"The Understudy"
The Understudy's poems are found in "Verse and Worse", a column in the Perth
Sunday Times.
The first appearance of "The Understudy" was on September 6th, 1903,
just the 2nd "Verse and Worse" column to appear. "Verse and
Worse" was the column created and run by E.G.(Dryblower) Murphy from 1903
until close to his death in 1939.
At the time of writing this (April 2011) I am trying to determine just who
"The Understudy" was - was it a single person?, maybe several,
A high probability was that it was Murphy himself writing under a
pseudonym to give a different point of view or so as not to appear to be
having exclusive use of the column or so as to have a 'scapegoat' when the
poetry was non complimentary. Whatever the answer is, "The
Understudy" has contributions in many "Verse and Worse" columns,
sometimes by himself, at others accompanying poems by Dryblower
