The Country Calls

 

To my mind, this piece, The Country Calls, written by the late Pat Hanifin, as he reminisced those days when  he was young and fit. prior to the Second World War.

Of course his wartime injuries took away his ability to wander at will through those open fields as he once did.  Pat recalls those precious memories, as he answers his call to the country.

John Patrick Hanifin, commonly known as Pat, or just plain J.P, prior to the Second World War he had been a keen shearer.  He was small in stature, there was not a lot of meat on those old bones of his, but he could throw those high country ewes around with the best of them.  My sketch tries to emulate Pat hard at work in the shearing shed as the country calls him before the Second World War.

The Country Calls.  

The country calls insistently 

Though city bound am I,

I sit here within these walls

My mind is flying high.

It wings its way across the hills

To sun drenched open land,

Where cattle graze on pastures rich

Where pines and blue gums stand.

I hear the Magpie's raucous call

And then a Blackbird's song,

I see the green leafed willows

Where river rolls along.

Great flocks of wooly sheep I see

The musterers and their dogs,

A campfire in a hut outback

I smell the burning logs.

Once more I'm in the shearing shed

With mates I used to know,

The day is nearly over

Just one more sheep to go.

The long blow now I've finished

I head down the money side,

I run and quickly grab the  catch

And I feel a glow of pride.

I walk once more behind the plough

And a smartly stepping team,

I smell again the fresh cut turf

And hear the seagulls scream.

With the binder in the harvest field

I'm cutting golden wheat,

The crop is ripe and heavy

I feel that life is sweet.

Then once again we're dipping sheep

A happy laughing crowd,

Of teenage boys and older men

And the dogs are barking loud.

Then in a flash, the scene has changed

And snow is on the ground,

I'm feeding out with hay and chaff

While hungry stock mill around.

The winter sun shines brightly

The ground from frost is hard,

I'm busy splitting battens

For a fence around the yard.

I hear the saw bench whining 

The boss is sawing logs,

While further out I see his son

He's working with some dogs.

Down the yards were busy mouthing sheep

And looking for  their foot rot,

The sky is blue and clear

And the day is getting hot.

The boss then pushes back his hat

He smiles and says to me,

I hope they bring the smoko soon

I'm ready for a cup of tea.

And now we're up at Simons Pass

Where we're cutting out some chaff,

 Old Geordie wears a black bun hat

I look at him and laugh.

Then once again we're thrashing wheat

The mill is calling more,

I see Jim Breen's familiar face

He is sweating stacking straw.

A gang of us hoeing swedes

Then someone cracks a joke,

As we reach the rows long end

We stop to roll a smoke.

And now again it's time for lunch

The Billy's on the boil,

We lay our hoes beside the fence

While we're resting from our toil.