Paddy O’Brien returns for TroutFest

Bush Poet Paddy O’brien loading spuds in the 1960s

05th Aug 2025

Australian bush poet Paddy O’Brien, who once picked potatoes in Guyra, will return to headline the Guyra TroutFest on Friday, October 3rd. The performance, held at the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame, is a homecoming for O’Brien, who recently won the NSW Bush Poetry Performance Championship in Guyra in 2023.
O’Brien’s performance will be particularly special as he will be supported by award-winning bush poet David Melville, and together they will open for the legendary Australian comedian, Austen Tayshus.
Paddy O’Brien’s has a lifetime connection to Guyra, and his poem “Guyra Spuds” written in 2000, reflects his time working in the area in the late 1960s.
This unique event, Austen Tayshus and the Bush Poets combines comedy and comedy bush poetry for a memorable evening of laughs celebrating Australian talent and local heritage.
Tickets are available at https://www.trybooking.com/DDVVW

“Guyra Spuds”by Paddy O’Brien
Spud picking in the sixties
Seasonal work was a way of lief
I learnt to save money
No family, no thought for a wife.

There were pickers from everywhere
Big George came from the south
Ricardo and Clancy somewhere up north
Them days we surely got about

I came from the Tweed
Like a lot of other blokes
We’d meet at the pub for a good old yarn
That’s where we learnt most of our jokes

Spud picking was a hard old game
We worked then in bare feet
Made our camp beside a gully
Our nearest neighbours a flock of sheep

We set our galley on the waterhole
There we washed and cooked our meals
The sun set low and chilly
Shadows creeping across potato fields

Gordon put on the camp oven
The galley fire started to glow
Kevin Looker turned up the tilley lantern
Coffee cup and plates all there in a tidy row

Spuds always with our main meal
Lamb chops, steak or snags
We’d sit around the galley fire
On a log covered with one of Williamsons’ bags

Now the quietness of the night
Except for a call from an owl
Maybe a flock of ducks flying overhead
Or a possum just scurrying about.

And so the campfire died, now cold
The tilley lantern long turned out
A few snores from the old weathered tent
No street lamps about

Yes another day in the boiling hot sun
Can’t wait until we get back to the tent
We live like millionaires out here
Not like those city mugs , they’re all payin’ rent.

Going strong for 100 years

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Paddy O’Brien returns for TroutFest

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