Ten Pound Poms
The years immediately after the Second World War are remembered as a period of painful austerity in the UK. As the country rebuilt, staples such as meat and sugar remained rationed into the 1950s. Photographs, especially those dating from the months and years after VE Day, show cities pockmarked by bomb craters.
How to escape this drab world? In 1945, the Australian government initiated the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme, under which Britons could pay just £10 in processing fees in order to migrate to the other side of the world. The authorities in New Zealand introduced a similar arrangement in 1947. Many of us can date Australian branches of our families to years when our British relations were sold dreams of sun, sea and a fair shake economically.
However, Ten Pound Poms suggests that it wasn’t all plain sailing. Named after the slang term given to newcomers down under, this six-part drama created by Danny Brocklehurst ( Brassic, Ordinary Lies) follows the experiences of a group who leave the UK for Australia in 1956. Initially, their dayto-day reality is life in a shabby hostel and being treated with suspicion by the locals.
The main characters include Annie (Faye Marsay) and Terry Roberts (Warren Brown), a couple who are determined to succeed in Australia for the sake of their family. Hardly recognisable in her period costume when you first see her, Who Do You Think You Are? alumna and Brassic co-star Michelle Keegan appears as Kate, a young nurse who arrives without her fiancé and wants to escape devastating events in her past.
We also meet Bill (Leon Ford), who has lost his business back home and seems set to run into problems as he tries to sustain a lifestyle he can’t afford. Stevie (Declan Coyle) is a teenager from a troubled background, while Ron (Rob Collins) is an indigenous veteran who feels like an outsider in his own country.