A Stranger In Wonthaggi Poem by Francis Duggan

Where coalminers for safer working conditions and higher pay earned their place in renown
Today he says he'd be a stranger in old Wonthaggi Town
He left it forty five years ago when he was in his life's prime
It's been thirty years since he was last back there and that's going back in time
He says today I'd feel a stranger in Wonthaggi and not one there would know of me
In the Town that is my Hometown just a short drive from the sea
The wanderlust was in him when he was twenty three
And some of the bigger World out there he yearned for to see
A balding man in his late sixties his once brown hair silver gray
And clearly he has known a far better day
His oldest grandchild a young woman of twenty one
Is the proud mother of a baby son
And he is growing older with his ageing wife
Far from where he began his great journey in life.