Bruce P.’s Member Spotlight: Memories of a Jackaroo
- Replies 17
Note from the Editor: We received this wonderful email from member Bruce P. and had to share it with you all (with permission!). Without further ado, meet member Bruce P. and take a stroll through his memories as a jackaroo.
My name is Bruce P.; I was born in 1938, and when I turned 80, my daughter-in-law told me to write some of my memories as a jackaroo.
During my first six years living in Bondi, 1944, I will always remember my sister walking me down to Bondi Beach, where we met US Marines who gave us Polly Waffles and bubblegum. We knew nothing about the war as we had no communication, no mobiles, only news on the radio.
After leaving boarding school in Bathurst, I applied to work with Australian Mercantile, Land & Finance Company (AML&F), a major English wool and pastoral company with vast rural properties in NSW and QLD. I started working in AML&F's head office in Bligh Street, Sydney, as a junior mail clerk, delivering mail to departments in the head office and mail to wool stores in Darling Harbour.
I would often, at lunchtime, walk to the Phillip Street Theatre, where every day famous comedians would hold functions, which I loved.
I started as a first-year jackaroo on a rural property, Mosgiel Station, on the Cobb Highway, half between Ivanhoe and Booligal. Banjo Paterson wrote a poem, Hay and Hell and Booligal, that described the land I worked on. I learnt to ride horses, muster sheep and cattle, shear and crutch sheep and lamb marking. I would help local farmers with lamb marking, which required a team to do this.
One day, a local farmer invited me to drive with them to Melbourne for the 1956 Olympics. We stayed with the Rodd Family in Toorak, and I will always remember their wonderful hospitality and making me so welcome.
I spent 20 years working on the land as a jackaroo, Overseer and Station Manager and finished on a half-million-acre rural property on the Paroo River near Ivanhoe. I will never forget the wonderful and amazing rural people I met during my time on the land. We experienced fires, floods and drought, but we all worked in many difficult times, and I will never forget the times I spent on the land.
You never forget those days after the war and how we started to help our wonderful country.
To our wonderful SDC team, thank you for sending all your great news emails every day. I also like seeing SDC Rewards, of which I am a member. I look forward to your news every day, and I hardly watch other news because most is doom and gloom.
Note from the Editor: What a fantastic member spotlight! Thank you to member Bruce P. for sharing these treasured memories.
Members, did you also work as a jackaroo? We’d love to hear from you!
Now, I thought it would be fitting to finish this member spotlight with Banjo Paterson’s Hay and Hell and Booligal.
My name is Bruce P.; I was born in 1938, and when I turned 80, my daughter-in-law told me to write some of my memories as a jackaroo.
During my first six years living in Bondi, 1944, I will always remember my sister walking me down to Bondi Beach, where we met US Marines who gave us Polly Waffles and bubblegum. We knew nothing about the war as we had no communication, no mobiles, only news on the radio.
‘I will never forget the times I spent on the land.’ Image Credit: Shutterstock
After leaving boarding school in Bathurst, I applied to work with Australian Mercantile, Land & Finance Company (AML&F), a major English wool and pastoral company with vast rural properties in NSW and QLD. I started working in AML&F's head office in Bligh Street, Sydney, as a junior mail clerk, delivering mail to departments in the head office and mail to wool stores in Darling Harbour.
I would often, at lunchtime, walk to the Phillip Street Theatre, where every day famous comedians would hold functions, which I loved.
I started as a first-year jackaroo on a rural property, Mosgiel Station, on the Cobb Highway, half between Ivanhoe and Booligal. Banjo Paterson wrote a poem, Hay and Hell and Booligal, that described the land I worked on. I learnt to ride horses, muster sheep and cattle, shear and crutch sheep and lamb marking. I would help local farmers with lamb marking, which required a team to do this.
One day, a local farmer invited me to drive with them to Melbourne for the 1956 Olympics. We stayed with the Rodd Family in Toorak, and I will always remember their wonderful hospitality and making me so welcome.
I spent 20 years working on the land as a jackaroo, Overseer and Station Manager and finished on a half-million-acre rural property on the Paroo River near Ivanhoe. I will never forget the wonderful and amazing rural people I met during my time on the land. We experienced fires, floods and drought, but we all worked in many difficult times, and I will never forget the times I spent on the land.
You never forget those days after the war and how we started to help our wonderful country.
To our wonderful SDC team, thank you for sending all your great news emails every day. I also like seeing SDC Rewards, of which I am a member. I look forward to your news every day, and I hardly watch other news because most is doom and gloom.
Note from the Editor: What a fantastic member spotlight! Thank you to member Bruce P. for sharing these treasured memories.
Members, did you also work as a jackaroo? We’d love to hear from you!
Now, I thought it would be fitting to finish this member spotlight with Banjo Paterson’s Hay and Hell and Booligal.
Hay and Hell and Booligal by Banjo Paterson
“You come and see me, boys,” he said;
“You’ll find a welcome and a bed
And whisky any time you call;
Although our township hasn’t got
The name of quite a lively spot—
You see, I live in Booligal.
”And people have an awful down
Upon the district and the town—
Which worse than hell itself the call;
In fact, the saying far and wide
Along the Riverina side
Is 'Hay and Hell and Booligal’.
“No doubt it suits 'em very well
To say its worse than Hay or Hell,
But don’t you heed their talk at all;
Of course, there’s heat—no one denies—
And sand and dust and stacks of flies,
And rabbits, too, at Booligal.
”But such a pleasant, quiet place—
You never see a stranger’s face;
They hardly ever care to call;
The drovers mostly pass it by—
They reckon that they’d rather die
Than spend the night in Booligal.
“The big mosquitoes frighten some—
You’ll lie awake to hear 'em hum—
And snakes about the township crawl;
But shearers, when they get their cheque,
They never come along and wreck
The blessed town of Booligal.
”But down to Hay the shearers come
And fill themselves with fighting-rum,
And chase blue devils up the wall,
And fight the snaggers every day,
Until there is the deuce to pay—
There’s none of that in Booligal.
“Of course, there isn’t much to see—
The billiard-table used to be
The great attraction for us all,
Until some careless, drunken curs
Got sleeping on it in their spurs,
And ruined it, in Booligal.
”Just now there is a howling drought
That pretty near has starved us out—
It never seems to rain at all;
But, if there should come any rain,
You couldn’t cross the black-soil plain—
You’d have to stop in Booligal.”
“We’d have to stop!” With bated breath
We prayed that both in life and death
Our fate in other lines might fall;
“Oh, send us to our just reward
In Hay or Hell, but, gracious Lord,
Deliver us from Booligal!”
“You come and see me, boys,” he said;
“You’ll find a welcome and a bed
And whisky any time you call;
Although our township hasn’t got
The name of quite a lively spot—
You see, I live in Booligal.
”And people have an awful down
Upon the district and the town—
Which worse than hell itself the call;
In fact, the saying far and wide
Along the Riverina side
Is 'Hay and Hell and Booligal’.
“No doubt it suits 'em very well
To say its worse than Hay or Hell,
But don’t you heed their talk at all;
Of course, there’s heat—no one denies—
And sand and dust and stacks of flies,
And rabbits, too, at Booligal.
”But such a pleasant, quiet place—
You never see a stranger’s face;
They hardly ever care to call;
The drovers mostly pass it by—
They reckon that they’d rather die
Than spend the night in Booligal.
“The big mosquitoes frighten some—
You’ll lie awake to hear 'em hum—
And snakes about the township crawl;
But shearers, when they get their cheque,
They never come along and wreck
The blessed town of Booligal.
”But down to Hay the shearers come
And fill themselves with fighting-rum,
And chase blue devils up the wall,
And fight the snaggers every day,
Until there is the deuce to pay—
There’s none of that in Booligal.
“Of course, there isn’t much to see—
The billiard-table used to be
The great attraction for us all,
Until some careless, drunken curs
Got sleeping on it in their spurs,
And ruined it, in Booligal.
”Just now there is a howling drought
That pretty near has starved us out—
It never seems to rain at all;
But, if there should come any rain,
You couldn’t cross the black-soil plain—
You’d have to stop in Booligal.”
“We’d have to stop!” With bated breath
We prayed that both in life and death
Our fate in other lines might fall;
“Oh, send us to our just reward
In Hay or Hell, but, gracious Lord,
Deliver us from Booligal!”
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great story and poem thanks for sharing.
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not You again 
