The Left Behinds - Sumner Locke
Feb. 9th, 2013 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricWe're the Left Behinds, the Staybacks,
We're the ones to catch the slack,
We're the class that's called Not Wanted,
We're the virgins from the Outback.
We're the hefty arm that's needed,
We're the sort to feel the brunt,
We're the bloomin': 'Take your places
While the men are at the front.'
So we're learnin' none too easy, under hand of heavy drought,
How to work and keep things lively when the men are ordered out.
An' they call us chicken-hearted
Sweatin' in the blessed sun,
Stickin' things and showin' merry,
Tired as bullocks when it's done.
Drivin' plough and hoe and harrow,
Facin' hell of every kind,
Tender spoke they used to know us,
Now we've left it all behind.
So we're waking up to battle, Lord, we're sure to get
Lonesome nights, and hungry children, rainless acres, hopeless debt.
'Rank Outsider,' 'Nom-de-Wayback,'
Don't know nothin' of a gun.
What's the meaning of a maxim?
Shrapnel, lyddite (tell me, son)?
What's the trenches? Uhlans? Turcos?
What's the bloomin' VC for?
What's recruits? And transport waggons?
What's the game about - oh, Lor'!
So we're fightin' up the Mitchell, fightin' till we're most insane
Ants an' hoppers, weeds an' store-bills, hunger-ache and lack of rain.
Boots and bills, and things for children,
Flies and 'skeetos, snakes and birds,
Starlings in the fruit at Xmas,
Things for which there ain't no words;
Little debts the boss has shifted,
Though he hasn't kicked them out,
Mortgage on the cows and horses,
Nasty things to have about.
So it's us to do the fighting; in a sixteen-acre lot
Regiment's the bloomin' family, argument's the only shot.
Fightin', aren't we? Chivvyin' firewood,
Kids at school and muddy tanks,
Cultivation gone to blazes,
Want our men back? Well, no thanks
We've just stood in where we started,
Given more'n we ever got,
Couldn't work a hair's-breadth harder,
If the boss was home or not.
Such a fuss as they're a-makin'! If you's known us, you'd a-swore
Boss had heard his country callin', lots of other times before.
Chaps I know 'ave got commissions
For His Majesty, the King,
P'r'aps it's guy or chaff, I'm thinkin',
When they ain't done anything.
Seen up here at harvest picnics,
Playin' rounders with the girls,
Lord! to me it do seem funny
Makin' chaps pretend they're earls.
'Services abroad,' that done it. Crikey! I've done service too,
Rearing children, scrubbin' moleskins - things a man 'ud never do.
Bless yer, I can't see no difference,
Fightin' with a spade or gun.
Diggin' brings the kids their breakfast,
That's a fight for anyone.
Killin' men in heathen countries,
Stakin' out another lotm
Might be worth a fellow pluggin'
If it kept a boilin' pot.
So it strikes me sudden, rather (sorry if you think I rouse),
But the fightin' started really right at home here, in our house.
Yet we're 'Left Behinds' and 'Staybacks',
Ready here to catch the slack,
Just the class that's called 'Not Wanted,'
Blessed virgins from the back.
We're the anvil always heated,
We're the bloomin' family tree,
We're the line for dirty washin',
We're - just we're we ought to be.
So I guess, without presumin', an' with just a little fuss,
To be fair to human bullocks, someone ought to mention us.
I found this poem fascinating - I'd never seen any contemporary treatment of women's war work so bitter, or so lacking in patriotic fervour. To add to the interesting, this is a WWI-era poem, and conventional treatment of Australian war history says that women didn't *do* war work in WWI, not as women did in Britain at the time. The Women's Land Army wasn't formed until WWII; women weren't called upon to work in factories or in auxiliary military services in WWI.
Yet obviously women, especially in remote farming locations, *would* have 'caught the slack' - perhaps the difference here is that women in rural Australia were, at the time, expected to do heavy farm work when needed. Consider A Little Bush Maid (1910), which glorifies the unconventional-but-not-unthinkable upbringing of Norah, daughter of a wealthy pastoralist, who grows up on horseback, assisting her father and brothers in various escapades ranging from cattle musters to fire-fighting, with occasional forays into mystery-solving and pet-kangaroo-raising. Norah, of course, were she at home during the war (she wasn't; her war-story novel is set in England), would not have complained about taking over the farm. But where Norah exists as an idealised heroine, then Sumner Locke's complaint-poem seems to me to catch the other side of that milieu.
What a surprise, though, high school history books show you plenty of WWII era propaganda, and Vietnam-era protest material, but something like this... nah.
We're the ones to catch the slack,
We're the class that's called Not Wanted,
We're the virgins from the Outback.
We're the hefty arm that's needed,
We're the sort to feel the brunt,
We're the bloomin': 'Take your places
While the men are at the front.'
So we're learnin' none too easy, under hand of heavy drought,
How to work and keep things lively when the men are ordered out.
An' they call us chicken-hearted
Sweatin' in the blessed sun,
Stickin' things and showin' merry,
Tired as bullocks when it's done.
Drivin' plough and hoe and harrow,
Facin' hell of every kind,
Tender spoke they used to know us,
Now we've left it all behind.
So we're waking up to battle, Lord, we're sure to get
Lonesome nights, and hungry children, rainless acres, hopeless debt.
'Rank Outsider,' 'Nom-de-Wayback,'
Don't know nothin' of a gun.
What's the meaning of a maxim?
Shrapnel, lyddite (tell me, son)?
What's the trenches? Uhlans? Turcos?
What's the bloomin' VC for?
What's recruits? And transport waggons?
What's the game about - oh, Lor'!
So we're fightin' up the Mitchell, fightin' till we're most insane
Ants an' hoppers, weeds an' store-bills, hunger-ache and lack of rain.
Boots and bills, and things for children,
Flies and 'skeetos, snakes and birds,
Starlings in the fruit at Xmas,
Things for which there ain't no words;
Little debts the boss has shifted,
Though he hasn't kicked them out,
Mortgage on the cows and horses,
Nasty things to have about.
So it's us to do the fighting; in a sixteen-acre lot
Regiment's the bloomin' family, argument's the only shot.
Fightin', aren't we? Chivvyin' firewood,
Kids at school and muddy tanks,
Cultivation gone to blazes,
Want our men back? Well, no thanks
We've just stood in where we started,
Given more'n we ever got,
Couldn't work a hair's-breadth harder,
If the boss was home or not.
Such a fuss as they're a-makin'! If you's known us, you'd a-swore
Boss had heard his country callin', lots of other times before.
Chaps I know 'ave got commissions
For His Majesty, the King,
P'r'aps it's guy or chaff, I'm thinkin',
When they ain't done anything.
Seen up here at harvest picnics,
Playin' rounders with the girls,
Lord! to me it do seem funny
Makin' chaps pretend they're earls.
'Services abroad,' that done it. Crikey! I've done service too,
Rearing children, scrubbin' moleskins - things a man 'ud never do.
Bless yer, I can't see no difference,
Fightin' with a spade or gun.
Diggin' brings the kids their breakfast,
That's a fight for anyone.
Killin' men in heathen countries,
Stakin' out another lotm
Might be worth a fellow pluggin'
If it kept a boilin' pot.
So it strikes me sudden, rather (sorry if you think I rouse),
But the fightin' started really right at home here, in our house.
Yet we're 'Left Behinds' and 'Staybacks',
Ready here to catch the slack,
Just the class that's called 'Not Wanted,'
Blessed virgins from the back.
We're the anvil always heated,
We're the bloomin' family tree,
We're the line for dirty washin',
We're - just we're we ought to be.
So I guess, without presumin', an' with just a little fuss,
To be fair to human bullocks, someone ought to mention us.
I found this poem fascinating - I'd never seen any contemporary treatment of women's war work so bitter, or so lacking in patriotic fervour. To add to the interesting, this is a WWI-era poem, and conventional treatment of Australian war history says that women didn't *do* war work in WWI, not as women did in Britain at the time. The Women's Land Army wasn't formed until WWII; women weren't called upon to work in factories or in auxiliary military services in WWI.
Yet obviously women, especially in remote farming locations, *would* have 'caught the slack' - perhaps the difference here is that women in rural Australia were, at the time, expected to do heavy farm work when needed. Consider A Little Bush Maid (1910), which glorifies the unconventional-but-not-unthinkable upbringing of Norah, daughter of a wealthy pastoralist, who grows up on horseback, assisting her father and brothers in various escapades ranging from cattle musters to fire-fighting, with occasional forays into mystery-solving and pet-kangaroo-raising. Norah, of course, were she at home during the war (she wasn't; her war-story novel is set in England), would not have complained about taking over the farm. But where Norah exists as an idealised heroine, then Sumner Locke's complaint-poem seems to me to catch the other side of that milieu.
What a surprise, though, high school history books show you plenty of WWII era propaganda, and Vietnam-era protest material, but something like this... nah.