We found this charming poem in our files……. don’t know who wrote it but we love it just the same!

The drought has spread her blankets wide, with eyes blood red and flaring.

Through a string of tiny country towns the mood was bleak, despairing.

And in retreat to a steady beat, their dusty rifles crack.

As one by one like dominoes, they fell on the drought’s broad track.

But one small town stood up to fight, took thought beyond the square,

Three women from the township vowed,……. to build a teddy bear.

With grit and pluck we’ll bring them up, to play their special parts..

With Outback beating in their blood, and great Australian hearts

For Tambo’s not the sort of town that fades when things get tough.

’cause Tambo mine’s a jeweller’s cave of diamonds in the rough.

And from a place in outer space a saviours heard her prayers.

And filled her skies, with twinkly eyes, of Tambo Teddy Bears.

First they seek to firm acquaintance as they stand and check you out.

Then they weave that web of mateship, forged in fire, flood and drought.

Their loves an art perfected like a canvas of Matisse.

And love is pure and filtered through the strands of golden fleece.

Now her Teddies cross the seven seas by tramps, and jets and steamers,

consigned to little twinkly Mums, adoptive aunts and dreamers,

and when the winds hinge from the west, and a perfume fills the air,

scents of eucalypt and wattle, track the Tambo Teddy bear.

They feel the beat of tiny chests, the tough of tiny hands.

They hear the whispered secrets of their tiny new laid plans.

The pride of tribe and tenement, of Arab tent and throne.

A mate to stem the terrors, when you ace the night alone.

Their sheepskin souls are sewn with love, just east of Never Never.

A Tambo Teddy’s built to last, from now until forever.

They sit on ledge and mantle, on guard on bedside chairs.

The captains of the night watch are the Tambo Teddy Bears.

In moleskin pants and chequered shirts, with plaited belt and swag.

A true blue Aussie, born and bred, a larrikin and a wag.

Named for spread and station, no two teddies are the same,

Their patch worked multi colours, hang in ‘mateship’s hall of fame’.

The night’s closing in on Tambo, the tiny towns asleep.

By a gold mine, works a stamper crushing metal from the deep.

A smelter presses ingots, they are heart shaped, pressed in pairs,

For the golden heart of Tambo ticks in Tambo’s Teddy Bears.