.

AL Lloyd apparently wrote to Brad Tate, a NSW collector, that he collected this version from Bob Bell, of Condobolin, NSW, in 1934. This was in his youth, in a period when he stated in another letter, to John Meredith in the 1960s, that he was not yet doing formal collecting - merely hearing songs while he worked out here in some sort of Commonwealth assistance scheme.

I take this to mean that he remembered the song when he saw the material that passed to the EFDSS in the '50s ... and reconstructed his memories of this song from his past ... in much the same way that he was recreating an English repertoire from assorted UK sources at much the same time.

Anyway, The Murrumbidgee Sheareris the other Australian song that has the same tune ... but there is probably a British ancestor to it ... and I would be interested to see if anyone identifies it.

Regards,

Bob Bolton