Jolly Swagmen

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 733, 31 July 1953, Page 26

Jolly Swagmen

"THE swagger is gone," says John A. Lee, "He became extinct, passing like the kauri forest, without our being aware until he was completely gone." But in four talks which he has recorded for the NZBS, Mr. Lee-former Member of ParliafMent and author of a book about the swagging days, Shining with the Shiner-does his best to bring the vanished swagger back to life again, "to. cause him to hump his bluey across the microphone." These talks, On the Swag, will start from 1YZ on

| Thursday, August 6, at 7.0 p.m. Once a swagger himself, Mr. Lee reminds us that you could meet a merchant, prosperous in job and _ appearance, a banker or an editor, a draper who had once walked with Henry Lawson, and each would begin, "When I was on the swag." When he first went to Parliament in 1922. at least ten members of the Upper House. had had a spell on the road. Telling his story in racy style, quoting frequently from Henry Lawson of™some other writer who caught the

spirit of the times, he ranges freely from the general to the particular. "The overwhelming bulk of the swag army did not dddge work. The swagger was the perambulating labourer. . . He was in search of food, and jobs moved across the year."- Or take his account of his own encounter with Edmond Slattery, who, as The Shiner became a legend in his own lifetime (and whose picture appears in this column): "At Glenavy there was a. tall, straw-hatted, Norfolk-jack-/eted swagger. It was raining slightly, and he was about to step out, His swag was up. He opened and held aloft an umbrella. . ." For those who remember the days of the swagger On the Swag will revive many memories. To younger listeners it will give an authentic glimpse of the not-so-distant past. More characters who remember the adventurous days of the past are brought to listeners in Old Memori€s, three talks written by Margaret Robinson (and read by Paula Moy), which will start in the 2YA Women’s Session on Friday, August 7. The first is about Joe, bushman and mountaineer, who won’t see 70 again, but still lives out in the bush for months at a time. Other talks describe Win, who was a boy when tidal creeks ran in where Wellington warehouses now stand; and Dick, "an old chap of nearly 90," who, as a hardware traveller in the early days, "liked going out on his réiunds at grass-seeding times’-ordets were always good then. ~