What Happened To His Village Poem by Francis Duggan

He was born just a short distance from Adelaide
And he could see the sea from his back door
And in his young days there were not many houses
But the years have brought great change to Semaphore.

His sea side Village has grown to a coastal suburb
And his old Homeplace has undergone great change
Where once were trees and paddocks now there's houses
A stranger to your old Homeplace seems strange.

What happened to the Village of his childhood
The paddock where he played in years ago
He only can refer now to his memories
Of peaceful place the Homeplace he once did know.

The cottage of his childhood gone forever
A doctor's surgery where once it stood
And not one know him he is now a stranger
In Semaphore the place of his boyhood.

But of the past he still has good old memories
Of his old Village how it used to be
And from the cottage by the wide brown paddock
Six hundred yards off he could see the sea.