[woofa.express]

The Swagman.

During the depression there was of course widespread unemployment and men would walk for miles in search of a job. Many from the towns and cities looking for a job on farms and in the bush. They slept in sheds and haystacks but mostly in the open. I remember my grandfather saying whilst he could offer them no work he would provide them a meal.
They carried their bedding on their back much like one would carry a knapsack or backpack today and this bedding was known as a swag. Today, most people in the bush and rural areas have a swag. It consists of a blanket and some sort of thin mattress rolled up in a piece of tarpaulin. This tarp forms the base and there is plenty to pull across the top which makes it surprisingly warm on cold or windy nights. Mine has a thin blow up high density foam mattress which is both warm and provides a little comfort. Today one can purchase some pretty upmarket swags even suspended swags.
Now back to the swaggie. In the last 20 years I have seen only one but seen him on two occasions. The first time I stopped and offered him a lift which he declined.He was not inclined to talk and continued to walk without even hesitating. The second time I didn’t stop for I knew he wouldn’t accept. I would have known nothing about the fellow except for a story on our TV. John Cardoret is his name and he started life as a bank employee but figured it didn’t suit him and just started to walk, pictured below . He lost contact with his family but the TV station reunited them. His mother was angry for she had assumed he was dead and naturally figured he should have kept in contact.
The blue print below is what I have copied off the internet or produced by the media. I have omitted the trivia so it may not flow well. Cardoret says each year he walks to Caloundra to see his sister and to Horsham to see his family.That’s 1160 miles. Yes miles, not kilometres.

A MODERN-DAY swagman who has been wandering Australia’s roads for over30 years, living off only what he finds along the way, passed through Bonalbo last week.
With no job, no debts and no attachments, Grant ‘John’ Cadoret, 55, leads a simple life wandering from highway to highway, sleeping on whatever roadside he finds himself on at sunset and embracing whatever elements nature throws at him.
The Northern Star caught up with the swaggie walking on the Clarence Way last Friday, bound for Ballarat in Victoria and carrying everything he owns on his back.
Now I write to my mother every month, but I don’t think she has really forgiven me. I walk down to see her in Horsham once a year and to Caloundra to see my sister.
Throughout his life on the road Mr Cadoret has never worked, only living off coins he finds on the side of the road, food left behind by travellers and donations from people passing by.
His nomad life has taken him across all the landscapes of Australia,from camping in minus 16 degree frosts in Victoria, living under a tarp for days on end during a torrential downpour in Gympie and almost being squashed by a falling pine tree.
“I was hit by a falling tree a few years ago and I was laid up in the forest, drinking out of a puddle next to me for four days,” he said.
"I just bought a pair of shoes down the op shop, I had an odd pair on before that, one of them was picked up from the roadside, I never seem to find a pair of shoes on the roadside, just the one."

There is a poem on the swaggie, a good one but not all of you will enjoy it.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/video/2014/sep/22/don-watson-the-bush-swagman-extract

I think you all would know of Australia’s unofficial national anthem, Waltzing Matilda. Written by a much loved author, Banjo Paterson whilst staying at Dagworth station inQueensland. It’s of a swagman who camps by a billabong (water hole). It is said he stole a jumbuck (sheep) and when the squatter (land user without title) arrives he suicides by drowning in the billabong. For those who wish to listen the link is below. Sang by popular country folk singer Slim Dusty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwvazMc5EfE
Tomorrow I’ll do a short story on a secretive hermit known as possum.