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 including ‘The Wild Colonial Boy. 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…’

In a review published on 28 February 1906 Australian Town and Country Journal complements ‘Mr A B Paterson’ for doing ‘a service to Australia in getting together the Old Bush Songs. These are known throughout the breadth of the Commonwealth, and although the majority of them possess no literary merit, yet they have been the means of passing any weary hour.’

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.