DID SALLY KNOW HARRY?
JIG DOLLS IN AUSTRALIA AND BEYOND
WOMEN AND THE COACHING INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
WHAT IS FOLKLORE?
AUSTRALIAN SOCIAL DANCE
A BUSHRANGER IN AMERICA
POINTED PARODIES
TRACKING CROOKED MICK – THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A BUSH LEGEND
by
Graham Seal
Out on the fringe of the Never Never,
Out where the heat waves dance for
ever,
Out where the pigs for daylight root,
And the pigeons fly with felted boots,
Where they rise the sun with a golden
bar,
On the bunyip station of the great
'Speewah.'[1]
An old shearer sent this recollection of his younger days to a local newspaper in the 1930s. He was one of many who spun yarns of a fabulously large station running an unimaginably large number of sheep shorn by armies of the fastest shearers ever known. The tales began to trickle into country newspapers in the 1890s[2], but lies like this had been told and retold long before then, probably since the 1870s, or earlier, going by the reminiscences of old shearers.
There were not too many outrageous exaggerations not made about the Speewah (Speewa) and its chief character, the over-sized superhero shearer who could shear three sheep with just two blows of his shears and needed eight ‘loppies’, or rousabouts, to carry the fleeces away. One shearer recalled his younger days in the columns of a 1924 newspaper:
‘I have often heard of a big gun shearer who was in the zenith of his fame the year blucher boots were thirty bob a pair. Under the nom de plume of Rooked [sic] Mick, and using blades 8 feet long, a back chain for a driver, and a 400-gallon tank for a water pot; he rang all the sheds from the Darling, to the Diamantina. His greatest feat, and one I think that will live for ever, was shearing three hoggetts in two blows…[3]
Another correspondent to the same newspaper, Luke, corrected the misspelling of Mick’s name and gave his own version of the legend:
Now in my time "Crooked Mick" never ventured as close to civilisation as the Darling or the Diamantina, and the Lord knows they were well outback. He continued his operations to the Speewah, where the sheds were so big that the boss of the board had to go round on a bicycle and where a man, if he got fired, went out one door to turn up next day at another door and be re-engaged, as he was unknown. And out in the Speewah they cooked the plum duffs in 40,000 yard tanks and to save the roasted bullocks whole, which were cut up by means of circular saws. Oh, yes ! They did things on the grand scale out on the Speewah ![4]
Crooked Micks’s prowess with the blades was almost matched by his cooking skills. As well as his giant plum duffs, his pastries were said to be so light that they simply floated away across the vast Speewah station which, as another shearer recalled,
was a mythical place, somewhere away out in the Territory, like the Hesperides of old. There shearing was plentiful and there was work for all. The sheds were immense-the boss of the board had to ride round on a bi-cycle. If a man was unlucky enough to get "speared" be just walked out one door and half-a day later walked in another and was put on again. Everything was on a gigantic scale. Bullocks were washed whole and cut up by means of circular saws. As for puddings-well they used to dump them in the dam and boil them there, hoisting them in and out by means of steam cranes. These, too, were cut up in similar fashion to the bullocks. [5]
Over the years the legend of the Speewah and its larger-than-life character, Crooked Mick, grew and grew. By the time writer Julian Stuart tacked a few of its many bits and pieces together in the 1930s, Crooked Mick had become a ‘superman’
with feet so big that he had to go outside to turn round. It took a large-sized bullock's hide to make him a pair of moccasins. He was a heavy smoker. - It took – one 'loppy' (rouseabout) all his time cutting tobacco and filling his pipe. He worked at /such a clip that his shears ran hot, and sometimes he had half a dozen pairs in the1 water- pot. To cool. He had his fads, and would not shear in sheds that faced north. When at his top it took three pressers to handle the wool from his blades, and they had to work overtime to keep the bins clear. He ate two sheep. each meal— that is; if they were small merinos — but only one and a half when the ration sheep were Leicester crossbred wethers.
When Mick was ‘between sheds’, he worked as a fencer, swinging an axe in each hand. When he dug the f]holes for the posts, Mick used a shovel in one hand and a crowbar in the other, at the same time, of course. And
Once, when taming a Dawson River brumby (which had killed or crippled every man whomever tackled him) he nearly died of starvation. The outlaw had kept on bucking continuously, and on the third day the rider yelled for food. His mates cooked a lot of preserved potatoes, which they threw at him' when they could get near enough. He caught some open mouthed, but a good deal of the food was, wasted, /as the horse bucked sideways and in circles. Lumps of the spuds lodged in Mick's beard, which reached to his waist, and on his moustache, which was so long that he used to- tie it at the back of his head...’[6]
Not all Speewah tales featured Mick. Snake stories are among the bush liars’ favourite fantastications. One of the best was told of the Speewah:
I've heard a lot about snakes. being very thick in different parts of Australia, but I think the Speewah is the leading snake district of the lot. All the bunks in the stockmen's huts are hung on four fencing wire, and slush lamps are kept burning all night, the little snakes are generally used for boot laces, and the big ones for belts. Outsizes in snakes are generally made into horse rugs, and the extra outsizes are used to cover the motor cars and lorries. Ladies use the very long ones for clothes lines.
The snakes came in all colours, including pink, gold and rainbow, usually ‘in the beer season’, including one ‘with a yellow back, green belly and blue eyes, but to tell the truth I had been having a month's beer and other drinks at the pub, so I won't guarantee that the species exists, but I think it does.’
The spinner of this whopper concluded by claiming to have heard that the Speewah boundary riders repaired their broken fences with a particularly wiry species of snake, ‘but I can hardly believe It. There are some awful liars knocking about this country, and I have no time for them.[7]
Not much was heard of Mick and the Speewah during the 1940s and it was not until writers like Alan Marshall and Bill Wannan picked up on bush lore that they came back into print from the 1950s. But by the 1990s the reviewer of an anthology of Australian humour including a few Speewah yarns said that including these tales was a ‘resurrection’. It seems that Crooked Mick and the Speewah have gone the way of the Oozlum Bird and other whoppers as Australia has become a much more cosmopolitan and, perhaps, sophisticated society. Of course, we can still tell a lie or three.
NOTES AND SOURCES
The earliest, possibly first, mention of the fabulous Speewah station is in The Western Champion and General Advertiser for the Central-Western Districts (Barcaldine), ‘Stories Told Round the Camp Fire’, 2 August 1892, p. 3. A ‘Speewah Mick’ appears in print three years later as a shearing shed con man in ‘Speewah’, The Clipper(Hobart), 3 September 1898, p. 7. ‘Crooked Mick’ is mentioned in The Worker (Wagga Wagga), 21 December 1911, p. 2, in a context that suggests his exploits were widely known, at least in the bush. Shearers recollecting their earlier lives often mention first hearing of Crooked Mick in the 1880s, usually in Queensland, see (Julian Stewart), ‘Crooked Mick from Speewah’, The Australian Worker, 24 March 1926, p. 18, referencing the memoirs of Tom Mann.
Below is a selection of other relevant newspaper sources via Trove supporting the chronological development of the legend.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/77215611
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/82700323
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/104094615
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/145719950
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/57729041
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/201740103
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/215372361
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/54015882
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/54280650
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/145985974
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60924193
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/145993706
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60772993
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/74140397
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/105980534
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/23092171
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130778256
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122297333
GS 2025
[1] The Shoalhaven News, 17 November 1937, p. 10.
[2] The Western Champion and General Advertiser for the Central-Western Districts, 2 August 1892, p. 3.
[3] Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 19 July 1924, p. 11.
[4] Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 19 July 1924, p. 11.
[5] Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 30 January 1923, p. 10.
by Tony Smith
In much early Australian literature, the fiddle and the concertina both find a voice.
On concertina.net there have been a number of posts about the instrument’s portrayal in novels, short stories and poems. The works of Henry Lawson receive special mention.
In The Pea-Pickers (1942) by the remarkable Eve Langley the narrator Steve describes Gippsland folklore as remembered by her mother from around the early 1900s. In Langley’s entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Joy Thwaite says that the novel uses ‘highly charged, intensely imagistic prose’. Thwaite notes that Steve (and Eve) was ‘equating creativity and artistic freedom with masculinity, while yearning constantly for sexual fulfilment’. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/langley-eve-10784
Meanwhile Wikipedia notes that Langley’s writing belongs to a ‘tradition ... that explores the conflict between being a woman and being an artist’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_Langley. Her work is unusually poetic for the Australian context. Indeed her references to classical mythology suggest that the world inside her head is remote from the context of the Australian bush. Perhaps this is one reason that she immediately empathises with Italian labourers, whom she romanticises.
At one point (p.9 in the 1958 A & R edition) Steve’s sister Blue plays her fiddle. The tune is a bushman’s waltz ‘Monaro’ – their father was from NSW – and Steve asks their mother Mia ‘for the pleasure of the next’ and describes four ‘holds’ she uses. The closest I could find to this tune is ‘Back on the Monaro’ a polka, on the authoritative website ‘Bush Traditions’. https://bushtraditions.wiki/tunes/index.php/Back_on_the_Monaro
“The first hold was the ‘pump-handle’ in which the hand and arm of the partner were energetically raised up and down.
‘Water very scarce now’, I remarked as I worked for it. ‘Only two rims left’.
I next adopted the ‘vase’ which is characterised by the grace of the couple’s arms stuck out from the gent’s side like the handles of a vase.
Then followed the ‘dried fish’, in which, without perceptible style, but with frozen eyes and set face and stiff carriage, the couple revolve in silence.
Last of all came the ‘indifferent’, where gent negligently holds the concertina behind his partner’s neck and plays as he dances with her”.
This last pose might seem unlikely and indeed bad mannered, but there is evidence of it elsewhere. Warren Fahey’s ‘Australian Bush Orchestra’ album includes an interview with Bathurst’s Susan Colley in which she described dancing and playing concertina simultaneously. Fahey asked her what her partners thought of that and she replied that they stood it. This might have been an unusual gender role, but dancing with concertina does not necessarily entail putting the instrument around the partner.
Later (p.21) Steve says: “... Harrison’s concertina was going, making a wistful rainbow of sound as though he were throwing the concertina all around his head as he played. I found out later that that was just what he was doing. The sound of the concertina was old, sad, sweet and reminiscent ...”
Again, there is evidence that this was a playing style favoured by old players. I can recall the much missed Peter Ellis swinging the instrument as he played and the effect this created. Concertina virtuoso Wayne Richmond has similar recollections.
Later when Steve gets misty-eyed over some recorded Hawaiian music she confesses that she had forgotten that “she had come to Gippsland to listen to old traditional songs of bushmen”. Nevertheless, when she and Blue move to the north-east alpine region of Bright, Myrtleford and Mount Buffalo for hop-picking, Steve also finds poetic inspiration in the traces of Chinese labourers and prospectors who worked there in earlier times.
The concertina seems to be everywhere. They ask one old bushman for tunes popular in his youth such as ‘Rorie O’Moore’, ‘Just As the Sun Went Down’, ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me’ and ‘My Father Was a Frenchman’. Blue is quick to learn these and Italian songs on her fiddle. Another character refers to that “sobbing note of the violin when Blue plays ‘Alice Benbolt’; that surging crying note when she double-stops the strings”.
When courting, Steve sings Verlaine’s ‘Chanson d’Automne’:
“Long songs begin/ On the violin / Of autumn trees,
And my heart throngs/ With that sad song’s/ Monotones”.
And as she yearns to discover minds like her own, she admits that these are “singing dreams”. But Blue brings her down to earth – “ We’ve got to get food somehow”.
Steve certainly hears some traditional songs and tunes as well as popular tunes of the day. There are for example a couple of references to the ‘Prisoner’s Song’ released in 1924. The Italians also sing Fascisti songs, which helps to place events in the late 1920s or early 1930s.
Steve also enjoys the folk music of Italians on harmonica, guitar and mandolin and opera sung unaccompanied. Perhaps given the romantic disposition of Steve – who derives from Eve’s own experiences – she will find music everywhere she goes. She often mentions the songs of native birds, especially the pee wee that seems to sing her name.
Steve even writes a song about music disappearing: (p.289):
“... and through the dusk the blackbird cries alone
Ah, who has robbed the joy of last September,
Muted the lips and drowned the music low?
‘Twas I, ‘twas I that in the dark remember
The singing lads of long and long ago”.
And later: “That night we played the new songs we had learnt from the Italians and the Australians. Staring at each other as we played in even time, on mouth-organ and violin, we thought back sadly on what was now the remote past. It would never happen just the same, again”.
I must return to the original theme of dancing with the concertina. Being neither a dancer nor a concertina player, I sent an early version of this paper to several people who kindly sent their comments. Concertina fettler and musician George Bolliger said the idea was exciting but folklorist Warren Fahey said he considered the idea fanciful. Multi-instrumentalist Alan Swift thought he remembered the round-the neck technique being used with button accordion.
Folklorist Graham Seal recalled seeing an illustration, possibly from The Bulletin or one of the ‘Larrikin’ publications such as The Bird O’Freedom. This suggestion touched on a few relevant themes. I then turned to Melissa Bellanta’s book Larrikins: A History. Larrikins were a sub-culture in mainly urban Australia 1870 to 1930, peaking between the depression of 1890 and the start of war in 1914. Interestingly cross-dressing like that which caused Steve and Blue so many problems was part of the Larrikin idiom.
The cartoon above is from the collection of Dave Johnson who is an acknowledged expert in both bush dance and the playing of concertina and fiddle.
Bush musicians and collectors of folklore are practical types. It seems unlikely that Eve Langley’s novels would be prominent in their reading. But the references to music generally and to dancing with the concertina specifically indicate that The Pea-Pickerscontains material that stimulates further exploration of some barely acknowledged themes.
© 2025 Tony Smith
Did Sally Know Harry?
By Rob Willis
Sally Sloane and Harry Schaefer were two old-time musicians and both played an important and significant part in the preservation of our early folk song and music traditions. Both managed to learn, perform and pass on the old songs and dance tunes that were played and sung in the Central West of NSW, which coincidentally is my home territory.
Sally learnt her songs and tunes by ear as did most players of her era. This meant that the music was constantly changing as each musician adapted, altered or added their own variation.
As a result much of their repertoire varied greatly from whatever the ‘original’ was.
Harry Schaefer was different as he could read music but also had the ability to pick up a tune from another player aurally and write it down later for future reference. Harry was in fact recording the old music and our notes below will explain further. However, from our interviews with those who knew him he played ‘by ear’’ most of the time.
Here are some edited references about them both from the National Library of Australia’s TROVE website.
Harry Schaefer 1876-1954 was the youngest of eight children. His father Carl Schaefer immigrated to Australia in 1857. He had worked as a violinist while in Germany but refused to teach his children music as he regarded farming to be a more suitable occupation. Despite this Harry Schaefer and his brothers would steal their father's violin and teach themselves to play. After his first marriage in 1899 Harry Schaefer bought a farm near Parkes, New South Wales. By this time he had mastered many instruments including the fiddle, strohviol, flute, tin whistle, piano, clarinet, accordion, cornet and various other brass instruments. He was a self-taught musician probably learning dance tunes aurally from older musicians he met while growing up in Victoria and in the Parkes/Forbes district.
Harry had the ability to be able to learn a tune very rapidly by ear and then transfer it to written notation. He was recording this aurally learnt music before the advent of audio recorders. Rob Willis was fortunate to obtain his many handwritten manuscript books of notated dance and other tunes in the 1990s. The Schaefer manuscripts are diverse and include transcriptions of rare dance tunes from the mid 1800s as well as popular published dance tunes common during the early to mid twentieth century. It is assumed that Schaefer transcribed these tunes for other musicians who did not play by ear, and also to keep a record for himself. The dances that appear in the manuscripts include waltzes, mazurkas, polkas and varsoviennas. Schaefer's transcriptions are possibly the only example of an Australian bush dance musician keeping a written record of their own repertoire. Harry’s books are now housed in The National Library of Australia.
Sally Sloane 1894-1982 The songs of Sally Sloane are considered to be one of the most important sources of Australian traditional folk music ever collected. Sally was born Eunice Eveline Frost in Parkes NSW to Sarah and Tom Frost in 1894, and was taught music by her mother who sang and played many instruments. Sally Sloane is known mainly for her substantial repertoire of songs but she also played the concertina, button accordion (bush accordion), jews harp, piano, fiddle and the tin whistle. Other songs that Sloane sang were learnt from older singers in her area, often friends of the family. Sally married John Mountford in Dubbo, NSW in 1911 and had five children in the first six years of marriage. The marriage ended and Sally Sloane never married again but took the surname of her partner of 35 years, Frederick Cecil Sloane. John Meredith, folklore collector, discovered Fred and Sally Sloane in 1954. Over the next seven years Meredith visited Sally Sloane over sixty times and collected more than 150 dance tunes and songs from her. Her songs have been archived as part of the Meredith Collection at the National Library of Australia.
As a collector of social history, music and folklore and living in the region I was aware of both Harry and Sally and even though we were never personally acquainted felt a strong a strong connection with the two of them.
The late John Meredith, folklorist and wise person filled my head with tales of Sally and her songs and music during the many hours we travelled the roads on our recording trips for The National Library of Australia. Merro would often state that Sally was “the best that he had ever recorded”.
I came across Harry Schaefer through my involvement with and recording of the traditional musicians who were still around Forbes in the 1970s. He was well respected and indeed shared his music with many younger players.
My friendship with the late Biddy McClenehan nee Schaefer, Harry’s niece, also prompted more curiosity. This resulted in oral history recordings and research with locals and the finding of Harry’s handwritten music manuscript books. They were treasures and resulted in a monograph, The Music of Harry Schaefer, that friend and fellow music enthusiast Graham McDonald and I published in 1995 with assistance from the Australian Folk Trust. This is now available for free download here.
Sally and Harry’s songs and music are now being played and sung worldwide.
Sometimes the ‘bleedin obvious’ escapes our attention and it was not until recently when researching for another local music project that a series of coincidences struck me. Harry Schaefer and the Frost (Sally Sloane) family lived in the Parkes area in proximity with each other, within 10 kilometres to be exact.
The Frosts were well known as a musical family and certainly Harry was one of the premiere dance band players in the district and in constant demand for dances and I started wondering if they could have know each other?
I also remembered that in my early research on Harry and my recordings of members of the Schaefer clan (who were also a very musical family) that it was mentioned that Harry had indeed played with several of the ‘Frost boys’ They had given me several photos of groups that included some of the Frost family.
The clincher came recently, thanks to Trove, when I came across the mention of a dance at Kamandra which is a small location just outside Parkes and also where the Frost family lived . The Schaefer Orchestra played for it and members of the orchestra were listed in the online newspaper. The list included A Frost and R Frost. The Frost players are also mentioned in other dance references with the Schaefer orchestra.
The other coincidence is that the Frost family lived at Kamandra and Sally’s mother died and is buried there. The included image is of Harry and a group of fiddlers. All are relations except for the fiddler in the hat who was named as “one of the Frost boys” by the late Biddy McClenehan, Harry’s niece. Two of the guests at the other image a Schaefer family Christmas also includes members of the “Frost family from Parkes”.
Let’s have a look at the timeline and known facts:
· Sally Sloane was born Eunice Evelyn Frost to Thomas Frost and Sarah Ann Deans on 3rd October 1894 in Parkes.
· Many of her songs and tunes were passed on from her mother who had in turn learnt them from her mother. Various sources also mention that Sarah, Sally’s mum also played several instruments.
· Other early sources of songs and tunes for Sally were Peter Owen of Parkes, Jack Archer, an itinerant railway worker, Harry Bartlett of Parkes, Annie Shaw of Parkes.
· Parkes in this era was a tight knit community and it follows that most musicians would know each other.
· Sally left Parkes about 1911 but stayed in contact with her mother who remained in Parkes
· Sally’s mother Sarah Ann Frost passed away on December 19 1947, at age 88 in Kamandra, Parkes.
· Harry’s mates Bob Frost and his son, Arthur Frost, also lived at Kamandra.
A lot more digging needs to be done, however I would like to think that if Harry did not know Sally personally at least the two families, particularly Sally’s mother, knew each other both on a musical and social basis.
*
JIG DOLLS IN AUSTRALIA AND BEYOND
Tony Smith © 2021
Since I gave a paper on jig dolls at the Australian Folklore Network Conference at the National Library of Australia in Canberra (Easter 2018), there have been several developments. I am pleased to share these with you via Transmissions. [i]
A jig doll is a jointed doll which dances on a surface. Usually the operator controls the doll with a stick attached to the middle of the back. This stick can in turn be moved in various ways such as by a foot pedal. Some dolls are operated by a string passing through them between two end poles. The operator manipulates the tension on the string. Jig dolls like Henry act as a folk percussion instrument as well as providing support to dance tunes and songs.
The Brightest of Entertainers
Not long after the 2018 conference, Graham Seal brought to my attention a recent book on jig dolls: The Brightest of Entertainers by Pat Pickles and Katie Howson. [ii]
I was able to let surviving author Katie Howson know that she had produced a very valuable resource. I was also able to tell her about some developments in Australia she might note for the future. The book concentrates on England but does mention the scene in some other countries.
Howson points out that jig dolls are not puppets. Puppeteers can control the parts of their puppets such as arms and legs directly. The jig doll operator moves the doll and the way the doll is constructed causes the movement. Obviously the maker’s skill is important to both. Some puppets do not have moving parts, but are used to cast shadows or to illustrate a story. Most puppets would not be considered percussion instruments. There are stick puppets which resemble jig dolls reasonably closely but also glove puppets and marionettes on strings which are operated very differently.
More Jig Dollars
Following my address in 2018, some ten conference participants bought very plain dolls and sticks. The dolls were made by the Central Tablelands woodcrafters and were sold at cost including a donation to the Leukaemia Foundation, a charity supported by myself and another jig doller Steve Wilson aka The Man with the Concertina. I hope that they have been able to decorate the dolls and to use them. The main jig doll or ‘limberjack’ maker at the Woodies, Colin Borny passed away in 2019.
Rob Willis mentioned that the Forbes museum had a doll and when I contacted the museum, curator Bruce Adams kindly sent me photographs. The doll is in excellent condition. It was given to Helen Mitchell in 1937 by the remarkable Paul Wenz [iii]. The French born Wenz was a grazier, wool merchant and writer who associated with contemporaries Miles Franklin, Dorothea Mackellar, Nettie Palmer and Frank Clune. He was a translator and had novels published in French (‘The Sundowner’) and English (‘Diary of a New Chum’) and his literary work was described as bearing the influence of the Bulletin magazine, the Bushman’s Bible.
The Forbes doll is labelled ‘Claquette’ and is a doll with black face in red livery. In these more enlightened times, it is unlikely that we would construct jig dolls with black faces lightly. Certainly, children do have black dolls to ensure that they are not subject to stereotypes, but making a subservient black doll dance is a dubious representation of race and colour. It is important for historical accuracy however, that museums hold such items.
A lovely surprise was that Dave South, a fiddler from north Queensland informed me that when he returned home, he made a jig doll of his own. I am proud to be thought of as ‘godfather’ to his Goombuckly Gus. Dave, his partner and Gus have travelled extensively across remote areas of the north, and Gus features regularly in photographs of noteable folk sites such as the birthplace of ‘Waltzing Matilda’. The trio have been invited to extend their stays in a number of localities so that Gus could reprise his performances.
Gus has kept up with the times as well and soon sported a mask for the ‘lockdown’. I sent Dave my take on the masking issue. [iv]
I remain reluctant to introduce Henry to a session. Perhaps the song ‘The Spoons Murder’ which describes what can happen to intrusive percussionists has given me pause. [v] I have continued to use jig dolls in my busking, although the pandemic lockdowns have made appearances less frequent. I tend to use the dolls sparingly because they are loud. They are fine outside empty shops but I am reluctant to use them where people are working close by. They do however, earn their keep on special occasions such as Saint Patrick’s Day and at Christmas when Henry dons a red elf’s hat. Observers have given the dolls onomatopoeic names such as ‘clacker’ and ‘rat-a-tatter’.
I continue to have interesting conversations when on the street. One three or four year old girl in her summer frock with hands behind her back approached one morning and asked ‘Do you take cash?’ I assured her I did. A little boy around the same age, coin in hand came up with his Mum and asked ‘Is that you making that noise?’ I had to admit it was me, caught as I was with whistle in hand. Infants occasionally dance uninhibitedly with Henry (aka Henery).
Senior citizens also find something to say. A grandmother expressed a wish for simple toys to make a comeback: ‘anything without a screen’ she said. Another woman heard me playing ‘The Drover’s Dream’ and said she had not heard the tune since she was in First Year in high school over fifty years earlier. She recognised the tune as she had written a play for a competition run by the local radio station, and had included a scene where a swaggie sits under a tree and sings the song.
Another woman said that the last time she had heard the whistle was fifty years earlier when Jimmy Galway gave a recital in Sydney. He would pack away his golden flute occasionally to play something Irish. She could not remember the tune. Fortunately, I was able to perform ‘Cronin’s Hornpipe’ which I think was the tune. But these busking tales are getting away from the jig dolls!
Steve Wilson uses marionettes a la planchette he has made himself. Another example of such dolls being used is by Paul Kelly on a Galway street corner, accompanied by hurdy-gurdy. It is noticeable that the way Paul has his dolls strung means that their movement is limited. [vi] Steve has his strung between two posts and by pushing the near post he can control the tension on the string pretty well. The movement his ‘political’ dolls achieve is also a tribute to the way Steve has constructed them.
Jig dolls and puppets
While jig dolls are not strictly speaking puppets, they do share some characteristics. Some of the puppets located online are irresistible. There are clips of infants interacting with puppets but in many cases, the puppeteer uses recorded music.
The great thing about some performances is that they are set to live music and that they tend to support the music rather than vice-versa. Des Dillon is one puppeteer who belongs to the folk arts category for two reasons. The first is that his construction work is clearly folk art. The second is that his vision has his puppets set firmly within the folk music idiom. Jig dollers can increase their understanding by seeing a good puppeteer at work.
Here are four examples of Dillon’s artistry. In the first two ‘Accordion Girl’ and ‘Sharon Shannon and Des Dillon in Tigh Ned, Inis Oirr (Inisheer), St Patrick’s Day 2019’ Dillon accompanies the figure of the world’s favourite melodeon player on his harmonica. This is lone hand operation par excellence and would be excellent for busking! [vii]
Dillon is able to use his harmonica with support to replicate the melodeon sound, leaving his hands free to operate the puppet. Both instruments make sound with vibrating reeds. Players of both would realise that the ten ‘holes’ play the same pattern. On the harmonica and a one row melodeon, all of the notes on blow or push, are the notes of the tonic chord. In the key of C for example, all the blow/push notes are C, E or G. The remaining notes between are found on suck/pull (or draw). In order to maintain this pattern on both instruments the central octave – from about the third or fourth button or hole - runs blow/draw, blow/draw, blow/draw, draw/blow (push/pull, push/pull, push/pull, pull/push). Both instruments have an intuitive, ‘folk’ feeling which is one reason the melodeon remains more popular than the heavier piano accordion, especially among ‘ear’ players who do not read music.
In ‘All the Ways You Wander’ Dillon collaborates with John Spillane who sings and plays guitar. The puppetry enriches the song and demonstrates how puppets come alive in the hands of a player as good as Dillon. The puppets in this song are extremely realistic and there is no need for sophisticated stage scenery or lighting. The performer involves observers by inviting their use of imagination. There is something quintessential about these puppets, so that we all appreciate them, regardless of how old we happen to be. [viii]
Dillon also has some life size puppets. He can operate these solo, inviting one doll onto the dance floor with him. There is for example, a youtube clip of him dancing in a ‘wedding interval’ with the wedding ceilidh band backing him.
There is a remarkable clip of some set dancing at the 2018 Gathering in Killarney. Although this performance was before the Covid pandemic emerged, this clip prompts the thought that if dancers are worried about finding Covid-free partners, Dillon might have provided the solution! [ix]
Perhaps one donor summed up the relationship between my jig dolls and me. Donors of course, are entitled to be critics. On this occasion I was playing for Henry to dance and this gent put it plainly: ‘You’ he said, ‘are very good. But he is brilliant!’
[i] See ‘The Jig Doll in Australia: Untapped Potential’, https://ozfolknet.wordpress.com/papers-from-the-national-folklore-conference/
[ii] The Brightest of Entertainers: Jig Dolls from England and Beyond, East Anglian Traditional Music Trust, Stowmarket, Suffolk 2018.
[iii] Maurice Blackman ‘Paul Wenz (1869-1939)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol 12, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wenz-paul-9048
[iv] ‘Mask Up, Ned!’, http://thecud.com/live/content/mask-ned
[v] Con ODrisceoil ‘The Spoons Murder’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_11JDYcZX44
[vi] Hurdy Gurdy by Paul Kelly – Galway, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owlb7zg6YfE&list=RDOwlb7zg6YfE&index=2
[vii] Accordion Girl, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z8JoJWktLs; and Sharon Shannon and Des Dillon in Tigh Ned, Inis Oirr (Inisheer) St Patrick’s Day 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwLdlMYypEw
[viii] All the Ways You Wander John Spillane and Des Dillon, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KQR2tzzjUM
[ix] Des Dillon Puppets Dancing, the Gathering, Killarney 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxRaZxZof2I
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WOMEN AND THE COACHING INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
WHAT THE 'F' IS FOLKLORE?
FOLKLORE FAQs
Australian Social Dance
A BUSHRANGER IN AMERICA
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THE GUITAR IN AUSTRALIA
THE DIVERSITY OF AUSTRALIAN TRADITIONAL MUSIC
The author, using the pseudonym ‘Eureka’ and obviously well travelled also described a large family band of teenage children and parents
Have a look at some more on Youtube....
3 comments:
I have a fascination for the way people in remote areas or without access to tuition teach themselves to play an instrument. Aboriginal guitarist, Cyril Green, is an example of the ingenuity and perseverance sometimes used to learn the guitar. Raised in Walcha, NSW, Cyril and his brothers had a communal guitar and no knowledge of how to play it. Cyril explains how the group finally got it together without knowing the names of chords and communicated by looking – up, straight ahead or down for chord changes. Cyril was well-known Aboriginal singer, Jimmy Little's guitarist for nigh on 50 years and despite having suffered a mild stroke some time ago is still one of the finest guitarists we have recorded for the National Library collection. We will be visiting Cyril, a true gentleman and his lovely wife Hazel again soon to record more of their stories.
Made this short video of Cecil during our National Library recording session at his home in Armidale, NSW.
We have also recorded stories from The Nulla near Kempsey about how they would listen to 78 records to try and work out guitar chords and had no idea how to tune the instrument. Other fascinating tales are from our Indigenous mates on Cape Barren Island and how they figured out the chords but had no names for them – so the names became “over the top” for G, “the flat one” for A and Hank’s chord for C (learnt from a Hank Snow record).
Anyone have any stories about learning an instrument?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ld18DY3-x0
Rob
Another one to add to the collection - from my childhood (circa mid 1950s). The Pepsodent (Toothpaste) jingle was "You'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent". This became "You'll wonder where your dentures went, when you brush your teeth with wet cement."
Denis Mckay
I also remember a parody of the Pepsodent jingle. Racist & rude, with several verses concerning a Chinese couple. I was in Grade 5 or 6 when I heard it from a boy in my class at Eureka St. State School in Ballarat, in the late 1950s. Can't believe I can remember every word of this rhyme, but almost nothing about what went on inside the classroom.
Judy McKinty
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