[johnfowles]

Firstly apologies for running over a week behind an ideal skedule here, but I did start drafting this now somewhat untimely contribution to this thread on the actual day:-
As usual and very appropriately on this Remembrance/Memorial day November 1t1h I have found that the internet is simply amazing. since you often end up visiting delightful and unexpected websites etc.
In days gone by in the Lightfoot chat room we often chatted with our friend catmanron from Melbourne,with whom we had the pleasure of dining together with his wife Roz in the Casino restaurant on Melbourne's Souhbank in April 2007,
I recall that several times in the chat room Ron had recommended an Aussie "folk" singer name of John Williamson,and knowing that it was fortuitious that in our hotel in Ayers Rock, having seen Uluru, whilst waiting for the shuttle coach back to the airport for our short flight to our main destination the 2007 Nevil Shute gathering in A Town Called Alice,I heard some great music coming from the hotel shop's loudspeakers and I found that they were playing a splendid John Williamson CD called Anthems

which was soon added to our bag of souvenirs
After our return home,we mislaid it for a few months later in 2007 but found it early this year just in time to take it with us on our mini tour of Florida in pursuit of Gord early in February,and if I tell you that despite having a wide selection of Lightfoot CDs with us the only CD that was ever in the car's CD player the entire week was Anthems you can understand how much we were enjoying the Australian CD.In fact we enjoyed it so much that Susan obtained firstly a copy of a splendid 32 track double CD entitlled "True Blue" then a slew of other albums from John W's extensive discography.I also found a "torrent " and was able to acquire the complete 62 track "Platinum" triple CD.Whereas the majority of songs on John Wiliamson's albums are Australian flavoUred ditties that he wrote himself, my firm favoUrite on Platinum is a wonderfully plaintive account of the experiences and injuries sufferred by an ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps for the unitiated) soldier wounded in Gallipolli in World War 1 which means all the more to us because we were on ANZAC Hill in the Alice on ANZAC day in Aprl 2007 for the dawn service of Remembrance.
[img]http://www.atlanticgb.co.uk/alice/p2/thumbnails/legasy_250407_5.jpg[img]
The song I like so much was written by another Aussie folk singer , Eric Bogle, who Susan once saw in at a New Jersey Folk Music Club concert and is called
"The Band Played Waltzing Matilda"
Fast foward to this morning when for another project I was googling to determine sources of an unoficial DVD version of my all time favoUrite novel and arguably the absolute best filmed adaptation of any novel this being Nevil Shute's outback and wartime romance entitled "A Town Like Alice"

amongst the many results I found a "stumbled upon" page at:-
http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.y...53DWG48Ftsr30l
from which I deduced that there was an "Alice" related youtube video at:-

YouTube - Eric Bogle - The Band Played Waltzing...

which opened a page headed as you will see
"You Tube - Eric Bogle - The Band Played Waltzing Matilda"
Even more amazing is the revelation towards the end of the video where it becomes obvious that this video accompaniment to what I have to assume is the original recording by the composer was devised by a Canadian
in fact the video blurb states:-
"Mixed with pictures from Gallipoli are pictures of past and present Canadian troops because this song and slideshow was played during a Remembrance Day assembly at a Canadian public school"

For comparison and to complete the story there is another superficially similar video adaptation of John Williamson's live recording of his cover version at:-

YouTube - And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda ~...

Finally it is appropriate to mention that the previous biennial Nevil Shute Gathering was held in October 2005 in Hyannis on Old Cape Cod quite near to the final scene location of another favoUrite Shute novel "An Old Captivity" whose final line is
"we shall always remember them"