The Happy Warrior

by Kerry B Collison

  On Progress

  Great blocks of glass and concrete rear up to strike your eye

  And cast an ugly silhouette against the northern sky;

  The Brisbane of my childhood has swiftly changed her face,

  Cast off her grace and beauty to become a barren place.

  Gone her shady awnings with their canvas gaily hung,

  Reduced to rag and matchwood when the wreckers hammer swung;

  Gone Cloudland and the Cecil, the Belle Veue and the ‘Cri’,

  To a generation’s mem’rys we bid a sad goodbye.

  As a lad of thirteen summers it seemed the grandest treat

  As with my mother and a brother I walked a city street

  To buy a Loyal from Wallace Bishop and lunch at an hotel:

  The former’s moved, the latter’s gone as this tale to you I tell.

  Yes, our city’s changed, but for the best, the pollies quickly say,

  We have buildings, towers and freeways to match Sydney any day;

  But Sydney had to pay the price when her building boom did start —

  That vibrant, bustling city, now owns a cold dead heart.

  Adelaide and Charters Towers have progressed but kept their looks,

  Perhaps we should have taken leaves from those two cities’ books;

  Progress need not mean destruction and a crane boom swinging high

  Bear that in mind when next the glass and concrete strikes your eye.

  Capt. Don Buckby

  * * *

  Australia in the 90s

  Forlorn our youthful country stands, despair upon her face,

  The hopes, the dreams her firstborn held, all dashed without a trace,

  Her population ageing, her economy in debt,

  By crashing market prices she is cruelly beset.

  Cast back her mind, just fifty years, her world was smiling then,

  Through expended blood and treasure she’d escaped the tyrants’ den

  The grind of the depression, was a distant mem’ry now,

  While the tensions of the Cold War had yet to crease her brow.

  How quickly that scene altered in a short four-decade span,

  From the years of dull indolence when Menzies was the man,

  To the tumult of the sixties when the Beatles took control

  And a war in South East Asia on her young men took a toll.

  Then came those seething seventies when Whitlam’s men held sway,

  And the dull minds of the Liberals were brusquely swept away;

  In their haste to push their program they made some awful blues

  That perhaps our children’s children may yet pay off the dues

  Next came the heartbreak eighties, with hard drugs, AIDS and war,

  Divisive immigration and stock markets through the floor,

  Labour’s men again in charge from Fraser’s wasted years

  Saw street crime and inflation the cause of countless tears.

  So what now for the nineties, does yet a light shine through?

  The Middle East again in flames God knows what might ensue.

  If we, by chance, escape world war, we’re still by troubles cursed,

  With pensions and pollution right up there with the worst.

  ’Tis said, the hour brings the man, pray God that hour is near,

  This Nation’s close to fracture through want and hate and fear;

  Our forebears in their ignorance made black men’s lives a hell —

  I fear we may be doomed to share, that bitter fate as well.

  Capt. Don Buckby

  * * *

  Australia

  In the not so distant past Australians shunned help like a curse

  Now it seems there’s plenty willing to live off the public purse.

  Perhaps their pride burned stronger in the ‘not-so-easy’ days —

  Has technology seduced us to seek the softer ways?

  Our past abounds with stories of the will to fight and win,

  Nowadays, it seems the fashion to try once then give in.

  Yes, there are examples of the chanced hands that won

  The Hardys and the Hancocks, and look how well they’ve done.

  But for each who shows the spirit to put life to the test,

  You’ll see a thousand shirkers who accepted second best.

  They’re the ones who squeal the loudest ’bout the state the country’s in,

  The first to duck for cover should the call come to ‘put in’.

  Our pollies woo their voters and seek to please them all,

  They avoid the hard decision lest their cushy job should fall.

  They’ve built an expectation that the world owes us our keep,

  In retaining ‘middle ground’ they resemble milling sheep.

  But the blame’s not theirs in total (insipid as they are)

  The truth is, You and I have let it go too far.

  We’ve lived beyond our means and capacity to pay

  With our lazy working habits and our love of holiday

  Poor product, too expensive to compete with foreign trade,

  Sets our Lucky Country’s future on a course of wane and fade.

  The days of wool and coal are drawing to their end,

  Other nations sell it cheaper and that’s where the buyers spend.

  Our foreign debt is mounting on the dollars daily fall,

  A crushing welfare burden has our backs against the wall.

  ’Though it’s not the loss of dollars that’s the greatest tragedy —

  It’s the toll on our young people that every day you see.

  They haunt employment centres for jobs that are not there

  And each day their expectation grows a little more threadbare

  It will take a mighty effort to retrieve our children’s hope

  But without that, with life’s trials, they will surely never cope.

  We regularly hear some pollie give forth his vapid spiel,

  Some wishy-washy twaddle that they hope will make us feel

  That they have the plan to ‘make it right’ and keep us ‘strong and free’

  But it’s hard to give much credence when just ‘politics’ we see.

  Some words that they speak give us some slight cause to hope

  But they do not take them far enough to get us up the slope.

  Then the Opposition side has their chance to e’en the score

  But they promise nothing different that we haven’t tried before.

  Do they think that cheap point scoring can solve this country’s plight?

  This is the crucial battle that together they must fight.

  One has the ear of business and one the working man

  And both will be required in the drafting of the plan.

  We must regain the spirit that made our Nation great

  And dispel this selfish torpor that keeps us second rate.

  For the warning bell has sounded and we’d better heed it’s call

  There may not be much time left before we lose it — all !

  Capt. Don Buckby

  * * *

  If

  If these thoughts have never crossed your mind,

  then let them do so now,

  That this world would be a better place, if only we knew how.

  How to look beyond the strictures of self, and self alone,

  How to take a stand against a wrong,

  not cowardly condone.

  How to foster in our children a feeling of their worth,

  How to teach them

  that there’s more to life, than pursuit of wealth and mirth.

  How to teach them of the difference

  ’tween the body and the soul

  And that both need to be nurtured to make a person whole.

  How to not impose upon their childhood

  to make them grow too fast,

  But to offer them the wisdom of the errors of your past.

  Capt. Don Buck
by

  * * *

  On Urban Ponds

  The endless, mindless clamour of the teeming, smelly street,

  With the grimy, run-down hovels their symbols of defeat,

  Those chains of fear and family bind fast the little man:

  He stays the hapless pawn of a cruel, uncaring plan.

  If he would but lift up his eyes to see the chance beyond

  He’d no longer stay a tadpole in this murky urban pond.

  Capt. Don Buckby

  * * *

  A Word With Banjo

  I heard a song the other day, I knew the jingle well,

  They say it’s survived a hundred years, but who can really tell.

  Your song is but a memory for the republic of my time,

  And for all your city living, you wrote a bloody good bush rhyme.

  You wrote of a young Australia, that was home to sheep and bloke,

  To mounted troops and billabongs and a truth not now bespoke;

  You told a rhythmic story of a bloke whose luck was out,

  Whose tuckerbag was finally full when three troopers were about.

  Now the irony of your sad tale should not be lost, my friend,

  For do we not all search and find a billabong in the end?

  At least a hundred years ago, your swagman jumped alone,

  He begged not for a welfare cheque, nor pension card, nor home.

  He faced the consequences of his lonely isolation

  Of the choices that he made and the road that he had taken;

  He died the way he lived, a rebel in your song —

  How many today can claim this, from their murky billabong?

  Banjo, don’t you see? your rhymes no longer rhyme,

  Your iambic pentameter has lost a beat with time,

  You spoke of an Australia, young and proud and free,

  Where men and women worked by day, and spent nights peacefully,

  Where a gun wasn’t necessary to see your kids to school,

  Where if you stole another man’s swag you were a bloody fool;

  But these are not the values of the swagman of today —

  He has no truth or honour, and knows that someone else will pay.

  It gladdens me that you don’t know how your land did fare,

  And I’m glad to know that your billabong did not your swagman spare,

  But most of all I’m glad to know, that one hundred years ago

  Our Country wasn’t politically correct, and nor were you Banjo.

  Tony Anetts

  * * *

  Sacrifice

  Why can’t the world remember,

  The lessons of the years;

  The horrors of each conflict

  Bringing many bitter tears

  To wives and daughters left behind,

  Who pray for peace to reign,

  So they may see their husbands

  And their fathers once again.

  A chap I know from Moree,

  With a bonny child and wife,

  He considered them worth fighting for

  And so he risked his life

  To resist the German madman,

  Who wants to rule the world;

  He’s the type of Aussie soldier,

  Who keeps our flag unfurled.

  A daughter nick-named ‘Whiskers’

  By a fond and loving Dad,

  Her little heart is breaking

  And her eyes are ever sad.

  She is old enough to reason,

  Just why he went away

  And nightly with her mother

  For his safe return they pray.

  I know he’ll never weaken

  When the battle’s at its height;

  It’s his family he’s protecting,

  That’s why he’s in the fight.

  Someday the war will finish

  And he’ll put away the sword,

  That family’s reunion

  Will be his just reward.

  Raymond John Colenso

  (AWM PR 00689)

  * * *

  Home Front, 1943

  It is quite plain

  Our people are fine democrats.

  They loudly disdain

  The Nazis and the ‘little yellow rats’,

  And laud the soldiers of this ‘free and mighty nation’ —

  Our way of life is better, they maintain.

  (especially when you can dine on a pretty fair ration.)

  Brave Boys, they fight

  The battle for Australia’s freedom

  For us, our wives, for liberty, for right;

  So in peace we shall therefore lead them

  To the finest fruits of Victory: In them shall they invest

  Secure their lives, provide for futures bright.

  (From deferred pay they will naturally find the normal business interest.)

  Meanwhile beware

  Lest they should sweat in vain;

  Let any but dare

  To curb our ancient liberties: his then the pain

  Of financial mights combined to drive him from the market.

  For them and theirs, to Free Enterprise we swear.

  (And even though the profit margin’s down right now, turnover is up and hearty.).

  P. F.

  Chaplain D. Trathen (?)

  (AWM PR 00218)

  * * *

  Advance Australia

  Forget about our fighting men

  And join me in a cheer,

  Who gives a damn for the Navy

  If the painters get their beer?

  Don’t worry about our sailor boys

  Who man the corvettes sleek,

  Here’s to the Home Front

  At twenty quid a week.

  This is the news to cheer the lads

  Whose hours aren’t nine to five,

  And who don’t know in the morning

  If, by night, they’ll be alive.

  If you don’t believe me, ask them,

  And I wonder what they’ll say

  As they fight on in the islands

  For six-and-six a day.

  So when the pubs are open

  Down tools and drink your fill:

  The news’ll make them happy

  In the swamps on Bougainville.

  T. L. Haselden

  (AWM MSS 1204)

  * * *

  Horrors of the Home Front

  So you’re weary of taxes, my masters?

  You’re bowed ’neath the burden of debt?

  And your delicate palate is pining

  For dainties your purse cannot get.

  Why, we’ll welcome you here in the jungle,

  The only taxation we pay

  Is our blood and our strength and our manhood —

  Come join us my friends and be gay.

  We’er not bothered be seeking the solace

  Of oysters, fresh eggs and champagne;

  See our fattened and fond exultation

  When bully beef greets us again

  Why suffer the ill-mannered jostling

  At Randwick when races are there?

  Be with us in our Coral-girt Eden —

  We’ve endless supplies of fresh air.

  Why fritter your time and your temper

  As black market liquor you seek?

  Come and share our Bacchanalian revels —

  Two bottles of beer every week.

  Why bewail that girlfriend’s unfaithful,

  That Yankees have shouldered you out?

  Take a trip to our tropical island

  Where the damsels are never about.

  Why complain of the shocking milk shortage,

  Let cows and their milkman go hang!

  Try a sip of our sterilised water —

  You’ll love its medicinal tang.

  Why disgorge thumping fees to your Doctors

  For luxury livers and gout?

  Why, it costs us not even a shilling

  For treating
malaria bouts.

  So be free from their strikes and their lockouts,

  Be sure like we are of our pay,

  With us you’ll be certain of working

  For twenty-four hours every day.

  So to hell with harsh civilisation,

  Be damned to your tyrants so vile!

  Grab a rifle and share our good fortune

  On this our Utopian Isle.

  ‘Black Bob’

  Lt A. L. O’Neill (?)

  Bougainville

  (AWM MSS 1328)

  * * *

  Ballad of the Base Wallahs

  Now the common frontline soldier, he will go where he is told,

  But the cute Cut-lunch Commando such harsh treatment can’t be sold.

  For the common frontline soldier runs the risk of getting shot.

  Which the shrewd Cut-lunch Commando knows is foolish tommyrot.

  And the common frontline soldier at most things is quite unskilled.

  He fights horrid Japs and Nazis, and he ends up getting killed.

  But the brave Cut-lunch Commando, if he feels he must get shot,

  Boldly breasts the bar in Pitt Street, where he sinks pot after pot.

  Now the common frontline soldier, when on duty overseas,

  If a little sleep he scrounges he must share it with the fleas;

  But the tired Cut-lunch Commando always knows his ‘P’s and ‘Q’s

  Has a feathered bed and playmate to improve his hard-earned snooze.

  And the common frontline soldier when he sails to do and dare

  Has no financial worries, for the Army pays his fare.

  But the poor Cut-lunch Commando as he fights the Barracks War

  Has to pay his way (then claims it on his good old ‘TS4’).

  Now the common frontline soldier in his jungle-green array

  Is scarce a tailor’s model (though he scares the Japs away);

  But the sleek Cut-lunch Commando is Beau Brummel to the life,

  With more stripes than any zebra and his pants creased like a knife.

  And the common frontline soldier wades through mud and never whines

  But although himself he’s filthy, sees his rifle barrel shines,

  While the great Cut-lunch Commando wades through supper at each dance.