All to the tune of ‘Click go the shears’ 1966 was the year Australia woke up and found its pockets lighter and its world tilting slightly off-centre. Decimal currency arrived with a bureaucrat’s grin and a popular Australian shearing song to promote it, but in the shearing sheds and public bars, it was still pounds, shillings and pints that measured a man’s worth. The old hands refused to speak in dollars. “Bloody decimation,” they’d growl, rolling the new coins across their palms as if they were counterfeit tokens in someone else’s country. “Shoulda left the decimal coins until all the old people died” some wise old punter had said. “Alright for the young fella’s”