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The Last Camel Cop

from Angel Song by Marilla Homes

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about

3rd Nov 2012
Written about my father's father, at the 2012 Maldon Folk Festival.

lyrics

The Last Camel Cop
© Marilla Homes
3rd November, 2012

In the desert, a child runs barefoot through the mosque
Yet is sent home from school to put his shoes back on.
Surrounded by date palms and dust, this oasis called Marree
Was home to the policeman and his young family.

His name was Maxwell Frank Homes.
He was my grandfather
And he was the Last of the Camel Cops.

He worked with the blacktracker to keep law in the land,
They travelled by camel all over the sand
For miles and miles in the dust and the heat,
The policeman with the thirty thousand square mile beat.

They avoided the whispers of the bush telegraph
By taking a route that was not on the map,
While Mickey the blacktracker sang the songlines
As he walked over country he said “Never was mine”

They caught the rustlers all unawares
As they sat at their ease in their old rocking chairs
And sent them to Adelaide to rot in the jail,
While Tom Kruse the mailman delivered the mail.

His name was Maxwell Frank Homes
He was my grandfather
And he was the Last of the Camel Cops

He was an amateur wrestler, and they say in his day
The best card magician not performing for pay.
Born the son of the Deputy Commissioner,
He always remained a faithful Christian parishioner.

He filmed the drovers in the dust and the mud
As they swam cattle across the Coopers in flood.
He climbed Uluru without chains or white lines
With only the faithful Mickey as his guide.

He left his wife Nita at home for weeks at a time,
But his four sons grew up strong and fine
To raise kids of their own, with stories to tell me
Of the days when they reached up to pat the camel's belly.

His name was Maxwell Frank Homes.
He was my grandfather
And he was the Last of the Camel Cops

credits

from Angel Song, released July 5, 2014

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