The Banjo Paterson High Country Trail
Beechworth
Beechworth
It was little wonder that as editor of Old Songs of the Bush (1905) Paterson included the adaptation of a 1880s Irish ballad, The Wild Colonial Boy. Paterson would have remembered it from his childhood at Binalong when the station hands and servants used sit out on the wood heap and sing songs about the bushrangers.
The chorus of which mentions of Beechworth and the town’s association with the Banjo Paterson High Country Trail:
‘He stuck up the Beechworth mail coach, and robbed Judge MacEvoy,
Who trembled, and gave up his gold to the wild Colonial Boy…’
Bush poet Geoffrey Graham explained that Banjo ‘felt an obligation and an opportunity to collect the songs which might otherwise have been lost. So, Beechworth could be on your Trail.’ And so it is, thank you Geoffrey.
Acknowledgements
The Upper Murray Historical Society wishes to acknowledge all of the above organisations for their support and thank the
National Library of Australia (NLA) together with
Mr Alistair Campbell for their assistance and their permission to use images from the
Papers of Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Paterson (MS 10483), NLA. For more information
click here.
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