Fortunate Life, A (Marcus Cole, Henri Safran, 1986) mini-series in four parts; wr. Ken Kelso from autobio by A.B. Facey; sdp Peter Levy; Bill Kerr (narrator), Dominic Sweeney, Paul Sonkkila, Maurie Ogden, Leslie Wright, Nikki Coghill, Peter Cummins, Martin Vaughan, Bill Hunter, Willie Fennell, Frank Gallacher, Joy Hruby, John Ewart, Roger Ward, Bill Young, Barrie Barkla, Steve Jodrell, Richard Walley, Bill McCluskey, Ramsay McLean, James Beattie, Martin Flint, Geoffrey Gibbs, Nigel Davenport, Andy King, Marcus Graham, Maggie Wilde West, Sid Plummer, Adrian Mulraney; autobio
I watched A Fortunate Life reluctantly — because I knew it was going to be a miserable experience. But one I wanted to undergo, because I thought it might be a bit like what my own father went through.In fact, I think Dad might have had it worse – apart from the whipping. Bert at least still had a mother until he was an adult, whereas my father's died when he was 13 (his father having already died before he was one year old). Both he and my father worked hard in their teens as farmers' boys. Dad was living much further out than Bert, on the very edge of the wheatbelt and beyond, tho Bert did his time ten years earlier, and could read and write even less than my Dad could at that age. All very sad.
Garry Gillard | New: 25 October, 2012 | Now: 26 February, 2022