[Editor: This postcard, which incorporates a poem, and a photo of the Pioneer Monument (Gundagai, NSW), including a statue of the dog on the tucker box, is believed to be from the 1960s. The postcard is undated.]
[Front of postcard]
[Description: A photo of the statue of the dog on the tucker box (Gundagai).]
[Reverse of postcard]
[Handwritten text, in italics]
Dear Dad,
I hope you are feeling a bit better.
We left Kew at lunch time yesterday but unfortunately got a broken windscreen just after leaving Wangaratta, but managed to buy a new one at Springhurst. We stayed the night at Albury.
The weather has been fine; we hadn’t gone very far today when we got a flat tyre & Don had to change it, the old one was no good, had split, so Jean had to buy a new one at Gundagai.
We came on to Camden tonight, we couldn’t get in anywhere else before, actually we didn’t want to come so far today. We did 320 miles today.
Love Ethel
BY UNKNOWN BUSH BARD
Good morning mate, you are too late,
The shearing is all over,
Tie up your dog behind the log
Come in and have some dover.
For Nobby Jack has broke the yoke,
Poked out the leader’s eye,
And the dog – – – in the tucker box,
Five miles from Gundagai.
That original doggerel was crude and vulgar, and verse after verse ran on depicting incidents along the track that leads to Gundagai.
Made in West Germany by A.F.K. International, Publishers of post cards of the world’s most famous beauty spots
Source:
Original document
Editor’s notes:
Dimensions (approximate): 146 mm. (width), 103 mm. (height).
doggerel = poetry which is considered to be of crude, irregular, or rough construction; poorly-written poetry, bad poetry; trivial poetry; (archaic) comedic, burlesque, or humorous poetry (especially of irregular construction)
[Editor: For ease of reading, the original text has been separated into paragraphs, and punctuation has been inserted as deemed appropriate.]
[Editor: Changed “Camdin” to “Camden”.]
Dear Ed. Enjoying this series, as usual.
A slight transcription emendation is proposed.
You have — 3rd paragraph of handwritten text —
“… leaving Wangaratta, but managed to buy a new one at Albury.”
The card shows instead of Albury at that last word-point, what I THINK might be Springhurst. (After consulting a map to help with transcribing that word).
THEN … the original handwritten text continued with:
“… We stayed the night at Albury. … “
Hi Raymond,
It looks like almost a whole line was missed, which must have happened whilst glancing between the postcard and the transcription.
It has now been fixed.
Thank you very much for picking up on that error.