The 1950s - Working Conditions
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Frank Hardy’s Black Diamonds returned to the familiar territory of the coalfields, its subject a stay-in miners’ strike at Cessnock when owners threaten to close a mine because of a drop in profits. The mine owners were portrayed as harsh plutocrats, the miners as the oppressed with a long history of struggle.
Publicity for Black Diamonds, Tribune 16 July 1958
Despite a slick publicity campaign Black Diamonds did poor business at Sussex Street, but was seen as suitable for out-of-town performances organised by the CPA and miners’ organisations.
In Lithgow locals suggested the language be toned down, and in Cessnock (where the actors and crew expected to be billeted but weren’t) that swearing be eliminated altogether. In 1960 Black Diamonds was staged by the Berlin Ensemble in East Germany.
Frank Hardy also acted in the show. One audience member was teenager Noeline Brown who was impressed that he could talk and smoke a pipe at the same time.
Mona Brand’s tributes to ordinary workers included the Pay as You Enter bus driver’s nightmare:
It’s when the peak hour comes around
I really get my fun
I’m cashier driver traffic copper
All rolled into one.
It’s: Here’s your change, move down the bus
Now leave the gangway clear
No, lady, there’s no tramlines now
They dragged them up last year.
And a later version, beginning:
You’ve heard about that Argus chap
Who had a thousand eyes
And all about that Dancing God
The Indians so prize
They say he had a dozen arms
But, hell, what’s all the fuss?
Those blokes got nothing on my form
I drive a one man bus.
Brand paid tribute in song to the dunny man:
Night and day
I am the one
Only me beneath the moon
When daylight is done
In the dead of night I creep
When the families are fast asleep
I work for you
Lousy pay!
Day and night
Stronger than roses now
There’s an oh such an awful ponging donging the nose of you
And its torment won’t be through
While you let me spend my life emptying pans for you
Night and day
On my pay!
And the shopkeeper’s lament:
Out at the door the greengrocer stands
Watching the customers throw up their hands,
Notes how each housewife is gazing her fill
Glory if he gets one, won’t he make her ring the till.
High go the prices high high high
Wise is the housewife when she goes by
She sees the price of cabbages and gives a mighty hiss
And curses old Bob Menzies who’s responsible for this.
High go the prices high high high
Sad is the housewife, I hear her sigh –
She’d like to buy some beans and she’d like to buy some peas
But 3/6 a pound is far too much to pay for these.
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