Not an American cowboy
Trooper Bohan: The Shooting of Ben Hall, With Other Stories and Ballads
By Colin Newsome
Reviewed by Denis Kevans
Good to meet an old bushman who's not an American cowboy. Colin Newsome was a shearers' delegate and leader, and has been a bush and trade union poet all his life.
Jailed in the army, Newsome told his tormentors, "I joined up to fight Fascism, and I have now been jailed by them in Australia". He led shearers and workers to the point of victory,to be beaten, not by the pastoralists, or the town Nationals, but by his own union leadership — the pilot fish of that rapacious consumer of sincere worker values, the right wing of the ALP.
He's a man who has known men and women like Eileen Hartmann, a granddaughter of Trooper John Bohan, "who wouldn't shoot a bullet in the body of Ben Hall", to whom a droving mate told the story of Thunderbolt and his lover Mary Anne, who swam to Cockatoo Island with a file to cut his chains, and swam with him through shark fins to safety.
Here's a man fought in Sharman's tents, but never became a bouncer or a standover man, or used his strength and fists for the glittering slick that sickens the waters of today's Australia.
Colin Newsome is a poet, story teller and historian. Cowboy poets can come from America, and be paid, feted and written up — while Colin lugs his books and card table to the shows and festivals, telling the tales, and the truths of Australia, that he knows so well.
Books available from Colin Newsome, Emmaville Rd., Glen Innes NSW 2370.