In the lounge bar of Wonthaggi's Whalebone Hotel <br />The story of his life to me he told <br />A gray haired man and one who had worked hard <br />And hard work even make young man look old. <br /> <br />He worked up in the Snowy mountain hills <br />Tunnelling through the hard rock and the earth and clay <br />And that was more than twenty years ago <br />And he was over fifty then he say. <br /> <br />His wife she left him for another man <br />And that was many, many years ago <br />She took with her their little boy and girl <br />And to where they went to live he still doesn't know. <br /> <br />She left with the children whilst he was at work <br />And he came home to find that they had gone <br />For months he bordered on the suicide brink <br />'Til he plucked up the strength to battle on. <br /> <br />He'd love to meet his son and daughter now <br />And perhaps he has got grandchildren somewhere <br />He last saw them when they were eight and nine <br />His boy was blond and his girl had light brown hair. <br /> <br />He talked about that Country far away <br />Where he was born in nineteen twenty two <br />A peaceful land 'til Hitler came to power <br />Was the prosperous pre war Germany he knew. <br /> <br />He left his homeland before world war two <br />Before the world's greatest war began <br />And he feels happy now that he played no part <br />In the most shameful event in the history of man. <br /> <br />An old German man who had never fought in war <br />But he has suffered as much as anyone <br />And his one wish now in his twilight years <br />To meet again his daughter and his son. <br /> <br />In the lounge bar of Wonthaggi's Whalebone Hotel <br />His life story he did relate to me <br />And though he's lived for fifty years in Australia <br />His accent still belong to Germany.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-story-of-his-life-to-me-he-told/
