they dont understand this/the oz culture

Mateship by A Digger


"I’ve travelled down some lonely roads

Both crooked tracks and straight

An’ I’ve learned lifes noblest creed

Summed up in one word – Mate!


I’m thinking back across the years

(A thing I do of late)

An’ this word sticks between me ears

You’ve got to have a mate,


Someone who’ll take you as you are

Regardless of your state

An’ stand as firm as Ayers Rock

Because ‘e is your mate.


Me mind goes back to ’43

To slavery and to hate

When one man’s chance to stay alive

Depended on ‘is mate.


With bamboo for a billy can

An’ bamboo for a plate

A bamboo paradise for bugs

Was bed for me and me mate.


You’d slip and slither through the mud

An curse your rotten fate

But then you’d ‘ear a quiet word

Don’t drop ya bundle - mate!


And though it’s all so long ago

This truth I ‘ave to state

A man don’t know what lonely is

Till ‘e ‘as lost ‘is mate.


If there’s a life that follers this

If there’s a golden gate

The welcome that I wanna hear

Is just ‘Good on ya mate!’

An’ so to all who ask us why

We keep these special dates

Like Anzac Day. I answer – why,

We’re thinking of our Mates.


An’ when I’ve left this drivers seat

An’, handed in me plates

I’ll tell old Peter at the door

I’ve come ta join me mates!"