This web site has been created by Graham Dodsworth
as part of the objectives of the National Library Folk Festival Fellowship
awarded by The National Library of Australia and The National Folk Festival in 2004

This song came from a recording made by Mark Gregory in a hotel in England at an evening convened by A. L. Lloyd where a number of Australian songs were performed. Written in protest to the Vietnam war the song was inspired by events surrounding the personal protest of concientious objector, Willliam White. The song is a ballad in the true sense and tells the essential details of the story clearly.

The author Glen Tomasetti was born in Melbourne, Australia on the 21st of May 1929 and died on the 25th June 2003 having lived the majority of her life in inner suburban Melbourne. She was well-known Nationally throughout the folk music circuit and also to the general public through many of her protest song performances which were broadcast following the news on commerical television (channel 7). She recorded several albums in the 1960s.

In addition to her song, The Conscript, Tomasetti's opposition to the Vietnam War was also noticed when she witheld one-sixth of her income tax due to that being the proportion the Holt government was using to finance the Vietnam war.