On The Track Of The Shed Rep 
A drawn-out drama in two parts by 
John Meredith & Rob Willis
PART I

It all started at Tumbarumba, the little Southern Highlands N.S.W. town that is so rich in folklore. In 1985, I set out on
 a three week field trip in company with Martin Fallding. On May 21, we taped Wally Wilesmith, and enquired for a song about 
Tumbarumba Creek. Wally didn't know it, but thought a bloke named Roy McLelland at Mannus Bridge might. Wally's wife, Ivy, 
added, "Don't forget to ask him to sing his 'Shearing Boots' song."

On calling at McLellands, we were directed to the shearing shed, where we found Roy crutching, and 'up to his knees in 
maggots', and in no mood to knock off and sing songs. We said we'd call again and left him working his way around the 
private parts of his sheep.

In January the following year I went on a trip through the high country with Ian Tait. On the return leg of the journey, we 
stopped off at Mannus Bridge and this time we were lucky. Born in 1929, McLelland had shorn in the Central West of the 
state, mainly around Lake Cargelligo (The Lake) and Condobolin (Condo). He sang a good lusty version of Hey Jimmie Johnson 
(The Crabfish Song), and then With My Shearing Boots On. Finally he did a fragment -all he could remember- of another song, 
The Death of the Shed Rep. He had learnt these songs from a couple of pen mates, Neville Drysdale and Pat Nightingale, a 
steel guitar player.

The burden of the Shed Rep was that this rep wouldn't allow the 'bluetongues' (shed hands) to 'barrow'. Barrowing was the 
custom of the shed hands to get down to the shed before shearing began and to shear a sheep or two, and this was how they 
learnt. Of course they were not paid for this, and the rep looked on it as unpaid or scab labour. Anyway, the rep died 
suddenly and mysteriously and the song celebrated the fact that now the bluetongues could barrow.

I was determined to get the rest of this song, and on my return home, I phoned every Drysdale and Nightingale I could find 
in the Western Districts' phone books, but without success. Then, in July 1990, Rob Willis and I went for a western field 
trip, calling at stations between Mount Hope and Cobar. In Cobar, at 'The Oxy' pub, we met Ray (Eyes) Hibbert, b. 1919, a 
mouth organist, and taped his repertoire of dance tunes. Then he gave us the text of an old English ballad, The Banks of 
the Silvery Tide, as sung by his two sisters Dolly Waddly and Clarice Handley of Armidale, which we recorded on a 
subsequent trip.

The following day 'Eyes' introduced us to his son, Alan, b. 1942, a copper miner who sang With His Mining Boots On -the 
original for Shearing Boots. He had learnt this song from another miner, who came from Western Australia, while working in 
the Mount Lyell Copper Mine in Tasmania. In conversation, we told 'Eyes' and Alan about McLellan, and mentioned Neville 
Drysdale and his Shed Rep song.

Five years later in 1995 I got a phone call. A man's voice said, "Mark Drysdale of Louth here. I believe you're looking 
for my Uncle Neville!" 'Eyes' Hibbert had moved to Louth and had been drinking with Mark, and told him about our search for 
Neville. Mark told me that his uncle Neville and Neville's old mate Pat Nightingale were living at Keppel Sands near 
Rockhampton. Well, the phone ran hot between Thirlmere (the Merdedith residence) and Rocky, and the upshot was that Neville 
promised to tape the song on a cassette and send it to me. But, alas, Neville turned out to be a good-natured "Gunna" 
(always gunna do something but never getting around to it). Early in 1996, Mark phoned me to say that he too had moved to 
the Rocky district, and the tape would soon be coming but it never did!

Then, in late June, 1996, Rob Willis phoned me from Rockhampton with the joyous news that he had, at long last, recorded 
Neville Drysdale and Pat Nightingale's repertoires, including the Shed Rep and that it was a beauty! McLelland sang his 
fragment of the song to me right after he had performed Shearing Boots, and his tune was strongly contaminated by that 
song. The text of the remembered fragment, learnt at Wyeeta shed about 1956, is:

They worked with a will
And they worked with a way,
And the bluetongues all murmured
We'll barrow today.
John Meredith