DULCIE HOLLAND’S EARLY piano lessons as a six-year-old always started with an impromptu botany lesson. She would take some of the native flowers that flourished in her garden along to her piano lessons, where her teacher’s father would identify them. Throughout her life she took pride in reciting the curly botanical names of Australian plants.
Decades later, she would play her own role in educating immigrants about this strange and faraway land. She composed the music for a series of postwar documentaries that promoted Australia as a place to live and educated would-be migrants about the virtues of their new home.
Dulcie Holland was my grandmother, and it was through discussion of these films around the family dinner table in suburban Sydney that I first recall learning about her musical career. The notion of new Australians” sailing from Europe and watching these films on board ships sounded impossibly exotic to me.
Between 1945 and 1965 more than 2 million people emigrated to Australia mostly from war-torn countries as part of Australia’s great populate or perish” push. Although the government initially targeted Great Britain, it quickly realised that to sufficiently increase the population they would have to widen the net. Arthur Calwell, minister for information 1943-49) and Australia’s first minister for immigration 1945-49) embarked on a program of promotional documentaries aimed at recruiting more immigrants.
The films were initially made by the Department of Information’s Film Division, which had wartime filmmaking experience, before becoming part of the Australian News and Information Bureau within the Department of the Interior. In 1956 the Film Division was renamed the Commonwealth Film Unit, the precursor to Film Australia.
This story is from the January - February 2023 edition of Australian Geographic Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the January - February 2023 edition of Australian Geographic Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
DESERT DELIGHT
The Great Victoria Desert, Australia's largest, defies expectations. Visibly rich in biodiversity, it challenges preconceptions about how a desert should look.
A NEW BROOME
New experiences with First Nations people on Country are transforming \"flop-and-drop\" tourism in this tropical getaway.
THE BREAKFAST CLUB
For six days last autumn, a ragtag band of walkers came together to tackle the famed Overland Track and explore central Tasmania's spectacular flora, from the tiniest fungus to its towering King Billy pines.
BACK FOR THE FUTURE
Bathurst is one of several regional inland cities holding historic-trades fairs, tapping into growing enthusiasm for a slower, more sustainable way of living and of making things..
HELPING HANDS
These bizarre, shy fish that walk instead of swim face a precarious future in the waters of southern Australia.
COMMEMORATING BROTHERS IN ARMS ON COUNTRY
The military service of two First Nations World War II soldiers, long overlooked by history, is celebrated annually on an outback pilgrimage by an Aussie music legend.
UNEXPECTED PACIFIC PARADISE
Visiting Micronesia's islands and atolls offers an unexpected rare glimpse into remote communities steeped in centuries-old cultural traditions.
THE PATRIOT CONVICTS
A little-known group of political prisoners, transported from Canada to the Australian colonies, had far-reaching effects.
NEW SPACES FOR OCEAN LIFE
In an alliance between Australian marine ecologists and industrial designers, science and art meet to restore ecological function at some of the world's most altered coastal landscapes.
RESCUING AN EMBLEM
Nothing says an Aussie Easter quite like the bilby, but this symbol of the outback is facing a tough struggle for survival.