Squattocracy and Struggle - ABC documentary on early AWU years

SQUATTOCRACY & STRUGGLE, a 55 minute radio feature for the Hindsight history program, looked at some of the early years of the Australian Workers’ Union through the eyes of one family in the frontier town of Bourke.

John Andrews, youngest ever chair of Bourke branch of the Australian Workers' Union

The program first broadcast on March 2, 2008, comes out of the growing interest in Australia for family history, that pull to discover where we come from, and who our forebears were.

Sean's mother Patricia has often shared her memories of life as a young girl living with her grandparents, John and May Andrews.

Her grandfather John would recite poems telling of his peers, the legendary Union men of " old Bourke". John Andrews' life was largely dedicated to the struggle for workers' rights.

As a young lad of 15, living in the town of Bourke, John had followed his father Arthur into the Union movement, becoming the youngest ever chairman of the Bourke branch of the Australian Workers' Union.

When writer Henry Lawson visited Bourke, in north-west NSW, in 1892, he discovered a volatile town of competing factions, with the shearers on one side, and the pastoralists and squatters on the other.

Lawson met and befriended Union men Arthur and John Andrews, and included them as "characters" in the poems and short stories that emerged from his experience "out bush".

Henry Lawson said "if you know Bourke you know Australia", and so in SQUATTOCRACY & STRUGGLE Sean takes the poet's advice, and follows in the footsteps of his forebears Arthur and John Andrews, to the Bourke of past and present... he discovers a place that has shaped not just his own family history, but also the character of Australia.

The program features social historian/folklorist Warren Fahey singing songs of the Union movement, actor Lewis Fitzgerald reading the poetry of Henry Lawson, and actor Robert Alexander as ED Millen, legendary editor of the outback newspaper The Western Herald.

Other voices include John Andrews' granddaughters Marie Andrews MP & Patricia OÕBrien, AWU National Secretary Paul Howes, manager of Toorale Station Tony McManus, & Bourke historians Robyn Burrows, Paul Roe, Stuart Johnson & Andrew Hull.