RESEARCH ESSAY
'Paddy', the Sydney Street Poet

Hugh Anderson ¹

The extensive literature of broadside ballads in English generally agrees that this form of verse and song has been virtually extinct since the beginning of the twentieth century. The reverse position is the correct one for Australia. There were several street balladists to be found in Melbourne and Sydney, at least, and this article claims premier position for the local and, for the time, topical verses of Patrick Francis Collins. 'Paddy' wrote many ballads about disasters, murders and war, but commented particularly on social affairs and politics from a labour perspective.

Until Russel Ward edited his collection of Australian ballads in 1964, 2 there were very few readers aware of the poems composed by the writer Dr Ward called 'Percy', but who was really 'Paddy', even though they may have known some of his famous pieces such as 'The Death of Les Darcy':	1
In Maitland cemetery Lies poor Les Dar-cy, His mother's pride and joy, Australia's bonny boy... 3
Many others who have never heard of P.F. Collins may yet ecall a fragment of his verses like those 'to the memory of Phar Lap, the world's greatest horse':
He was a mighty horse indeed, Alas: he's passed away; But the world will remember him Until the latest day... 4
Russel Ward set down what little he knew about Collins, who was probably Sydney's best-known street poet between 1910 and his death over 20 years later:	2
'Percy the Poet', whose real name was apparently P.F. Collins, composed, published, and sold his own street ballads in Sydney during the 1920s and 1930s. Some of them, like 'The Death of Les Darcy' and 'Phar Lap', passed into oral tradition and have been recorded in different versions as far afield as North Queensland. Learned critics have been known to carp at Percy's prosody, but none have denied his patriotism or that he was possessed by the true furor poeticus. 5
This statement is a well-meaning, if slightly patronising, comment on one of Australia's best-worst poets, who is at least the equal of the celebrated Jack Bradshaw, the 'last of the Australian bushrangers' or Melbourne's James Purtell, who proclaimed himself in 1916 as 'the most popular poet in Australia'. All these local poets of the highways and byways with their own peculiar proficiencies, were strong contenders for the 'tin wreath' for verse which was awarded earlier this century by the Sydney Bulletin , after a plebiscite of poets, to 'Bellerive', otherwise Joseph Tishler of North Melbourne. 6 In overseas terms, Patrick Francis Collins stands tall even beside the 'presiding genius' of William McGonagall, who is the English-speaking world's 'unchallenged prince of bad verse writers', according to the Scottish writer Hamish Henderson. 7 Henderson very pointedly ejects McGonagall as having anything in common with a folk-poet:
[his] style was formed out of the debris and detritus of folksong--out of all the things which song composed in 'the idiom of the people' shed in the process of becoming folksong.
McGonagall thought of himself as an art-poet, Henderson says, using much the same idiom as folk poetry as a new style. He was a public poet, a 'meticulous chronicler of events, local and national', but the 'sublime banality' of his work 'was a sort of frowsy doss-house in which every wooden phrase, every gormless anti-climax was sure to find a bed.' The criticism of McGonagall is clearly applicable to Collins and his Australian fellow street poets.
The major printed sources elating to Patrick Francis Collins are limited to W.F. Wannan's well-known collection, The Australian, and to his reference book on Australian Folklore, where he names Collins as 'the indefatigable hymester of the 1920s', although his output reaches from the 1890s to the 1930s. 8 The first book contains texts of 'The Release of the IWW Men' and 'The Darcy-McGoorty Fight' (which is named 'D'Arcy the Winner' elsewhere), while the second quotes 'The Bankstown Disaster', 'The Bellbird Mining Disaster', and 'Darcy the Winner', about the fight between Les Darcy and McGoorty as previously mentioned:	3
It's of a young hero now well-known to fame, That I write these few verses, Les. D'Arcy is his name; He was born in Maitland, as all of you know, Where good men were born in days long ago. 9
Darcy beat that 'honest and straightforward youth' McGoorty and was sure to go on and defeat Gibbons, Ahern and Brown with Paddy's blessing, 'may he gather fresh laurels and weather all gales', he said. Another Les Darcy ballad, one generally overlooked, was written by Collins to commemorate 'Australia's Champion Boxer who died in America May 24th, 1917':
You sportsmen of Australia,    And throughout this world so wide, We know that you'll be sorry    For a champion that has died, At Maitland and Newcastle too,    Many hot tears will be shed, For one they knew in childhood days-    Les. Darcy who is now dead. 10
There was a third poem on the Darcys, 'To the Memory of Frank & Les Darcy', who died 8 May 1919 and 24 May1917 respectively:
Farewell to you Les. Darcy true    Farewell to Frank also, For you are gone forever more    Where everyone must go. Your mother's heart is sad and sore    And Father's heart today. For you who in your youth and bloom    From life has passed away.
Frank was a promising young boxer from Maitland who died of 'pneumonic influenza' at the age of 18 years 11 It is easy to see why the pedestrian five stanzas did not achieve the level of critical approval given to the other ballads on the Darcys by Collins.
Wannan, who gave the information to Ward, also refers to Paddy Collins as 'Percy', and when he was asked where he obtained his information, he mentioned typed copies handed on by DR Ian Turner 12 of the History Department of Monash University. Subsequently, Professor Ward included four poems by 'Paddy the Poet' in his Penguin anthology from the same ultimate source--the personal scrapbook once held by Tom Nelson of the Waterside Workers' Federation--but no one appeared to know more. Who was the mysterious P.F. Collins, and what did the elusive scrapbook contain? The trail finally led to Tommy Hammond, the real owner of the scrapbook , who was then a 73 year-old ex-boxer and pensioner with Parkinson's Disease, who lived in a caravan behind his daughter Beryl's house in Birrong, a western suburb of Sydney. Hammond had pasted into the scrapbook numerous street ballads and newspaper verses, most of which had come to him from Paddy Collins in return for his continuing patronage of one shilling each time he was given a ballad, but the book also includes street ballads written by Jack Bradshaw, amongst others. Tommy said he gave money to Collins to buy a meal, and in return obtained the latest poem which the old man usually had printed at Sid Madden's premises in the 1920s at 132 George Street. Collins sold his ballad sheets at the football matches on Saturday, at the Stadium between bouts, or down at the Domain on Sunday afternoons where the speakers harangued the crowds. 13	4
Tommy Hammond said he clearly remembered Collins as an old man with soup stains on his vest, living at 477 King Street, Newtown, and often dependent upon hand-outs for his existence. His cry for trade as he offered his flimsy printed verses referred always to the race when 'Worack' was beaten by 'Mountain Night' at 100 to one:	5
I got a fright upon the track When 'Mountain Night' beat 'Worack'. If I don't make you laugh I'll eat two bags of chaff! 14
Another call was-
Buy a verse on Paddy Quinn; You'll buy more if you begin. It will only cost a penny; Come and buy one if you've any. Patronise a poet's verse; You might spend your money worse.
Collins competed for sales against other sellers of ballads such as Jack Bradshaw, and the barrackers at the sports arenas, such as the notorious 'Yabba', otherwise Stephen Gascoigne. Unlike Collins, 'Yabba' was a well-publicised figure and did not aspire to be a balladist. A tall, heavily-built man, he was a rabbit seller who each day 'could be seen with his little pony and two-wheeled cart, driving round Balmain and the neighbouring suburbs, loudly calling out, 'Rabbo, wild rabbo !' in a voice that could be heard a mile away!' He became a local, then national figure at the cricket, always dressed in dark trousers and white shirt, shouting knowledgeable witticisms, some of which are said to have 'passed into the vernacular of the game'. 15 The same journalist, in an article on barracking, mentions both Collins and Bradshaw:
At one period Paddy Collins struck opposition from another penny poet, Jack Bradshaw, who called himself 'the last of the Australian bushrangers'. Most of his poems were about bushrangers. Bradshaw and Collins wrote a lot of topical verse, and, while it is extremely doubtful if any of their work will ever find a way into any anthology of Australian verse, their poems were at least interesting, and during dull periods of play they sold like the proverbial hot cakes.
By chance, a reference was found to two small booklets of verse held in the National Library of Australia, both of which were by P.F. Collins and were published in Melbourne during his stay in that city. Balfour and Pat O'Brien (1890) 16 does not reveal much of Collins' background, but emphasises the Irish connection, maintaining 'although thousands of miles divide Irishmen from the land of their birth--that land of patriots and martyrs, of long suffering and sorrow--still their hearts and minds travel back in dreams to the glorious scenes of their youthful days.' An Exile's Address to his Country 17 , issued the following year, promoted the author as 'a self-taught man' who was:
Born 1863, in Annadown, Galway, Ireland, five Irish miles from the historic city of the tribes, where the spirit of Irish nationality has an undying hold. At an early age I was taught to love my country , and honor the memory of her departed martyrs, who sacrificed their lives for her sacred cause. Although seas divide me from that sainted isle and friends of youth, the love of country instilled into my mind in my youthful days shall never die. (p. 6).
There is no surprise, following this introduction, to read the first, and title poem in the book:
Sad was the hour when you and I parted- Erin my country a blessing on thee! I wander in exile sad broken-hearted- Erin my country a blessing on thee! For years I've travelled the wilds of Australia, Gray is my hair; there's no happiness for me Since I left dear old Ireland, my own native sireland- Erin my country a blessing on thee ! 18
There are other heart-rending things in these publications, including 'Send me a Shamrock from Home'(1886), 'Lift Your Head, Dear Erin' (1890), and 'An Irish Exile's Fate', a circumstantial story of County Donegal and a family whose cottage is fired. The son vows revenge, but the father implores him not to be rash and leave it to God. Seeking his fortune in Australia, the son arrives in Moreton Bay in August 1882, finally obtaining a job on a station near Lismore where he labours until 1884, leaving to search for gold in the Kimberleys. When unsuccessful, John O'Donnell tries to return to Normanton, but loses his way and lies down on a blanket, finally dying of thirst beneath a tree. Another poem dated 20 September 1890, 'The Melbourne Strike', calls on-	6
You working men of Melbourne,    Once more I say, Unite And show those wealthy tyrants T   hat you are determined to fight. Tell those men that you mean to win    On Labour's battle-field, Or sacrifice all earthly things    And die before you yield. Some of you men once left your home    And crossed the angry waves, And found a home in this sunny land    Where Briton's shan't be slaves...
Collins arrived in Australia about 1880, described as a labourer from Tume, Co. Galway, the son of a farmer, Anthony Collins and Katie McDonagh, of Annagdown parish about five miles from the town of Galway and on the shore of Lough Corrib. It is said to be a place of ancient religious establishments since the time of St Brendan, but at the suppression the area passed into the hands of the Earl of Clanricarde. 19 The facts about Collins' life in Australia are rather scanty and often conflicting, but it appears he spent four years in Queensland in the 1880s, three or so years in Victoria, and 45 years in New South Wales. There is even doubt about his marital status, as the information varies from certificate to certificate, but various records state he married Esther (or Ester) McDonald (McDonnell) at Mackay, Queensland, on 3 October 1883 -- or maybe that should be Charters Towers on 3 December the same year! Esther was supposedly born in Belfast in either 1852, 1862, or 1864, but these marked variations may be due to a faulty memory or perhaps the union was not official. It is likely they had five sons and four daughters, but by 1898 a son and two daughters had died. There were five children living when Patrick died in hospital on 9 January 1934, said to be 72 years of age and a journalist by profession.	7
After a notice asking for help was printed in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1979, I was contacted by Stan Ewing of Epping, NSW, who was a man of 77 years, but who nevertheless wrote in a strong, well-formed handwriting about his recollections of Patrick Collins. Collins, he remembered, was a teacher of the boys' class at the Bourke Street Superior Public School, Surry Hills. The school, actually Surry Hills South, was made a Superior Public School in 1885 in order to provide secondary education. Although it was 'one of the largest, most elaborate and most expensive schools of the nineteenth century'[in New South Wales] and built with a tower and an imposing facade, inside it had mean and crowded rooms filled with long desks and a gallery. 20 Stan Ewing said his teacher also had a very human flaw:	8
And I egret to say was even then--the term was not then applied--an alcoholic. He would often whilst taking class be seen to pop behind the large blackboard for a quick nip from a flask that he carried. He was always referred, rather irreverently as you can imagine by the boys, as to the Prof. or Professor. 21
He knew this was the street poet Paddy Collins, because 'some years later I would often see him going around amongst the crowd on the 'Hill' at the Sydney Cricket Ground with his bundle of Poems--like the proofs from a printer--[calling out]--'A penny for a poem about [whatever subject he had written]'.' In another letter Ewing admitted his boyhood memories were 'subject to some latitude', but described Collins as a man:
of medium build, a little on the lighter side and would have been perhaps 40 to 45 years of age when I was in his class somewhere round about 1912/1913. He was then grey headed, with a distinctive bulbous purple nose and wispy moustache, and so he was unmistakable when I used to see him toting his Poems around amongst the football crowds at the Sydney Cricket Ground [in the years about 1919].
For many years my knowledge of Paddy Collins' poems was limited to Tommy Hammond's scrapbook, but further searching has uncovered at least 86 broadsides and I am certain more will eventually turn up. The earliest so far discovered is that celebrating fireman Charlie Brown who lost his life in 1894, and the latest elated to the death of airman Bert Hinkler or batsman Archie Jackson, both in 1933. In between those dates Collins issued a stream of popular ballads on topical matters over an immense range of subjects. It is impossible to clearly distinguish the verses as categories of subject-matter, and other poems may surface to alter the absolute numbers, but some 25 per cent, from the victory of the Sydney (1914) to the death of Kitchener (1916) dealt with the first World War; 15 per cent considered aspects of what might be called public affairs, such as six o'clock closing of hotels (1916) to the arrival of Captain Ross Smith in 1919.
Under the headings of politics, sport, and verse obituaries there is about 14 per cent of the extant broadsides in each of the three categories, and 10 per cent on disasters, while the rest concern crimes such as the murder of Arthur T otter and murderers like William Moxley. T otter was the middle-aged commercial traveller for a chocolate manufacturer who collected money and kept it under his bed when unable to get back to the office. On a very hot night on 6 January 1913 the family was woken by a gunman, later identified as Harold Thompson, and a much smaller accomplice, possibly Squizzy Taylor. When T otter foolishly swung a punch he was shot in the face by Thompson and his assistant quickly lifted the matress and snatched the money. 22 William Moxley was executed at Long Bay Gaol for the murder of Dorothy Denziel and Frank Wilkinson near Liverpool on 5 April 1932. It was the first time the death sentence had been carried out since 1924 and attracted great attention in the newspapers after an appeal on the plea of temporary insanity. 23 His dying confession as penned by P.F. Collins on 17 August began:	9
My name is William Moxley    And I'm about to die A most disgraceful death indeed    Upon the gallows high; I killed two people in cold blood    And I deserve my fate, I'm sorry now for what I did,    But sorrow came too late.
Besides the single poems, Collins issued what he called 'Collins' Penny Number and Advertising Rhymester' at least twice, on 9 March and 24 May 1917, where 'wit and wisdom gather in prose and verse and song'. Unfortunately, the content is mostly a collection of previously published verses with advertisements also in verse, such as that for hairdresser Sid Steele:	10
Men have won a place in fame With burnished steel so keen; Sid Steele has won a famous name For shaving light and clean.
The Collins' Penny Numbers were limited to editions of 880 copies. One reprinted 'The Irish Exile's Return', 'The Tramway Red Roll', and 'A Political Chat'; the second included 'A Brave Soldier's Sweetheart', 'The Sydney's Victory', and for the second time, 'A Political Chat'.
The Industrial Workers of the World (usually known as the IWW or 'Wobblies') aimed to unite all 'class-conscious' workers in 'one big union'. The Society came to Australia in 1907, but was particularly active during World War 1. In November 1916, twelve members of the IWW from New South Wales were tried with conspiring to commit arson and to excite sedition and sentenced to gaol for periods of five to 15 years. There was considerable agitation for their release, but the organisation was declared illegal. The following year, the State Government appointed Mr Justice Street to inquire into the cases, but he could find no doubt of their guilt. A Royal Commission followed when the Labor Party won the State election in 1920 and ten of the men were released. The only one to serve a five-year sentence was Donald Grant--sentenced , it was said, to '15 years for 15 words'--who later became a Federal Senator. Collins in one of his best known poems, concentrated his anger on Davis Goldstein and Henry Scully, the ex-members of the IWW who gave information as Crown witnesses:	11
Rejoice! you fellow working men, Your comrades are set free, Who have suffered for these long years In want and misery; Locked up within grim prison walls Surely an earthly hell, The anguish that they have endured None but themselves can tell. Sent there by crawling perjurers Who made up a false tale, Now Scully and the Goldsteins too Ought to be sent to gaol; No one is safe whilst they're about To mix with honest men, What they have done for greed and gain They'd do the same again. 24
The shooting of Percy Brookfield MLA by Koorman Tomyaiff (or Tomayev) at Riverton station on the way to Broken Hill on 23 March 1921 was long referred to by some in the labour movement as an assassination. 25 This Percy, or Jack, or Brookie, as he was called, was a very colourful politician and at the time of the shooting was the Independent Member for Broken Hill, having been expelled from the ALP for a close association with the Industrial Workers of the World. He had been in the news over his opposition to a visit by the Prince of Wales; he had also accused Sir George Fuller, ex-Premier and Member of the House of Representatives, of offering a bribe to 'sell-out' John Storey's State Government's precarious majority These rumors seemed to support the story of Brookfield being 'set-up'. Tomyaiff emptied his pistol into the passengers during the early morning stop. He ran a short distance and tried to reload, while Brookfield took a gun from an off-duty constable and rushed the Russian, but suddenly fell unconscious at his feet, having fired once. All the same Tomyaiff's attention was diverted long enough for Constable Kinsella and a couple of passengers to overpower and drag to the ground the man called 'the mad Russian'. Five were shot, but only Brookfield was seriously injured. He was placed on a rough stretcher and laid in the Guard's van for the journey to Adelaide, where he died later the same day.	12
In reporting the funeral that took place on Good Friday afternoon after the body had been on show for two days at the Trades Hall, the local newspaper said thousands on foot, each with a red ribbon in his coat, marched eight abreast behind the hearse drawn by six horses also decked in red ribbons and each accompanied by a postilion. At the head of the procession was a mounted man carrying a large red flag followed by a massed band of 50 instruments playing the 'Dead March'. 'Never before in the history of Broken Hill has such a tribute been paid to the dead', was the reporter's verdict. During the grave-side service, orators praised Brookfield as the 'rebel hero', 'the greatest champion the Labour cause ever had' and 'one of the most lovable men that ever breathed', and the band played 'The Red Flag' and the choir sang 'Should I ever be a Soldier'. When the coffin was lowered, 'Hold the Fort' was the favoured tune. Postcards of the funeral were sold by the hundreds and prize fights were arranged to raise money towards a memorial. Paddy Collins, on the other hand, composed and sold his poetic tribute:	13
Lament from shore to shore, For Brookfield who's no more; His honest life is o'er, He's lying cold and dead. A sterling man was he, With me you will agree; He helped men to be free, Throughout the world wide. He gave the wowsers fits, He hated hypocrites, And men who worked in pits He helped to raise their screw. His heart was brave and pure Of that we're very sure, He helped to feed the poor When faced with poverty. At Riverton we know A madman laid him low And as years come and go He will not be forgotten, The bravest ever trod, Beloved by man and God, And now beneath the sod 'Till Michael's trumpet sounds. Farewell, staunch Brookfield, Your deeds are far afield, To death you had to yield Philanthropist and sport. Now, farewell Percy dear, We've shed a silent tear; Your good and grand career Will never, never die.
A somewhat better poet, Mary Gilmore, made an equally sincere tribute at the time:
Tell it abroad, tell it abroad, Tell it by chapel and steeple, How, in the height of his manly prime, Brookfield died for the people.
And
Out where the Barrier mourns her son Grief will be matched with pride, For just as he lived his days each one, So in the end he died. 26
When another popular poet named William Butters died 'Hamer', in an article on 'The Poet of the Kerb', wrote that only P.F. Collins remained to represent street verse. 'Hamer' was the pen-name of Harold Mercer who wrote verse and prose sketches, mainly for the Bulletin, and intriguingly entitled his first collection The Search for the Bonzer Tart. Mercer chided Collins for trying like everyone else to raise the price for a poem, but since he was considered 'a man of native generosity he is prepared to let his gems go to patrons of the Muse for the lesser sum [of a penny] rather than allow them to miss the educating influence of his verse.' As a topical poet, it was asserted, Collins was in the first class and 'few events of big note occur without the printing press having to get going with a new masterpiece.' 27 A g eat virtue, according to Mercer, was Collins' simple directness and clarity, exemplified in his verses (which are otherwise unknown to me) on the loss of life on the Fitzroy which floundered off Cape Hawke in 1921:
I mean all those who lost their lives, Many of them we know well, And how they felt when choked with brine No mortal man can tell.
Nevertheless, Hamer thought Collins' greatest claim to fame was his discovery of 'an adequate and soul-satisfying hyme for "poets" [as in goats], revealed in his "Paddy Quinn"':
He's a man who is witty, If he's poor it's a pity, He can write a ditty    With the best of our poets; He hates all the wowsers Who wear funny trousers, He's rather feed towsers    Than those silly goats.
The group of poems I have called 'Public Affairs' is a rich one that includes 'A Woman's Mistake', 'Miss Australia', 'Why Women Rule the Men' and 'A Hearty Welcome to the American Fleet', but an age-old story of a woman tricked is told in 'The Barmaid's Dream', that does not appear to have survived as a broadside and is known only from the Papers of Lionel Lindsay 28 :	14
I am a young barmaid, my name it is Nell, The young men of Sydney do know me quite well; I'm fair and I'm handsome, so some people say, And those are the mashers who call every day. One night in November 'ere going to bed, I had a champaigne and it went to my head; Before the next morning I had a great dream, And that's why I write this poetical theme. I dreamt I was walking along at Coogee And met a young fellow who accosted me; He doffed his new hat, saying: 'Hello, sweet Nell, You're looking quite charming I know you so well.' For a minute or more we had a quiet talk, And then we decided to go for a walk; We sat on a seat and he then said to me: 'My uncle's a planter and lives at Fiji. So let's get a taxi and marry today.' I freely consented and went right away, I felt then as happy as happy could be, But now joy is over there's none left for me. At six the next morning, I woke with a start, I looked for my husband with a beating heart; My husband had vanished and I found instead A bottle of whiskey lying with me in bed.
'Billy' Hughes, sometime Prime Minister of Australia, figured in Collins' verse like a politician in a cartoonist's drawing. 'Our Billy', he called him, was almost killed by a wild horse in Centennial Park:	15
There is a horse, a war-like horse    Who nearly did the trick, He threw our Billy to the ground    And all but broke his neck; He gave a snort, he cocked his tail    And through the Park did go, That cunning horse has far more sense,    Than the goats of Bendigo. Chorus Hip-hoo-ray for that mighty horse, May he not go short of corn, He's got more sense than any horse That ever yet was born.
Billy's Farewell to Bendigo' (to the air 'Weary Willie') obviously continues the same story:
Good-bye, you goats of Bendigo,    I leave you to your fate, Because the young goats of the flock    Deserted me of late. I'm going back to my old haunts    In good old Sydney town, Where friendly goats and pussyfeet    Will never turn me down. One time I rode a fiery steed,    To emulate the Prince, But now I'll ride the public donk    Who's got no common sense. Still I love the working goats,    But they will not believe me; Nevertheless I'll be alright    If wowsers don't deceive me.
In 'Political Black Crows', Collins praises 'fearless Jack Lang', 'that noble hero, staunch and stout' ejected by the electorate in place of 'carrion crows' who only 'crawl and cringe and then they rat':
Our politicians are black crows, They'd pick your eyes and bleed your nose, Indeed they are the workers' foes Without the slightest doubt. Old men of old who blazed the track O'er the mountains away back, These carrion crows, alas, alack, Are trying to make them starve. They've cut the old age pension down Enough to make the angels frown, And the great God who wears a crown Is angry today. The workers' lot is hard, I say, Enough to make them old and gray, Because they get but little pay, Tho' things are very dear.
In 1923, Paddy Collins also hailed Ted Theodore as 'the man of the hour'-
Who is the man with talents rare? That is despised by Fat A noble man who loves the poor A mighty democrat. He is native born in This land of sun and shine; That is the man who took the place Of glorious T.J Ryan-             THEODORE.
The poem ends
The Labor cause is a just cause- It is the workers creed Of conscientious men to preach We're very much in need. You workers. Now be up and doing. Be solid as of yore; And your grand children will yet bless, Good men like-             THEODORE.
P.F. Collins was a very strong writer on disasters. 'The Coogee Calamity' at the end of January 1911 right through to the 'Hacking Shark Tragedy' in January 1927 is a period rich in drama. At Coogee Beach three men and a boy drowned before a hundred or so spectators who 'stood demoralised and useless on the beach'. Although the flags were flying, 13 girls had slipped into the channel and into immediate danger. Two men lying on the sand, Harold Baker and Jim Clarken, jumped into the surf. Baker dragged one swimmer out, turned and raced back tearing off his clothes because 'it was no time for mock-modesty' and was grabbed by three girls while Clarken pulled out the lifeline for several more. Baker went to the rescue for a third time until finally all had been saved. 29 Collins wrote of the shark attack at Port Hacking on 2 January 1927 as the site for 'the world's bravest deed'. 30 'Young [Mervyn] Allum from Ashfield Town' was the unfortunate victim, and 'young [Stanley] Gibbs,, the bravest youth alive' fought off the shark:
The day was fine, the water clear,    And as smooth as a pond; But the surfers never thought of    What danger lurked beyond. It was a shark, some twelve feet long    And in shallow water, His eyes were bulging from his head,    Anxious for the slaughter.
Look at some of the titles: 'The Mount Lyell Disaster' (1912), 'The Great Queensland Flood' (1916), 'The Harbour Fatality' (1919), 'The Bellbird Mining Disaster' (1923), 'The Wreck of the North-West Mail' (1926), and others, cry out for quotation, but I offer only 'The Floundering of the Collier Galava' on 9 February 1927 as a sample:
Loaded with coal she left the port-    'Twas Catherine Hell Bay, They never thought that death was near,    When starting on their way. But He was there without a doubt;    For seven now are dead; They will lie low 'till time's no more,    In dark oblivion's bed.
The survivors were the Captain and two firemen, who swam for three miles to each the beach. The 'good old tars' went down with their ship:
The sailor's lot is very hard,    He works by night and day, Although his job is dangerous,    He doesn't get much pay. When they're dead and their task is done,    The master class will say- We paid them well for what they did,    Before they passed away.
There are 13 or so broadside 'verse obituaries' by Collins known at present, and for me they are really his strongest talent. Both man and beast are represented; from 'A Tribute to the Memory of Dame Melba' to 'Phar Lap', and there are verses on a fireman Charlie Brown who was killed at Lawler's Building in George Street on 1 September 1894, and Jim Sullivan who died trying to save horses from a fire in Camperdown; Bert Hinkler, airman; Archie Jackson, cricketer; Laurence Foley, boxer, and even John Norton, newspaper proprietor and 'people's tribune' who died on 8 April 1916:	16
A brilliant man has passed away,    John Norton was his name; He made the tyrants shake with fear,    The coward blush with shame. For wowsers, quacks, and hypocrites    He had not time at all, He hated cant and humbug,    And those who cringe and crawl.
This was printed by 'The People's print, City' on 26 April 1916 in an edition of 2000 copies. 'Dead, But Not Forgotten' is dedicated to politician John Storey:
Although he's dead and laid at rest,    His spirit's with us here; He was an honest man indeed,    Throughout his whole career. The Labor cause that he embraced,    Was foremost in his mind; But men like him with noble hearts,    Are very hard to find.
In September 1922, following his death, a broadside 'To the Glorious and Everlasting Memory of My Old Friend Henry Lawson Australia's Sweetest Bard' appeared over the usual signature of P.F. Collins.	17
He's laid at rest, Australia's best,    His death we do deplore, His poems and name were known to fame    Right through from shore to shore; To gain great wealth was not his aim    Throughout his whole career, He wrote in peace of Mother Land,    His own Australia dear. He followed his own path in life,    A humble man was he, Yet his great poems will surely go    Down to posterity; He never injured anyone    Tho, he was always poor, He never grumbled at his lot    Of that we're very sure. Nature endowed him with a gift,    His language was sublime And will be quoted in this land    Until the end of time; 'Tis a pity that such a man    Should so soon pass away But the sweet'r that ever bloomed    Must wither and decay. Australia's bard, your life was hard,    And very hard to spare, Sure poverty was no man's friend,    Of that you've had your share; But now you're in a damp cold grave    Beneath your native sod, Sleep on and may you rest in peace    With the almighty God.
Paddy Collins' language was hardly sublime, although he too was endowed with a gift. Jan-Andrew Henderson 31 , in marked contrast to the view of Hamish Henderson, found in McGonagall 'a truly special kind of genius'. He was of Irish descent and grew up in the slums of Edinburgh's Cowgate, and spent many years as a weaver in Dundee, writing his first verses in 1877 when aged 52 years. Although his verse was disjointed and often doesn't scan, and his verse recitals drew crowds who mostly sought entertainment, there was a definite honesty and pathos in his writing that gives it a lasting appeal, which is also the most important characteristic of the work of Paddy Collins.	18
Endnotes 1. I was assisted many years ago by Russel Ward and 'Bill' Wannan; more recently Chris Cunneen, then Deputy General Editor of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, provided essential biographical information. 2. R. Ward, The Penguin book of Australian Ballads. Penguin Books, 1964. 3. Broadside, reprinted in Ward p. 242. 4. Broadside, reprinted in Ward, pp. 243-44. 5. Ward, p. 242. 6. Bulletin , 28 May 1908. 7. Hamish Henderson, 'William McGonagall and the Folk Scene'. Chapbook (Aberdeen), vol. 2, no. 5, 1965, pp.3-10, 23-34. 8. The Australian . Adelaide, 4th red, 1963; Australian Folklore . Melbourne, 1970. 9. Published 27 December 1914. 10. Published 27 June 1917. 11. Sydney Morning Herald , 8 May 1919. 12. Letter, Wannan to Anderson, 18 June 1973. 13. The scrapbook was later purchased from Tommy Hammond. It is now part of the Anderson Collection in the National Library of Australia (Mss. 6946). 14. Interview with Tom Hammond, 1976. 15. W.P. Thornton in Sydney Morning Herald, 26 February 1955. There are numerous references to the life and sayings of 'Yabba', including an entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol.8 p.629, an obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald , 9 and 20 January 1942, and in newspaper articles in the Sydney Morning Herald , 31 July 1969, and the Sun (Sydney), 30 January 1976. 16. Melbourne, H.W. Mills & Co., Printers, Russell Street, 1890. 17. 'The Reformer' Printing Works, 1 Union Street, Brunswick, MDCCCXCI [1891]. 18. 'An Exile's Address' to the tune named as Eileen Ogue and dated 10 January 1891. 19. N. Hamilton (red), National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland. Vol.1 p.72. 20. Bourke Street Public School Centenary 1880-1980. p.3. 21. Stan Ewing letter to Anderson, 27 July 1979. 22. H. Anderson, Larrikin Crook : The rise and fall of Squizzy Taylor. Brisbane, 1971. 23. Sydney Morning Herald , 2 July, 4 and 18 August 1932 24. Broadside, reprinted in part in Wannan, The Australian. Melbourne, 1954 pp.275-76. 25. Bertha Walker, Solidarity Forever . Melbourne, 1972 pp.185-86. 26. Quoted from the Worker by Edgar Ross, A History of the Miner's Federation of Australia . Sydney, 1970, pp. 307-08 27. Bulletin , 29 September 1921. 28. ML Mss 1969/12 29. Sydney Morning Herald , 30 January 1911. 30. Sydney Morning Herald , 4 and 21 January 1927. 31. The Town Below the Ground , Edinburgh, 1999 pp.101-110

Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.