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Clip description
Tom Raynor (Michael O’Neill) has come to Sydney from the bush in search of work. It’s the early 1930s and he’s ill prepared for the harsh reality of the times. He finds a mate, Charlie Bates (John Walton), who teaches him how to get by on the street. When Tom and the other desperate men are patronised by the Governor’s wife, it’s Charlie who undermines her patrician manner and gives the men a little of their dignity back.
Curator’s notes
The director has cleverly used a mixture of black-and-white archival footage of the unemployed during the hungry 30s, mixed into the drama shoot of Tom and the other unemployed men sleeping rough. The world of the Depression is seen and interpreted through Tom’s hungry and desperate eyes, while the series uses many of the well-known Depression songs, such as the one used through this segment, My Forgotten Man, to set the political tone of the drama.
