About Those Bridges by Stuart Hamilton Hume

2 years ago
13

On Sunday I played my first real in-person concert since April last year, as part of the Merry Muse folk club in Canberra, hosted at the Irish Club. There was a fabulous audience and also a great line-up of blackboard singers.

At the end of my set, one of the audience (a lady whose name I didn't catch) recommended a book called 'He Heard the River Calling', which is based on the stories and poems of Stuart Hamilton Hume, as published in several of the NSW papers.

Stuart 'Tuey' Hamilton Hume was the great grandson of the explorer Hamilton Hume who is very well known here in Yass.

Fortunately there were two copies of this book in the Yass library.

While having a read today, this particular poem caught my attention, it appeared in the Macleay Argus on 29 September 1950:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/234510263

NOTE: I have substituted some racist content in the second last verse.

The poem is subtitled (with apologies to Banjo), but I can't pick which Banjo Paterson poem this might be a response/parody for. Happy for any suggestions!

Photos are also from trove, of bridges on the Macleay river:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macleay_River

Stuart was writing at Kempsy before he moved to Goulburn, he wrote under S.H.H.

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