Byron One

 

by Harry Robertson - Australian folk song
mp3 The song begins 'in fifty-six I sailed on board', and it's easy to assume the song must mean 1856 but then it clearly mentions diesel engines and then of course we must remember that Harry Robertson would not have been alive in 1856. I met him briefly in Darling Street Balmain in the mid 1970s and he was singing of a time only twenty years prior when he was a whaler out of Ballina on the northern New South Wales coast where whales can still be seen at times in Byron Bay.
   
  I approached the Ballina information centre to ask where the Whalers would have tied up in Ballina, they didn't know anything about there being whalers in Ballina and directed me toward the library where they also had no knowledge of such an occurence and directed me to the Maritime Museum behind the library where they also had no knowledge of the where or if whalers tied up there. But whaling vessels did tie up there and with whales often seen in Byron Bay, why wouldn't they tie up there? There was however clear evidence of one thing, we need folksongs to make us aware of historical events, where other knowledge appears to be lacking and not only the details but also a sense of what is was like to be there at that time.
  Nic Jones has an excellet version of this song. Harry Robertson has written many other songs of this nature.
  This mp3 is from a recorded version of the song found on
Graham Dodsworth's 'In Our Time' CD release
Graham Dodsworth - arrangement, vocal & guitar.