The first time I ever met a bush story teller was during the school holidays when I went to visit a relative's sheep station in the Bourke district of NSW. My mother sent me as a sort of reward for passing my exams before going to high school. A friend took me there by car and it was the roughest, dustiest trip I can remember. The gravel road from Nyngan to Bourke hadn't seen a grader for six months.

While at my uncle's property, I spent most of the time learning what went on through the shearing season. The shearers and shed hands were a hard working lot, but they always took the time at smoko breaks to tell me a bush tale or two. I think they enjoyed having an inexperienced youth around who had not heard the well worn stories before. Many were local jokes, some rather crude and others quiet funny; I heard enough to kindle an interest that stayed with me for the rest of my life.

After my dusty trip to Bourke by car, the return voyage to Dubbo by train was a pleasant journey in comparison. It took almost all day to cover the two hundred odd miles behind the 34 class steam locomotive. Regular stops for water and refreshments for the passengers took almost as long as the traveling time. We seemed to be stationary at Nyngan forever while everyone went to the refreshment rooms for lunch.

The carriages in those days were divided into compartments with a walkway along one side. As an excited youth, I remember exploring each carriage where they connected together. When moving from one to the next, I could see the track and sleepers whizzing past beneath the footbridge. There were brake hoses and chains each side of the big hook that joined the carriages together. I guess I spent almost half the journey studying the mechanics of the whole thing.

After we left Nyngan, a man joined me in my compartment. He never told me his full name and simply introduced himself as Jim. He asked where I had been and then if I liked the outback when I told about my holiday. Jim grinned slightly when I bought up the subject of the bush stories I heard in the shearing shed. I even repeated a couple and Jim nodded knowingly. He obviously already knew them and asked if I would like to hear some more. I agreed and silently sat back in the compartment; by chance, my traveling companion was an accomplished bush poet.

Jim told me his stories all the way to Dubbo. There were so many; I forgot most of them by the time our journey ended. I liked one so much, Jim repeated it so I could write it down in the back of an exercise book. I don't know if Jim ever published his stories and hope he doesn't mind me repeating this fascinating verse.

The Coonabarabran Cup.

In the rugged mountain ranges, where the Castlereagh river begins,

many years before the age of automobiles and speed,

the young wife of William Hennesy presented him with twins,

and a bonny pair of youngsters they were indeed.

 

One was christened Jim and William was the other,

and since the first she tucked then in their tiny beds,

Mrs. Hennesy confided that their likeness puzzled her,

with their freckled cheeks and curly ginger heads.

 

Growing up to bearded manhood still the likeness was the same,

Jim, the enterprising rascal would call,

taking Bill's best girl out walking and so tricked the little dame,

that she never knew the difference at all.

 

And beside the similarity of features, form and dress,

mostly riding gear and spurs the brothers wore,

they always rode two grey ponies that made keen judges confess,

they had never seen so fine a pair before.

 

When they tired of being drovers and thought of giving up,

they returned from the Riverina and heard,

of the Coonabarabran races and its fifty guinea cup;

"We will lift that goblet," Bill said. "Take my word."

 

So they held a consultation and agreed to separate,

William reached the start in the heat of the midday sun;

and when they learned the old grey was his mount to nominate,

it amused the boys of the Coonabarabran run.

 

For the horse that he was entering had no claims at all to pace,

he was just an honest stock horse, tough and game;

Bringing back stampeding cattle or the muster was his place,

and the shrewd and daring rider knew the same.

 

Well, the time came and they started, but the track beside the pub

was a mile around green timber, dense and tall;

And you couldn't see the horses as they galloped for the scrub

until a furlong from the winning post at all.

 

Then, where flying hoof-beats thundered on the dry earth's crust,

came a sight that made the books and punters stare;

It was the whiskered face of William in a swirling cloud of dust,

leading on a mount that never turned a hair.

 

The bookmakers were all shaken - he'd got fifty pounds to one,

for such champions as were on the course that day,

like the Squire and Sensation or Nimblefoot and Mother's son,

should have donkey-licked the hack from Castlereagh.

 

By the next morning Bill was missing, for a rumour got about;

It was a nasty sort of rumour and it said

that unnoticed in the dust cloud, William Hennesy pulled out

and his brother Jim started twenty lengths ahead.

 

PS. Since posting this story, a reader sent me an email and said the man was Jim Dowling. Apparently he wrote many verses about the bush and even had them published in country and city newspapers. He either changed the story later or I missed some of the words in my youthful exuberance, because the reader said Jim published it as the Coorabingle Cup.