ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Cleaning up my old files whilst on holidays

The Sugar Bag

I look around the workshop or on any building site
there's power tools and machinery everywhere in sight.
All packed up in tidy boxes five speed drills or tools that rout
tool cases that stand five trays high with wheels to move about.

I think of all the old days when you made do with pack or swag
and a mans most prized possessions were in a good old sugar bag.
The fencer on the fencing line, or swaggies on the track
could carry all in those old bags slung roughly on their back.

The ones that came from England were used by many who would brick
a hundredweight they used to hold and made of jute so tough and thick.
Many tradesmen had a bought one with a rope handle and try-plane
made of canvas or of raffia that kept tools dry when in the rain.

A mans skill was judged by how he carried all his tools of trade in over all
and on many building sites "sugar bag tradesmen" was the call.
Yes what those men could do with wire and twine would leave many now aghast
and tools were made of quality, strong and built to last.

Now its scanners and computers, special tools and service bays
hiring costs and call out fees, parts that you don't get for days.
Now you can see in any workshop rows of power tools upon a rack
no more the wiry bushman with a sugar bag upon his back.

Bob Pacey ( C )
28/12/2004

I guess they were the days when men (and women?) went to work in clinker built wooden sailing dinghies too, Bob.

Why, you say the word 'clinker' to a young person today, and they'll probably think you're talking about a banana-shaped piece of honeycomb coated in milk chocolate! (And maybe you are...)

We used old spud sacks for stashing ropes and things in the truck back on the property and they were handy for heaps of other things as well. Door mats, dogs beds, shrub and plant protection, sheep towels and blankets, but they certainly aren't the quality of the jute bags you mention in your poem that were commonplace back then. Lots of great pictures conjured up by your words Bob

By the way think you have used the wrong word Brought means to bring along something with you( Eg: I brought my bag to school)
Bought means to buy something from a store(Eg : I bought a pen from a store)

I am presuming you meant the latter

Cheers

Maureen

In what dictionary Maureen Oxford or bugger can not remember the other one Help Steve !


See i still could not spell back in 2004 Mausie !


Thanks Fixed.
Bob

Macquarie?

Websters?

Funk & Wagnells?

Brought back a few memories there Bob, thanks
When I was learning the trade, if a brickie was called 'sugar bagger' it usually meant they were a pretty rough brickie. Meaning that they had just got off the boat and aquired the very basic of tools required, put them in a sugar bag and went looking for work.
Still on bricks Stephen, a 'clinker' is the term for a very overburnt deformed brick.
Ron

The subject caught my eye whilst I was looking through some old Australiana books at the Library, I will see if i can find it again and get you the books name Ron . there was quite a few good stories about this type of thing in it.


I think this was under a heading Sugar Bag Tradesmen. ?


Cheers Bob.

Ahh the funny old English language,there was never such a thing as a 'sack of spuds' when I was a kid, it would have been a bag of spuds, we had bagged wheat, we had bags of screenings, or oats or barley, we had bags to the acre and 50 bag bins when things went bulk, we had sugar bags and cement bags, seed wheat was in bags......and we wheeled them all around on a 'sack truck'!...

I reckon there is a story there in itself mate.


Bob