lyrics

WOW!!! What a lovely photograph of the mother and her son. I could look at that all day and marvel at the image. A poet in his finery with the loving mother by his side, dressed in their day to day clothes and posing for the gentleman/woman with the camera. Look at the hat on the ground, at the weather beaten skin on their faces and hands, the long strong fingers of the man and the well worn shoes on the pair of them? Magic!

Swordscookie And her wedding ring has become very loose on her fingers as they've shrunk with age... Did check to see if we have a copy of that poem in our collections, but if we do, it's not individually catalogued. Maybe in our collections of street poems and ballads.

On Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Brigid's_Well it says that a wandering poet once wrote - "On St Brigid’s Eve, as night fell, My mother and I went to Saint Brigid’s Well, Where the candles do burn and the great walls do shine on the graves of the dead and the vaults of O’Brien" Could those be the words of our Poet friend above? It would be great to find out and get the entire text.

great old photography ...

Swordscookie Wouldn't that be amazing?

William Arthur Caflisch (1857-1938) also composed the "Good night" and the "Overture de Concert". He also became a Liedertafel's conductor. Source: "Diversity in Australia's music: Themes Past, Present and for the future", by Dorrotya Fabian & John Napien, 2018

Comedian, writer, songwriter, producer/director, troupe proprietor. Often billed as 'the man in red' during his early career and as 'the man with the silver stick, from 1921, Billy Maloney was a juvenile actor with William Anderson’s Pantomime Company before turning to vaudeville as a comedian in 1913. He appeared frequently on the Tivoli circuit and spent 1920-22 in Brisbane with John N. McCallum's Town Topics (revived by Maloney and Elton Black, 1923-24). He later toured Billy Maloney’s Scandals and was associated with Frank Neil, Joe Lawman, George Wallace, and Graham Mitchell among others. Maloney moved to the UK in 1939, appearing on television, producing revues, and later running a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. Some of his work: "The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" Billy Maloney, Fred Whaite (composer), John N. McCallum, Town Topics, 1921 musical theatre pantomime fantasy "Too Thin Chow" Billy Maloney, John N. McCallum, Town Topics, 1921 musical theatre burlesque humor Source: www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A108146

When Billy Maloney appeared at a state banquet for the Prince of Wales in Sydney in 1920 the prince presented him with a silver stick. From then Maloney was billed as "the man with a silver stick". He appeared frequently on the Tivoli Circuit and he was especially popular in the Cremorne Theatre in Brisbane in the early 1920s. In association with Lou Handman, a visiting American composer, he wrote the song "Smithy" in 1928 to celebrate Charles Kingsford Smith's Trans-Pacific flight. Maloney's career waned in the 1930s. He went to the United Kingdom, where he appeared on television in 1939 and toured in variety. Then he made his home in Edinburgh, where he produced small reviews. Source: ozvta.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/maloney-billy-r-notes-1...

Some interesting facts: * Maloney married Claire Lloyd Brady in Brisbane on 10 Dec. 1921 (Everyone's 28 Dec. 1921). * His pantomime The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe (1921) featured a group of children. Their popularity led to the formation of Billy Maloney's Panto Kiddies which appeared as an independent act in Brisbane in 1922 and in early 1923 undertook a tour of regional Queensland. * He appears in George Wallace's film His Royal Highness (1932). * Maloney's career was not without its downsides. In late-1927, for example, he put together a Scandals company in Melbourne to tour "smalls" of regional New South Wales for Otto Hunter. The performers were never paid, and while in Coolamon, Hunter was arrested and convicted of passing bad checks. Maloney's attempt to manage the tour himself ended in disaster in Newcastle. * Surprisingly, Maloney has been relegated to "footnote" status in Australian theatre history despite having carved out a high-profile career as a comedian, songwriter, and producer. * Historians coming to the field of Australian popular theatre from the 1970s onwards were subsequently unaware of his achievements and reputation more than forty years previous Source: ozvta.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/maloney-billy-r-notes-1...