On the Road With Liddy (1934)
A Song by W. Miller
We're on the road with Liddy with five hundred head of fats
We push them along on the stoney ground and wheel them on the flats
And when the evening stars come out with laughter and with song
We round the cattle up and camp by some quiet billabong
Our cook's a ball of muscle when he's rustling up a feed
And Bob Delaney's home and dry when steadying the lead
And if the cattle run at night there's one chap out in front
Striking matches on the bullocks horns a bloke named Georgie Hunt
And when we get to Wyndham there's Tom Cole with his whip
To take the cattle over the hill and get them on the ship
And when the mob is all on board we'll have some blasted fun
We'll get Bob Kelly with his car to take us for a run
We'll try and dig Pat Riley up then to that bag of tricks
The pub that's kept by Teddy Clark they call the Double Six
We'll sing again them droving songs we sang along the track
Have a show on the screen for an hour or two then off again outback
Notes
See also the original published version from the Darwin Newspaper the Northern Standard The Droving Days in this collectionFrom the singing of A.L.Lloyd. Printed in Australian Tradition , Oct 1971 Wyndham - port town in northern WA Lloyd describes Liddy as a well known drover of the area and Liddy's is also known as a bottle tree near Cockatoo Bore, the other side of Kununurra Fats - road bullocks Tom Cole - contract musterer and station manager who settled in Wyndham in 1924 Georgie Hunt - drover on the VRD, Victoria River Downs in the Northern Territory Teddy Clark's wife ran a pub called the Six Mile in about 1923 Filmshows were put on at the meatworks in Wyndham in those days.
I came across this 1929 newspaper report recently (December 2012)"Tom Cole, of Wyndham who is a prospector, another prospector is still to be chosen..." -- Northern Territory Times Tuesday 17 April 1928
Also this report "Mr. J. Liddy pulled out en route for Wyndham, via Wave Hill with Cowboy Collins, as offsider." -- Northern Standard Tuesday 26 February 1929
And "A number of people were making the round trip on the "Bambra" from Fremantle. Quite a number of folks from Wyndham were aboard as well, these including Messrs. M. P. Durack, Arthur Haly, Teddie Clark and others." -- Northern Standard Tuesday 31 August 1926