Storyteller and musician Jan “Yarn” Wositzky has written a performance about Buckley titled The Go-Between, which charts the life of the legend behind the saying “you’ve got Buckley’s”. 

Wositzky, a founding member of folk and country group the Bushwhackers Band, said the title refers to how the convict became an interpreter between Indigenous Australians and the colonists seeking to develop the land around Melbourne. 

“I was fascinated by the courage of a man who would bolt from a colony in Port Phillip Bay when it was the only colony in the south of Australia and would risk his life by running down a beach knowing he would take whatever happened to him,” Wositzky said. 

The winter after escaping, Buckley was found almost dead by the Wathaurong people on Victoria’s south-west coast and they took him in as a spirit returned from the dead called Murrungurk. 

Three decades later when he became the go-between, he dealt with murder, massacre and the land developers who began Melbourne as well as the so-called Indigenous traitor Derrimut. 

“He was dealing with very bloody-minded colonists and his dilemmas in trying to bring harmony between black and white people vying for the land is a very big story in our history and how colonialism worked,” Wositzky said. 

“We’re still dealing with the same issues today that he was.”

Wositzky has his own story. Growing up influenced by the folk music of his Scottish mother he became known as the “storyteller” in the Bushwhackers and once he left the band performed his own shows, wrote books, made documentaries and worked with Indigenous Australians in the country’s north. 

“I’ve been doing this for 46 years now, I’m 64 years old and it’s too late to get a job!” he said.

The Go-Between is performed through storytelling and song, using poetry, music and the Wathaurong language.   

“It’s a ripping yarn, one that is serious, with fascinating information, humour and most probably you will leave having been entertained,” Wositzky said. 

The Go-Between will be performed on October 29 from 8pm at the Candelo Town Hall. Tickets are $25 or $20 concession and you can book at www.cas.org.au. 

It is also on October 30 from 3pm at the Murrah Hall on the Tathra-Bermagui Rd. Tickets are $20/$15 and you can book at www.trybooking.com/NART.