Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows country music singer Jane Saunders performing 'Life in a Small Town’ and features three Tamworth residents talking about what makes their country town a good place to live. These tributes and Saunders’s performance are interspersed in a montage of everyday life in Tamworth that includes shots of the main street, a cricket match, a wedding, a young girl on a bicycle delivering newspapers, a lawn bowls club and the Big Golden Guitar. Saunders’s song is featured throughout the clip.

Educational value points

• Tamworth, a regional town in central New South Wales with a population of around 50,000 people, plays host to the annual Tamworth Country Music Festival. While the town is known as Australia’s 'Home of Country Music’, it is also the commercial and administrative capital of the New England region of NSW, with a thriving business and agricultural economy.

• The residents of Tamworth are shown talking enthusiastically about the advantages of their town. A strong sense of community and of personal safety, particularly for children, is consistently identified by residents of country towns as among the benefits of a rural rather than an urban lifestyle.

• Unlike many other rural communities, which since the 1990s have experienced a decline in population and services, Tamworth remains a thriving centre partly because of the revenue provided by the country music festival, but also because of its industrial sector and its position within a rich agricultural region.

• The clip suggests that Tamworth embodies a way of life that is reminiscent of a bygone era. The use of timeless and iconic Australian imagery, such as sprinklers and lawn bowls, combined with slow pans and portrait shots that recall paintings, creates a sense of nostalgic continuity. This is reinforced by the smooth audio and visual transitions, the fluidity and slowness of the action and the fact that the exterior shots are filmed in broad sunlight, suggestive of endless days. The absence of jarring negative elements in the clip also contributes to the sense of Tamworth as an idyllic country town.

• Tamworth is 'the heart of country music’ in Australia. The annual Tamworth Country Music Festival has been held every January since 1973. It brings up to 50,000 visitors to the town, effectively doubling its population, and provides a huge boost to the local economy. The festival lasts for 10 days and attracts the cream of Australia’s country music performers, as well as many hopefuls, with about 2,500 events staged in more than 100 venues across the town, while about 500 buskers take over the main street to perform. The festival culminates with the annual Country Music Association of Australia Awards.

• The Big Golden Guitar outside the Golden Guitar Tourist Centre is an iconic symbol of Tamworth and the country music festival. This guitar is a 12-m replica of the 24-cm-high Golden Guitar Awards that are given out during the annual Country Music Association of Australia Awards. The Big Golden Guitar is made from a steel frame covered in foam and fibreglass and has featured in numerous commercials and Australian films. About 3.6 million photographs have been taken of the site since it was unveiled in 1988.

• Jane Saunders, who performs folk-influenced country music, has appeared regularly at the Tamworth Country Music Festival. Her debut album, Stranger to Your Heart (1994), produced four consecutive top ten hits on Australian charts and in 1995 she was named among the finalists at the Country Music Awards in Tamworth in the categories of female vocalist, album, song and vocal collaboration. She has released two other albums, Poetic Justice (2002) and a compilation Jane Saunders Reflections 1994–2003 (2006) to critical acclaim.

This clip starts approximately 4 minutes into the documentary.

Footage of country music singer Jane Saunders performing 'Life in a Small Town’ is interspersed with footage of everyday life in Tamworth and interviews with Tamworth residents.

Tony Justin is interviewed at the Tamworth Café.
Tony Justin Well, this is a lovely country town and it’s full of nice people. I’m not just saying that, I really mean it – it’s full of nice people. You can walk down the streets here, you can do things, your children can grow up here – it’s a country town and they’re safe.

Jim Finucane of Tamworth Country Tours is interviewed in front of a trophy display cabinet.
Jim Finucane My wife will tell you I always had a yearn when I was in the city that, if I ever went back to the country, Tamworth is the only place to live in New South Wales. It’s the best of both worlds – it has every convenience of the city and yet it’s smack bang in the middle of the country.

Shelagh Bokenham stands in front of Tamworth’s Golden Guitar sculpture.
Shelagh Bokenham Tamworth – heart of country music, a fun lovers’ paradise, a bustling business centre, city of heart and soul, a walk through a picture postcard. Tamworth – a festival city.