Just recently we stopped touring all over Australia and settled down in Jandowae in Queensland.  Not long after settling in, I paid a visit to one of the local Pubs and was fortunate enough to meet up with a local Character by the name of John (Blue) Bickerstaff.  In conversation with Blue, I discovered that he wrote poetry and lyrics to songs.  After a while we got together with his material and I found that a lot of this material was very good and could be adapted to a melody, which I have done.

 

 Blue was born in Toowoomba, but lived at Peranga, in the foothills of the Bunya Mountains, until the age of six.  His family then moved to a farm at  Wutul, and then moved on to Yarraman.  Blue left school at Yarraman to work on farms and in the forestry industry.  He did jobs from seed climbing, to cutting pine and snigging it with draught horses.  Blue left Yarraman to work on cattle runs in the Arcadia Valley and the Wallumbilla area, McKenzie River country, and the Basalt country up Einsaleigh way.  Over in Jericho, he broke horses and in the quiet time worked as a fettler on the Blackall and Barcaldine railway lines.  Towards the end of his career as a horseman/stockman, he had a cattle block called Lagoona at Bororen. He moved from Lagoona to Jandowae where he now lives.

 

 Many of Blue’s songs feature stories that have been drawn from experiences in his working life,  the properties he has worked on and the time spent working with his Father, who was a well known and respected Ambulance officer in the Yarraman district.

 

 The strawberry Roan featured with Blue in two photos on the Album cover, is the horse that was the inspiration for the song “Fancy Covers Don’t Make Books”.

 

 I hope that you enjoy listening to the four tracks on this album as much as I have enjoyed putting the melody to these words.  It has been an absolute pleasure working with Blue and I now regard him as a close friend.

 

 Enjoy   Warren Kearney