Extracts from Singabout - Recitations - Let's Be Australians

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In Singabout 4(4) 1962 Vera Duncan contributed the following recitation.




Mrs Vera Deacon is listed in our 1958-1966 Mailing List as the contact for the Realist Writers.
She donated her papers relating to the Realist Writers Group to the State Library of NSW & this biography comes from the Library's catalogue entry - 
Vera Deacon, nee Pember, was born into a working-class family in Mayfield-Waratah, Newcastle, in 1926. She joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in 1944. She married trade unionist and fellow CPA member, Stan Deacon (1906-1993), in 1946. She was a member of the Realist Writers’ Group (Sydney), 1954-1970, was secretary during its formative years, and edited the Realist Writer. In the 1960s Vera Deacon was an honorary board member of the Australasian Book Society. She lived in Sydney from 1948 to 1997 before moving to Stockton.
  
Vera's memories of growing up on the river during the Depression inspired Dorothy Hewett's Weevils in the Flour
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The poem has been published in 2 newspapers that have been digitised, & who know how many others that are not available on line.

A fuller version is found in TROVE - The Southern Mail (Bowral, NSW, 1889-1954),

page header The Mail, Friday August 26th 1938, page 6

Transcription -

I found these verses amongst some literary treasures

stowed away in an old chest The writer is not known

to me--worse luck ! He must have been a good

Australian.

Wild but harmonious, queer, but euphonious —

Such are the place-names that most of us know ;

Dinkum Australian- — not one of them alien,

Easy to yabber, and here's how they go : —

        Bundywalla, Nandialla,

        Yarrawonga, Carathool

        Mullumbimby, Barnawartha,

        Tumbarumba, Moorabool.

        Cootamundra, Nerrigunda,

        Goondiwindi, Parraween,

        Umeralla, Unanderra

        Murrumburrah, Narrabeen.

We think of bush blossoms, goannas and 'possums,

Of gay kookaburras — most joyous of birds !

Of stringy-bark gunyahs and big bunya-bunyas,

And the gum leafy taste as we yabber the words : —

        Biloola, Kirribilli,

        Bulladeela, Bundanoon,

        Warialda, Jindiandy,

        Murrurundi, Kangaloon.

        Parramatta, Collangatta

        Tambaroora, Dandenong,

        Wollondilly, Curruckbilly,

        Wagga-Wagga, Mittagong.

Let us stick to the names that are dinkum Australian,

Remindful of boomerang, nullah and spear;

Let us cut out all others unfitting or alien

For ' budgeree pfellar sit down longa here.'

        Billinudgel, Kookandina,

        Mullumbimby, Wallaroo,

        Milparinka, Uranqumty,

        Murrumbidgee, Jamberoo.

        Yurongilly, Curruckbilly,

        Barrenjoey, Burrangong,

        Tantanoola, Merimboola,

        Grabben-Gullen, Binalong.

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A shorter version comes from https://www.newspapers.com/about/ a US-based online site offering US & world papers. 

An extract from the poem came from
 
  



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