ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

TWO MEN STILL ALIVE – Ballad for Bernard
(c) 2010 Manfred Vijars

My son has trekked up to the wreck an reckons it is a cow of a trip and that probably little has changed since O'Reilly found the survivors all those years ago. He reckons it was a miracle that they were found, but from all accounts Bernard was very familiar with the area and the terrain and was a skilled bushman


Brilliant write Mannie. Lyrics???
Cheers

Maureen

It's pretty country up there Mausie. Been there a few times, along Christmas Creek to Westray's grave it's a delightful toddle through beautiful bush. From Westray's to the wreck it's straight up, not too much of a problem until about halfway up you hit a sheer rockface of around 12 feet high. After that scramble you'll come out to a great clump of orchids. They may not have been there when the Stinson went down but it's suspected this is the spot where Westray came unstuck.

Not much left of the wreck now, a bit of twisted frame and an engine block and sadly, a couple of memorial plaques to those who didn't survive.

Was looking at a lyric for a ballad and I've been sitting on this for a while. Since it's only a second rate piece I thought it worthy of posting here - as usual ...

Pardon my thickness Manfred, when you say lyrics, do you mean that this is to be a ballad for singing.

Yes Nev, and hence the dilemma. The whole story is too big and grand to fit into one song - it is real poet's material but I was asked to write a ballad for a particular singer. But I'm not happy with it for a number of reasons. There's elements that work and are not too bad - and there's others that don't.

People are welcome to pull it to bits ...

It sounds like an interesting story Manfred but not one I'm familiar with. Where was it and when?

Heather

This is not to ' pull it to bits' Manfred, I just pondered on this aspect..... Ballads, as you would know, often tie the details into the theme by using some sort of repeated strain
( not necessarily a chorus or refrain ). Maybe if you could figure out how to do a couple of repeats of certain significant phrases, that might tighten up the image for a song.

I could be wrong.

Good call Nev ...

Here Heather, a bit more on the story ...

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/17348703
SURVIVORS OF STINSON 'PLANE CRASH RESCUED.
The two survivors of the wrecked Stinson air liner, Messrs. J. S. Proud and J. R. Binstead, were moved on stretchers from the scene of the crash yesterday. They were in a weak state, and worn out by their privations while waiting by the wrecked liner

http://www.chapelhill.homeip.net/Family ... NWRECK.htm
THE STORY OF THE STINSON WRECK
As told by Bernard O’Reilly