ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

It is my very great pleasure to announce that the mystery of where C. J. Dennis wrote "The Moods of Ginger Mick" has finally been solved!

Details can be found on my blog, here:
http://www.stephenwhiteside.com.au/the- ... en-solved/

Well done Stephen. Great detective work.

Thank you, Robyn.

That's fabulous, Stephen! It's always great to solve a mystery, especially when you can still view the property in question!

Cheers
Shelley

Yep, diligent detecting, Stephen (and thanks to Louise Blake). Now all we have to do is solve the mystery of how a "bonzer peach" who's "pastin' labels in a pickle joint" gets attracted to a bloke who's done his time for "stoushin' Johns" and spends his leisure hours "gittin' on the shick"!

Cheers
David

Thanks Shelley and David. Yes, I think that mystery is well beyond me. It's even worse than it looks, isn't it, because the only reason she was working in the factory was that her father died without any insurance.

Ar, I dunno, fellers - it ain't sich a mist-ery ter me, if yeh want ter take a tart's point o' view!

Bill might have had his rough edges, and his feet might have been firmly in the gutter by virtue of his circumstances, but his poetic gaze was always in the stars ...

Wot wus I slung 'ere for? An' wot's the good
Of yearnin' after any ideel tart?
Ar, if a bloke wus only understood!
'E's got a 'eart;
'E's got a soul inside 'im, poor or rich.
But wot's the use, when 'Eaven's crool'd 'is pitch?

I think despite Doreen's much higher social standing, she would have lost her heart to him if he'd told her even half of what he was thinking ...

Ar, these is 'appy days! An' 'ow they've flown -
Flown like the smoke of some inchanted fag;
Since dear Doreen, the sweetest tart I've known,
Passed me the jolt that made me sky the rag.
An' ev'ry golding day floats o'er a chap
Like a glad dream of some celeschil scrap.

Has any lover ever described it half as well? Yep, I reckon I'd be a goner too!

Cheers
Shelley

So maybe the bigger question, Shelley, is why Bill was so attracted to Doreen? I don't particularly recall her displaying any great eloquence.

Yes, you are right, Stephen! Do you know I've never pondered the reason for their mutual attraction - just taken it for granted. Thank you so much for raising it - because it has sent me back to my treasured and well-worn copy of The Sentimental Bloke, looking for illumination ... and in the process, becoming lost once again in the marvellous world of Bill and Doreen!

Well, here goes! I suppose his main attraction at the start would have simply been that the was a "bonzer peach". Then when his first (probably not honourable) advances "like you'd make a start wiv any tart" were rejected in no uncertain terms ...

The way she tossed 'er 'ead an' swished 'er skirt!
Oh, it wus dirt!

it made him realise that ...

A squarer tom, I swear, I never seen,
In all me natchril, than this 'ere Doreen,
It wer'n't no guyver neither; fer I knoo
That any other bloke 'ad Buckley's 'oo
Tried fer to pick 'er up. Yes, she was square.

So what might have begun as an intention on Bill's part to simply have a pleasant dalliance with a factory girl, suddenly took on new meaning and became a quest ...

If she'd ha' breasted up ter me an' spoke,
I'd thort 'er just a commin bit er fluff,
An' then fergot about 'er, like enough.

I think he was hooked at that point.

By the time the Stror 'at Coot came on the scene and started "dodgin' round Doreen", Bill was in deep ...

I done me block complete on this Doreen,
An' now me 'eart is broke, me life's a wreck!

But I think the defining moment was "at a beano where I lobs along", where Bill, still "chewin' over" the Stror 'at Coot episode, met Doreen's "look o' scorn". "An' then she sung a song" that clinched it for both of them ...

To 'ear 'er voice! ... A bloke 'ud be a log
'Oo kep' 'is block. Me mind wus in a fog
Of sorrer for to think 'ow I wus wrong;
Ar, I 'ave been a fair ungrateful 'og!
The feelin' that she put into that song
'Ud melt the 'eart-strings of a chiner dog.

The rest is history

And going back to Doreen's attraction to him - undoubtedly there would also have been an element of seeing him as a "work in progress". What woman could ever resist the challenge of improving a man??

Bill was obviously a "barrer man" like Ginger Mick ("I backs me barrer in" at Steeny Isaac's stall), but it's not long before that evening on the beach, when ...

Fer when a bloke 'as come to know Doreen,
It ain't the same.
There's 'igher things, she sez, for bokes to do.
An' I am 'arf believin' that it's true.

And look where it all ended up in just a year ...

Luck ain't no steady visitor, I know;
But now an' then it calls - fer look at me!
You wouldn't take me, 'bout a year ago,
Free gratis wiv a shillin' pound o' tea;
Then, in a blessed 'eap, ole Forchin lands
a missus an' a farm fair in me 'ands.

It's a decent sort of happy ending for the Bloke and his bonzer peach! What do you reckon?

Cheers
Shelley

Yes, all makes sense. Of course, Doreen didn't get to read the book - Bill's eloquence is only for the reader. Then again, perhaps we can assume that he spouted similarly attractive lines to her that WE never got to hear.

Mind you, the book has always had its detractors, for the reason David suggests. Many just didn't find it credible, and felt there was a certain dishonesty at the heart of it. Chief among these was Normal Lindsay, who seemed to nurture a strong loathing for anything that Dennis wrote. From memory, he burned a copy of "The Glugs of Gosh" on a crucifix in his front garden.

Lindsay also accused Dennis of plagiarism with "The Bloke".