Christina's Matilda

‘Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, Who’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?’ Everyone knows the words. Many people know that the poet ‘Banjo’ Paterson wrote them. But how may people know the origin of the tune? In 1895 a young woman named Christina Macpherson sat down and played a marching tune she’d heard. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, who was visiting Christina’s brother, liked it and wrote the words of a song to it. That song was ‘Waltzing Matilda’. ‘Banjo’ became famous, and so did ‘Waltzing Matilda’. But Christina’s part in the song’s creation was forgotten and she disappeared from history until the 1970s. Come a-waltzing with Christina now and discover her story – beginning in the first year of her life, when she encountered the ruthless bushranger Dan Morgan...