Wales in Australia with Huw Edwards

For 225 years, Welsh people have been making the long journey

to start new lives in Australia.

It's not hard to see why,

especially when you swap the Welsh winter for the Australian summer.

We know that Australia over the years has tempted

so many Welsh people to leave home,

to settle in a very different country and to prosper.

Well, I'm on my first visit to Australia and I'm on the trail

of those Welsh migrants past and present, who played a surprisingly

significant role in shaping the story of this great nation.

'It's a wonderfully unexpected journey that takes me through

some of the most beautiful landscape that Australia has to offer...

'..to meet Welshmen who came here in chains...

'..and others who came here looking for gold.'

-Wow, can we call that Welsh gold?

-Of course we can.

'We meet a Welsh street cleaner and poet,

'some very Welsh entrepreneurs.'

-Brecwast, please.

-Brecwast, OK.

'And an eminent politician...'

-Prime Minister.

-Hello, Huw. Lovely to meet you.

'..as well as some of the most recent Welsh arrivals

'who have come to try their luck down under.'

BRASS BAND PLAYS "WALTZING MATILDA"

Today is a fitting opportunity for all of us to reflect

on what it means to be an Australian citizen.

'It's a beautiful sunny Sydney morning and I've come to the suburb

'of Manly Beach to witness a citizenship ceremony.

'After six years in the country,

'Welsh construction manager Ioan Morgan, his wife Naomi

'and their children Rhys and Erin, have decided to become Australians.'

Now, if you would repeat after me,

I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people.

-ALL:

-I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people.

Ioan is a fiercely proud Welshman

but thanks to the opportunities on offer,

he has no worries about taking this momentous step.

'The work that I'm doing now is phenomenal.

'In Australia if they see that you're serious about being here

'and you're happy to work hard and be a part of society,

'people will support and welcome you extremely well.

Ioan Tudor Morgan.

Rhys Terry Morgan.

And Naomi Anne Morgan.

Welsh families like the Morgans are the most recent chapter

in the story of the Welsh in Australia -

a story that goes back to 1770,

when Captain Cook claimed the eastern part of this vast continent

for Britain and named it New South Wales.

The first Welsh settlers began arriving 18 years later in 1788

in the port we now know as Sydney.

But few of them had made that long journey of their own free will.

They were criminals,

transported here on the first fleets of convict ships from Britain.

Many of them had been sentenced to spend the rest of their lives

in Australia.

'I've come to Sydney Harbour to talk to Shirley Collis,

'who's traced her own family history

'back to one of those early Welsh convicts.

'Shirley suggested we meet on Circular Quay,

'a significant landmark in the story of those first settlers.'

So where are we here, Shirley? How does this place fit into the story?

Well, this is Sydney Cove

and this, over here, is where the convicts would have landed.

-That side?

-And all of this would have been open space.

The only sign of human occupation

would have been the Aboriginal people fishing in little boats and whatnot,

maybe a fire, smoke going up, every headland would have been

heavily wooded. They swing round here into the bay and they drop anchor.

Shirley's Welsh ancestor, Ann Smith,

was only 20 when she arrived in the penal colony in 1804.

At the time, the convicts weren't imprisoned

but lived mostly in tents and huts on the hill above the harbour

in the district now known as The Rocks.

Many of the women had been sent to the colony

as little more than breeding stock.

Without protection,

the majority ended up turning to prostitution to survive.

So it was probably no bad thing that only four months after she landed,

Ann Smith walked into Sydney's first church, St Philips,

on the arm of a fellow convict.

You can see here both of them were technically illiterate.

Ann Smith, her mark. Robert Bolton, his mark. November 3rd, 1804.

Where was Ann from? Have you found out where she came from in Wales?

She came from Brecon.

She was arrested for stealing household goods, mostly clothing,

breaking and entering the house.

She could have been sentenced to death but she got seven years instead

and transportation to New South Wales.

Here's a tricky question.

Some people might think that fact, having convicts in your background,

is something to be, I don't know, slightly embarrassed about or even,

for some people, maybe ashamed about.

Does that exist, that feeling, or not?

It did when I first started my family research in 1974

but it doesn't any more.

People are now proud, interested.

They want to know what their background is, want to know where they came from.

Anyone looking at you today, Shirley, will realise

you've got plenty of Welsh emblems, which is great to see.

Why is that important for you to hold on to that sense of identity?

Australia is a very, very polyglot nation.

Our people have come from all over the land but we need to know where we've come from.

We need to know what our heritage is. The Welsh blend in.

They don't carry on.

They don't make a song and dance about being Welsh

-but it's there and, what's the word, Hiraeth?

-Hiraeth.

You know, when I listen to Welsh music when I hear a choir in full,

quite often I've got tears in my eye.

Something happens within me that says I am Welsh.

Ann Smith and her husband Robert

did pretty well out of transportation.

They did their time, they had a family

and ended up with land and property,

but they were definitely among the lucky ones.

My next destination is the island of Tasmania,

1,000 kilometres south of Sydney.

I'm heading for Port Arthur to explore one of the darkest chapters

of the transportation story

and to find out about one particularly famous Welshman

who survived the ordeal.

Today Tasmania is known for its pristine landscapes,

its dramatic coastline,

its nature reserves,

and its status as an ideal holiday destination.

But back in the early 19th century,

Port Arthur was the maximum high security prison camp

for the toughest convicts,

and when they stepped off the ship on this jetty

they were setting foot, not in Tasmania as we call it today,

but in a dark place known then as Van Diemen's Land.

Remote and inaccessible and guarded by attack dogs,

this was a labour camp from which the inmates were set to

work in forests and quarries and mines.

It was run by the military, and prisoners were constantly

under threat of vicious corporal punishment.

Among the thousands sent here was a Welsh revolutionary

by the name of Zephaniah Williams.

Williams was one of the leaders of the Chartist Movement,

a radical 19th-century campaign demanding social equality.

He was sentenced to death

for his role in a large demonstration in Newport.

He escaped the noose but instead was transported to Port Arthur.

David Martin Jones is a Welsh historian based in Australia

with a particular interest in Zephaniah Williams

and his remarkable story.

David explained how the Port Arthur authorities decided to take

advantage of Williams' experience and posted him up country

with the unenviable task of controlling a remote coal mine

at a place called Saltwater River.

So what happens to Williams while he's here?

Basically, he's in charge of 30 convict miners.

Convict mining is tough work. It's nasty, it's dirty,

and, you know, it's a kind of a punishment in itself,

so those who are doing this job are always threatening to run away.

The problem for Williams was,

as the overseer, he was supposed to stop them running away.

What happens is four of the convicts leg it into the bush.

He, as a responsible overseer, chases after them.

He catches up with them and they make him an offer he can't refuse -

either you come with us or we'll kill you.

He's taken with them a few miles into the bush.

They then stuff him in a tree that's burnt out and run off.

-He's got no food or water.

-They abandon him, basically?

Abandon him, yeah.

'Williams found himself in an impossible position.

'When he finally made his way out of the wilderness and handed

'himself over to the authorities, his account of events was ignored.'

So what kind of punishment does he then face?

We're talking about an intelligent man, well educated,

subjected to being chained for two years doing hard labour,

breaking rocks, locked to two murderers.

And at night, he's taken to a special cell of six foot by four

where he can hardly sleep and he's there for 16 weeks.

And he still emerges from that and still rebuilds his life later on.

He's a remarkably strong character.

Strong, resilient, innovative...

-Robust Welsh stock, I think.

-I think we can say that, yes.

What fascinates me about this story is that after Williams was

eventually released and then pardoned, he went on to become

a successful entrepreneur in the Tasmanian coal industry.

He arranged for his wife and his children to emigrate here

from South Wales and encouraged 40 Welsh miners to make the journey

with offers of work and land.

Williams had come to Tasmania as a notorious criminal

but when he passed away at the age of 80,

he was a well known and prosperous settler.

The first Welshmen who came to Australia of their own free will

were mostly miners and the city they sailed to was Adelaide.

I travelled there to the capital of South Australia,

on the trail of those early immigrants

and was delighted to discover there are still Welsh miners in Adelaide

and they're keeping the home flag flying.

# Pat a Janet ac Elsie a Glen

# Pat a Janet ac Elsie a Glen

# Pat a Janet ac Elsie a Glen. #

-Helo, bore da.

-Bore da, sut ydych chi?

-Huw Edwards. Neis i weld chi.

-A chithe.

-Yn Adelaide fan hyn.

-'Wi ishe brecwast, plis.

-Brecwast, OK.

'Charles Harris is a miner and quarryman from West Wales

'and he and his wife Ann run a very distinctive coffee shop

'in one of Adelaide's central suburbs.'

A coffi. Flat white neu rhywbeth. Diolch yn fawr.

-Iawn, dim problem.

-Diolch.

# Yn llewys fy nghrys Caf wy, chips a pys

# Ag wrth dalu y bill Mi gaf wen gan

# Pat a Janet ac Elsie a Glen. #

It's lovely to see you.

I can't believe there's such a Welsh enclave in Adelaide.

How did you end up here, Ann?

It sort of started off...

we moved to Australia about four and a half years ago

and we were on a business visa and were looking for a new business,

and we happened to be in here one day drinking coffee

and got talking to the owner and he said the cafe was for sale,

and we just sort of said, "OK, we might be interested," didn't we?

We bought the place but needed to do something different

because it was a bit rundown

and, being from Wales, we thought, "Let's do a Welsh cafe."

At what point, Ann, did you realise you had a success on your hands?

The first day we actually opened

somebody came in and asked for Welsh cakes

and I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I haven't got any Welsh cakes,

"but we'll have some tomorrow," and it just came from there that

they started asking for faggots and peas, and then somebody

came in one day and said, "Oh, I bet you haven't got any laverbread?"

-That is a challenge.

-Yeah. "Not at the moment."

But we do actually sell laverbread now.

We actually get laverbread and cockles in from Burry Port.

-From Burry Port?

-Yes, yeah.

-I'm very pleased to hear it.

-That's a very good part of the world.

-Yes, yes.

Getting into the cafe business, it's been a challenge for us

because I've never cooked, I never baked nothing in my life before

and now I can turn breakfasts out in no time.

You mean to say you're behind the counter cooking breakfasts?

-For the first two years, yes, I was.

-I'm full of admiration. I really am.

'Ann and Charles are in a long tradition of Welsh mining families

'who have shown their ability to thrive

'in the unfamiliar Australian climate.'

I'm now on the road out of Adelaide, heading for a town called Burra.

It's a pretty hot day and I'm on the trail of some of the first

Welsh miners in Australia,

tempted here by the demand for their expertise in the copper industry

during the late 1840s.

My driver and companion, Jason Shute,

is a Welshman living in Adelaide

and is an expert on this early group of Welsh settlers.

This stretch we're on now, where are we heading to now, cos this is...?

We're still heading up the old Bullock Dray Road

from Adelaide to Burra itself.

The conditions of that journey for them, what would they have been?

Well, today we should have temperatures

of about 32 degrees centigrade up in Burra itself.

It's a lovely day but it was a wet season when they arrived.

-That might have felt a bit Welsh to them, I don't know.

-Yeah.

They really were going to the absolute limits of the Empire,

if you like, at that time.

-And that's where we're heading now?

-Towards Burra itself, yes.

Today Burra is a beautifully preserved little Victorian town -

a testament to the wealth generated by Burra's so-called Monster Mine,

but Jason was keen to show me that back in the late 1840s, when the

first Welsh miners arrived, the accommodation was rather different.

We parked near a dry river bed above the town.

What is significant about the place you've brought me to here?

Well, we're standing in one of the tributary creeks to the

Burra Creek itself and it's these water courses which flow

well in winter that make a community possible in this arid

-part of the world.

-They're drawn to the water, basically?

Yes, that's got to support the community.

As far as living is concerned, of course,

there's not much in the way of accommodation, if anything at all.

So what does a miner do?

He takes his pick and shovel and he digs himself

and his family a home

and these dugouts which extend down these tributaries,

along the Burra Creek for well over a mile are soon

accommodating as many as 1,800 people.

-They're living in these holes?

-In these holes.

Men, women and children and indeed their animals -

pigs, chickens, the lot.

The first thing that strikes you, Jason,

is the potential for enormous health problems.

Well, that is a major drawback, of course,

and typhoid is a problem and certainly infant mortality is

very high while these dugouts are being used.

In this state, it does look incredibly basic and barren

and rather grim really, but I'm assuming it looked rather different

when people actually lived in them?

Yes, they did the best they could, certainly.

Most of them were whitewashed inside,

some of them even wallpapered and carpets on the floor as well.

-One was certainly used as a hotel.

-One of these was used as a hotel?

One of these, religious services were held in them, and the upside,

of course, was coolness because you know now, coming in from the very

-hot temperature out there, that this is very pleasant.

-Any snakes around?

-We hope not. Maybe we should have looked first.

-I hope not!

It's not top of my list of favourite things.

I notice you are leading out! HUW LAUGHS

From the miners' cave dwellings, Jason took me up to the site

of the giant, Welsh-built copper works

that once employed over 1,000 men and boys.

We've only got footings to see now, unfortunately,

but you get the perspective down there, 200 feet of workspace,

rather grandly built classical facade.

Too elegantly built, some said,

compared with the works in the Swansea valley at the time -

a chapel of industry.

I know today isn't that hot for you because you're used to it.

It's very hot for me and I'm just thinking, working near these

furnaces in what could be extreme heat outside as well,

I mean, the conditions must have been very difficult.

Yes, here we are in about maybe 32 today and could you imagine it

at 40 or 42 degrees in the temperature in the air

and you're stood working before

an absolutely broiling hot furnace there?

And, of course, when some new men came

they were just gawping at the experienced men

standing before these furnaces, as Superintendant Thomas Williams said,

"At the men melting before the furnaces."

The heyday of copper at Burra was over only 20 years after it began,

but it was the first of many occasions when the Welsh played

a vital role in Australian mining,

an industry that still makes a significant contribution

to the Australian economy.

From the state of South Australia,

I'm heading to neighbouring Victoria and the grand city of Melbourne.

Just a couple of years after the boom in Burra,

Melbourne docks began welcoming a tidal wave of miners

and fortune seekers from all over the globe,

but these men weren't here for the copper.

The majority of them, including men from all over Wales,

came off the ships and hit the road.

The story of copper is significant,

but, believe me, it is nothing compared to what happens next.

Because the thing that transforms Australia,

the thing that turns everything upside down,

the thing that brings hundreds of thousands of people rushing here,

is the discovery of gold.

So I'm making my way North West from Melbourne,

deep into the state of Victoria.

I'm in my very comfortable air-conditioned car

and I'm thinking of thousands of Welsh migrants,

prospectors, making their way on foot,

in the heat and dust, through these very fields,

many of them making their way towards a town called Ballarat.

Ballarat's gold rush, rather vividly brought to life

here at the Sovereign Hill Museum,

is a pretty astonishing moment in history.

18 months after gold was discovered here,

the population grew from just a handful of people to 20,000

and very quickly the creeks that flowed out of the Ballarat hills

were lined with rows of panhandlers.

So I decided to try my luck and give it a go.

-The trick to gold is its weight.

-Right.

-It's three-and-a-half times heavier than lead.

-Right.

So, mixed in with a lot of water, we get it really filled with water

and give it a swish like that.

All our gold will sink to the bottom.

To the bottom of the pan, OK.

So, we'll do that for a little while, just to get the water

-swishing through to make sure all that gold sits in the bottom.

-Yeah.

Now, when we get down to this amount here.

It's not what I'd call submersion

so if we're moving on an angle we move slowly forward

-and bring it back quickly in the water like that.

-OK, OK.

As you can see, all the larger rocks are coming out

and we're being left with the finest sand.

Yeah, got you.

So, these guys coming out here during the height of the rush,

some of them struck lucky. Lots of them, of course,

came here and I would imagine, they didn't really make it at all.

No, they said that one in ten made it rich,

and the other eight out of ten could make a living and survive,

find enough gold to keep going and one out of those ten also,

he'd be destitute, and then find nothing.

So it wasn't bad odds to make a living but not everyone

made it rich but a lot of people were able to support themselves.

Yeah, yeah.

-We have got that down to a small amount now.

-Yeah.

When we get to this point, I tend to use a circular motion.

If I bring the water around, just so it starts to remove the sand,

you can see there...

-Yes! Gosh, yes.

-There we go.

Wow!

-Can we call that Welsh gold?

-Of course we can!

Unmistakable.

-Not a bad little haul for one pan.

-Not a lot but more than I've got.

100 or 200 pans of that a day, and you'd be going all right.

By the end of the 1850s

there were around 2,000 Welsh men and women living in Ballarat.

They were part of an extraordinary melting pot

of Chinese people,

there were Americans too,

and Europeans, including plenty of English, Scots and Irish.

Very quickly the initially chaotic fields of tents

gave way to a busy industrial town,

awash with money... and ways of spending it.

But, for the Welsh, this was also a society

that allowed them religious freedom of expression

and where many continued to speak in the Welsh language.

In the heart of the real Ballarat is a venerable building

known as the Mechanics Institute -

a centre for the education and entertainment of working people

and a place that tells us something about the scale

of Welsh cultural activity in the town.

Jan Croggon is a local historian who was keen to show us around.

-Right.

-Well! It's impressive.

I've brought you here to show you one of the real links

to the Welsh in Ballarat and their presence here.

This is the Great Hall, as it was known, of the Mechanics Institute

-in Ballarat.

-It's impressive.

-It's beautiful isn't it,

it's been restored to its original glory.

It's incredible that they brought all of that tradition with them.

And, in this Grand Hall, I have to say,

far grander than the little chapel vestries and halls

-you'd have had in Wales at that time.

-Almost certainly.

I've not been to those parts of Wales,

but Ballarat really did have tabs on itself, I suppose,

and whatever it built, because it was rich,

there was gold around, there was a lot of money

and they were building great big buildings

and they wanted to show how well they'd done and they wanted to

not only reproduce but improve and make better

what they'd brought with them. And we know for an absolute fact

that there was at least one Eisteddfod held in this very room

-in 1863, it was a two-day affair.

-1863.

-1863.

If it was a two-day affair that's a very serious Eisteddfod,

-I have to say.

-Absolutely.

-Dead serious, yes.

-In this very hall.

-In this very room, so these walls

echoed to the sounds of Welsh recitals

and Welsh choirs and the whole thing.

# Myfanwy boed yr holl o'th fywyd

# Dan heulwen ddisglair canol dydd. #

One of the Welshmen who attended and performed

at the Ballarat Eisteddfod on a number of occasions

was a farmer from West Wales, by the name of Joseph Jenkins.

Jenkins was an extraordinary character

who worked and travelled extensively in rural Victoria.

He arrived here at the age of 50, having left his home

and his troubled marriage in the middle of the night.

He went on to spend the next 25 years in Australia

working as a manual labourer,

during which time he wrote a detailed and fascinating diary.

I've driven to the town of Maldon about 50 miles north-east

of Ballarat, where in 1885, at the age of 67,

Jenkins finally managed to secure long-term employment

maintaining the town's network of drains.

It was a job that gave him a wonderfully down-to-earth

perspective on Australia and its inhabitants.

"This is a glorious country, but badly managed.

"Gold, gold, gold is on every tongue,

"while the soil is shamefully neglected. Each man..."

"I met an Aborigine. He seemed half-starved.

"I took him into my cottage and invited him to share a meal with me,

"and I shared my blankets with him.

"It is Sunday evening, the church and chapel bells are ringing

"and the Salvation Army band is playing.

"This small town is full of religious buildings,

"but the stay-at-homes outnumber all the other denominations.

"Many spend their Sundays with their guns in the bush."

Jenkins' diary, a book that's familiar to many Australian schoolchildren,

contains entries on everything - politics, agriculture, local crime,

the Australian weather and plenty of comments about the Welsh.

Well, Joseph does tend to change his tune a little bit

about his fellow Welsh in Australia. Listen to this...

"All nationalists in this colony stick together selfishly.

"The Welsh are quite to the contrary.

"They do not heed a man's colour or nationality

"as long as he acts straightforwardly.

"I do believe that they prove the best colonists of any nation."

And then, listen to this.

"The Welsh people in Australia show great indifference

"to honouring their national day, St David's Day,

"and to keeping their language.

"The Irish, on the other hand, join together to honour St Patrick

"and form their separate societies."

Having it both ways, I think.

BELL RINGS

WHISTLE BLOWS

Jenkins lived in the State of Victoria for 25 years

before deciding to head back to Wales at the age 76.

By the time he boarded that train home,

Australia was changing rapidly.

As the 19th century drew to a close,

most immigrants were proudly turning themselves into Australians.

Many chose to leave their old national identities behind them.

But back in the centre of Melbourne,

there is one Welsh institution

from the gold-rush era

that is still thriving.

# Calon lan yn llawn daioni

# Tecach yw na'r lili dlos

# Dim ond calon lan all ganu

# Canu'r dydd a chanu'r nos. #

Croeso cynnes i gwasanaeth Cymraeg cyntaf y flwyddyn...

'The present minister of the Welsh Church in Melbourne

'is the Reverend Sion Gough Hughes,

'who's very proud of the chapel's Noncomformist tradition.'

'It started out at the beginning of the 20th century

'as a completely monoglot Welsh church.

'It was a Welsh language church, no English at all.'

Slowly but surely it started to have English services, as the Welsh...

the pure Welsh community died.

'We see ourselves as a church

'that's got Welsh connections and Welsh roots

'and Welsh people are welcome here,

'but it's now for anybody.

'It doesn't matter who you are or where you're from.'

Penmachno? Wel, mae Penmachno wedi newid lot mewn hanner canrif.

'After the service, there's always a traditional chapel te bach,

'a little tea, that's anything other than little, to be honest.

'And the woman responsible for this impressive spread

'is Christine Boomsma.'

The chapel's in fantastic condition,

I'm just really figuring

that this is such an important part of the Welsh jigsaw, if you like.

It does, because people walk by in the street,

and, of course, they come in,

they see the Welsh flag flying

and they'll stay for the service

and we always try to give them a welcome.

Since when have you been in Australia?

I was 10 when I arrived, so I've been here 49 years,

and that's giving my age away!

So you've lived in Australia all of this time

and I'm just wondering,

do you think of yourself as Welsh in any way any more

or are you just Australian? What are you?

Well, after much criticism, I'm still a British subject.

I've never become an Australian citizen because I feel I'm Welsh.

I like the fact I'm Welsh, I mean,

I speak Welsh, I live with a lot of Welsh people,

so I'm used to it and I'm quite happy being a British subject,

living here... with an Australian accent.

-A very nice Australian accent!

-Well...thank you.

So, what does that visit tell me about Welshness in Australia?

It's a thriving Welsh chapel, let's face it,

that's something you don't see very often these days.

And it's thriving because it's retained a core of Welshness

but it's become, really, an Australian church.

It's opened the doors to people of all kinds of different backgrounds.

So I'm getting the sense of a modern Welsh identity

which sits very comfortably, very happily

in this diverse society that is today's Australia.

Of all the 19th-century Welsh immigrants,

undoubtedly the one who left the biggest mark

on the Australian urban landscape

was a shopkeeper called David Jones.

Born and bred in Carmarthenshire,

Jones established a trading empire,

importing and selling goods from Britain and Europe.

And today the David Jones chain of department stores

is still one of the best-known names on the High Street.

In 1901, Australia came of age

when the country held its first national parliamentary election.

Although the city of Canberra was eventually chosen

as the Australian seat of government,

for the first 26 years

the Victorian State Parliament here in Melbourne

was the home of national politics.

'I've come here to meet

'the former parliamentary official Dr Ray Wright.'

Hello, Ray, how are you?

-Hello, Huw. Welcome to Parliament House.

-Huw Edwards.

-Thanks for having me.

-It's a great pleasure.

-It's a great building.

It's wonderful, isn't it? Come and we'll have a look.

'I'm here to quiz Ray about one particular Australian politician,

'a Welshman brought up in Llandudno

'who came to Australia in his early 20s

'and made his way up from working as a rural labourer

'to serving in this building as Prime Minister

'from 1916 to 1923.'

'His name was Billy Hughes

'and it's fair to say he has a reputation as a bit of a maverick.'

So, if I'm right, now, you tell me,

this is where Billy Hughes would have been operating

and dominating this chamber?

That's right, this is Billy Hughes' theatre, this is his arena.

This is his stage.

So, let's just think, I'm on the opposition side,

what kind of a man am I facing? What kind of politician is he?

You're facing a small man with a large presence,

a man who is confrontationist and aggressive,

won't let you get away with a thing.

-He'll make jokes at your expense.

-Likeable?

Not very likeable from you, but if you're in the visitor's gallery

-they would love Billy Hughes.

-Entertaining, then?

-Very entertaining indeed.

-What about his staff over the years?

He's very well known for his poor treatment of his staff.

He was rude and he was a bully

and he was overbearing.

He was a member of parliament for 51 years.

He had more than 100 staff, personal secretaries, resign and leave.

-In fact...

-It's got to be a record!

-I think it probably is.

One of them said he'd rather go to bed a with a sabre-toothed tiger

than keep on working with Billy Hughes.

Hughes was an outspoken and inspirational leader

during the First World War

who earned the adoration

of the Australian troops fighting in Europe.

His red-blooded patriotism

also earned him a whole new set of friends

when he arrived in London to meet the British War Cabinet in 1916.

Morale was very low in England at that stage

and Billy Hughes turned up

all full of fire and vim and vigour and electricity,

and Lloyd George sent him off on a speaking tour around England

called the Wake Up England tour.

And the adjective that's always used to describe this tour

is that his speeches were "electrifying".

He had an amazing impact, just because he was indefatigable,

he wouldn't give in, he said we had to beat Germany.

His impact was extraordinary.

And people began to suggest

that he might be the next Prime Minister after Asquith.

'Before I left, Ray was keen to show me

'a hidden corner of the Parliament building -

'a reminder of Billy Hughes' eccentric style of leadership.'

Nice steep staircase.

-To your left. Down the corridor.

-Bit darker here.

-Yeah.

-A bit of a sense of the unknown.

Come and have a look through this window here.

-We'll see this old rough building here.

-This thing?

-It looks a bit scruffy.

-It's pretty scruffy, yeah.

Billy Hughes decided he wanted his own private quarters

for the parliament when he was here.

Without asking anybody's permission or seeking anyone's advice,

he demanded that a building be put up for him here

so that he could hide away from all those people

who were pestering him in the other office.

Victorian members said it was the act of a dictator.

But it's still there.

98 years later, it's still there.

-And not so secret.

-Not secret, and still being used.

From the end of the First World War,

Australia was preoccupied

with securing both its prosperity and its national identity

by increasing the population.

Successive Australian governments encouraged largely white immigration

and they promoted a national image of modern homes, plentiful jobs,

and a kind of life that for many Welsh people

must have looked like paradise.

As an added incentive, well into the 1970s,

migrants were offered a heavily-subsidised ticket

for the voyage and they became known as Ten-Pound Poms.

Among the many Welsh Ten-Pound Poms from Wales

were the Lloyd family from Aberdare,

who've kindly invited me for a traditional barbie

at their home in the Melbourne suburb of Hallam.

-This is gas, right?

-Yes.

-The one I've got at home is just charcoal.

-Just charcoal in a kind of...

-That's fine.

-Controlling the heat is quite difficult.

-No, it isn't!

Well, it is for me!

THEY LAUGH

# Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer

# Those days of soda... #

Normally, about February, it's stinking hot.

Yeah, do you know what? I don't want to offend the residents of Aberdare,

but this for me is the classic barbie-in-Aberdare weather.

-Back in the Valleys.

-Yeah, it is.

Dear me.

Well done.

# Those days of soda and pretzels and beer

# Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer

# Dust off the sun and moon and sing a song of cheer... #

Well, June, I know I shouldn't really be asking you questions

while you're eating.

I'm trying to work out how many years it is

since you first came to Australia.

What do you reckon, how long is it? 1960...what what it?

1968, August 1st.

-45 years?

-Yeah, in August.

How long was it between the decision and your move?

-A month.

-A month?

How on earth do you get your family ready to emigrate in a month?

I don't know, but we did it. THEY LAUGH

She's quick, she's quick!

You're obviously quick.

What did your family at home make of the decision?

My mum was very upset and my grandmother was even more upset.

She said, "I'll never see you again."

Well, it was done and that was it, you couldn't turn back.

You were starting a new life, really, weren't you?

Definitely.

-Did you see your grandmother again?

-No. Nor my mum.

My mum died 12 months after I got here.

-That's a tough price to pay, isn't it?

-Yeah.

And my grandmother died a couple of months later.

So it was all done, you know,

and we couldn't go back

because you had to be two years here before you could go back,

because you'd have to pay the government full price.

She settled down very quickly.

I just wanted to go to school.

How old were you at the time?

Six, nine days after we arrived in Melbourne.

It was very dark and late

and I remember going to a house, our first house.

And I love it now, even now when we're in the country or somewhere,

you hear the magpies - cuckoo-luckoo - they do that noise.

And that was my first sound in the morning,

but I remember hating it, thinking, "Oh, these beds are so lumpy!"

It was like a farm and Mum kept saying,

"We're in cowboy country! We're in cowboy country!"

Did you really think it was cowboy country?

"The cowboys are going to come!" And I'm thinking, "No, OK."

But to lots of Welsh people, Aberdare's cowboy country as well,

so you were stretching it a bit, to be fair.

It was really foul weather.

The big question I want to ask is,

once you'd settled, June,

what was it about Wales that you missed the most?

My mum and dad.

And especially my grandmother,

because my grandmother reared us.

And for you, Michaela,

-do you have any memories of Wales at all as a little girl?

-None.

-None whatsoever.

-How old were you when you came?

-Three.

And when did you first go back to Wales on a visit?

I was 21 when I first went back.

Did you then have any questions about the decision to come out here,

your father's decision, really, to come out here?

Yeah, most definitely.

When I came home I said to Dad, you know, "How could you do it?

"How could you just pack up

"and leave all your family and come here?"

And he said, you know, "I wanted to give you a better life."

Opportunity was there so they took it.

It's not hard to see why Ten-Pound Poms like the Lloyd family

fell in love with Australia,

but not all the migrants who came here in the 1950s and 1960s

were so enthusiastic about moving to the other side of the world.

'David Crisp is a retired sheep-shearer

'from Northam in Western Australia.

'When he was a baby, David's teenage mother

'reluctantly placed him in an orphanage in Swansea.

'And then at the age of seven

'he became one of the so-called "lost children",

'when he was put on a ship and sent off to Clontarf Boys' Home

'near the Australian city of Perth.

'It was run by the Roman Catholic Christian Brothers.'

-How strict was the discipline?

-Very strict.

Very strict.

What kind of punishments would they inflict on people?

Well, I still remember as a kid, it was Saint Patrick's Day,

we went to Castledare for a picnic there.

And this Christian Brother said,

"Whatever you do, don't go up the weir."

Boys will be boys, and about five of them went up there,

and Brother Doyle the next day got all the boys lined up and said,

"Who was up the weir?"

He went, "Right, I want youse boys up the stage."

And I've never seen a man hit a kid in all my life.

He went three or four canes, breaking them, just belted them.

And I remember, I turned around, I just broke down.

He said, "Crisp, if you don't turn around and watch this,

"you'll be up here."

And I still remember that.

I will never forget that so long as I live.

In recent years, there have been lots of really bad revelations

about the kind of conduct that went on in some of these places,

especially in attitude to young kids.

-Was that the case in Clontarf as well?

-Yes, it was definitely... Yes.

The sex abuse. I didn't realise how bad it was.

I know I got a sex abuse, you know, by three Brothers.

I didn't realise how bad it was.

Cos the boys never talked about it.

If we talked about it, there's six of the best for a start.

You know, you just never talked about it.

But it was a whole complete change of life...

..you know, from the orphanage at Swansea

and to come to this place, and stinking hot.

And, really, to have been tricked into it, in a way.

-Oh, we were stolen kids.

-If they were saying, "You're going on a trip..."

Yeah, they stole us. I reckon they stole us.

The Christian Brothers at Clontarf Boys' Home always insisted

that the children's parents were dead, but David was never convinced.

After he left the Boys' Home,

he ended up working on farms right across Western Australia.

It wasn't until he was in his mid-40s that he discovered

the truth about his family.

Tell me about the moment when you found out you had a mother in Wales.

That was Mrs Norman.

She sat us down and said, "There's a letter,"

and she said, "You've got a mum," you know.

-And...

-What was your response to that?

I was shocked. Shocked, you know?

I walked back in to the shearers, and I said to the shearers,

"Now you can't call me a bastard - I've got parents!"

The boys all clapped.

-Yeah.

-When did you first make contact with your family?

Mum rang us, Christmas Day.

I remember her saying...

IN WELSH ACCENT: "Hello, Dave, how are you, Dave?"

I said, "That's Welsh!"

She said, "This is Mum."

-Wow.

-Mum got all excited, but I couldn't understand her.

She was Welsh Welsh, you know?

-Talking very quickly?

-Yeah.

I said, "Mum, can you slow down?!"

David's mother came out to visit him,

and in 1994, he made his first trip back to Wales

to meet all the members of his long-lost family.

There he is! Dave!

There were certainly aspects of Australia's immigration policies

in the 20th century that have left

the country with an uncomfortable legacy.

But today, it's fair to say that this is an increasingly-confident,

multicultural society.

Now, in the 21st century, Australia picks

and chooses its immigrants from all over the globe.

And it's still an extremely popular destination,

thanks to its status as one of the most affluent

and culturally-buoyant societies in the world.

Nowhere is that cultural pride more in evidence

than in the field of movies and music.

Big-name Australian stars are increasingly

prominent on the world stage.

And what's surprising is how many of them have Welsh roots.

# I just can't get you out of my head... #

From Kylie, whose family came from Maesteg, Olivia Newton-John,

whose father was from Cardiff, actress Naomi Watts,

who was brought up in Anglesey...

..and even that all-Australian actor Russell Crowe had

a grandfather from Wrexham.

The Australian appetite for a good show is certainly on display

here today in Sydney Harbour.

This is Australia Day, a holiday commemorating

the arrival of that first fleet of convicts back in 1788.

It's a chance to celebrate all things Australian,

and it's a sign of that national confidence

that it's also an opportunity for Australians to wave

the flag of their countries of origin.

Here under Sydney Harbour Bridge, there's a good turnout

of the Welsh contingent at Sydney's Celtic Festival.

# Henffych fore

# Henffych fore

# Caf ei weled fel y mae. #

I was all set to join these festivities when I received

an invitation to travel to Canberra, the capital city of Australia,

to meet the most famous Australian, and certainly the most powerful one.

Julia Gillard was born in Barry in Glamorgan,

but I met her at the official residence of the Prime Minister

of Australia.

-Prime Minister.

-Hello, lovely to meet you.

-Thank you very much for making time today.

-You're very welcome.

-Am I allowed to say happy Australia Day?

-You certainly are.

That's the only thing you possibly say today, happy Australia Day!

Thank you very much. Shall we take a seat?

Prime Minister, thank you very much

for sparing time today of all days to talk to us.

-You're very welcome.

-That's very kind of you.

Lots of people have different ideas of Wales and what Wales represents.

So, if I said Wales to you, what's the first thing

that comes into your mind?

Oh, I just say it's where my family's from.

I was very small when we left Wales, I was only four years old,

so I don't have any original memories,

but I have all of the family stories that have sort of defined

who we are and where we came from.

To what extent are you aware, then, of that Welsh heritage?

Are those stories things that are dear to you,

things that you cherish? Are they things you hold on to,

or are they things that you've kind of left behind?

No, they're absolutely things that I cherish and hold on to.

I always knew, growing up, that we had migrated, and Mum and Dad had

made this difficult decision, and we'd come halfway around the world.

That was in days when international telephone calls were booked

through the operator,

and the price of airline tickets was just astronomically high,

compared with people's incomes.

So, you couldn't just go back.

So, my idea of who we are and what sort of formed us was really built

through their eyes and their stories about Wales,

and I was really keen to get back and see it for myself.

I was also keen to have that sense of extended family.

We only ever had my father, my mother, my sister and I.

Everybody else had aunties, uncles, grandmothers, the whole lot.

We didn't, and so I wanted to know where all of our people were.

What prompted the move in the first place?

Why did your parents make that very difficult decision?

It was a mix of things.

I was born with bronchial pneumonia, I was very sick as a child.

They were told by doctors that I would always find it

difficult in Welsh winters, and perhaps have to miss a lot of school.

So, that weighed on their mind.

And Dad thought to himself that there was more economic opportunity

in Australia, that it was a big thing to do,

but ultimately the family would be better off.

And so, all of that came together to reinforce a decision of,

"Yes, we're going to go," and we went.

The transition, how difficult was it?

What did your parents say about the process of starting a new life

thousands of miles away from home?

How difficult was that for them?

They found it pretty hard. They had a lot of advantages.

The language, you know.

Our journey is nothing compared with the people who came here not speaking

a word of English and had to get to grips with the language as well.

But even with the benefit of speaking English,

Mum and Dad do remember it as a difficult time.

They actually arrived in a drought,

and so it was economically tough, it was hard for Dad to get a job.

And they had a sense that Australia was a bit behind Wales then.

Mum talks about having to let her skirts down

because they were too short.

Then, there are things about the Australian idiom that took them

a while to get used to.

Dad tells this story of being on the bus late at night, coming home

from work and the bus driver saying to him, "See you later, mate,"

and Dad going home and saying to my mum,

"Gee, the bus driver's coming round!"...

..and it taking them a while to work out that this was just

a way of saying goodbye, rather than,

"I'll be at your house for a cup of tea fairly soon."

I just want to talk a little bit about your political values.

Because, as I understand it, and please tell me if I've got it wrong,

your parents were originally from the South Wales Valleys,

which have a great and rich tradition

of radical, left-of-centre politics.

To what extent did that background, via your parents,

inform your political stance, your political values?

It's really a very keen shaper of my political values.

My father is from one of the coal-mining villages in South Wales,

and he particularly transmitted values that he learned

in his coal-mining village and his family home.

To him, trade unionism was everything.

It was mandatory to be part of the union,

and it was the only way that working people ever got a chance

or ever got a fair deal, if they got into the union.

So, a real almost religion with him, and that came through.

My mother grew up in Barry, from a more middle-class family.

Her father was an engineer.

But she, too, always had a great sense

of social justice and what was right.

So both of them, their Welsh heritage,

their Welsh values and background shaped me.

I think a Prime Ministerial visit to Wales would go down very, very well,

Prime Minister, if I may say so. Just a gentle suggestion!

Well, one of these days, I'd love to.

I don't think this year is going to be a possibility for it.

Might be a bit busy.

Yes, I've got an election to fight during the course of this year,

but I have had our High Commissioner in Britain say

on more than one occasion, "You've got to get there,

"you've got to go to Wales," so wouldn't it be a great opportunity,

if it's possible in the future?

Prime Minister, I'm going to say, diolch yn fawr.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

From convicts to Prime Ministers,

the Welsh have made quite a journey here in Australia.

So, what is the common thread that connects the experience

of those first settlers with today's Welsh Australians?

There is one word which sums up the appeal of Australia

that's as true today as it has been for the past 200 years.

That word is opportunity.

The kind of opportunity that brings personal fulfilment,

economic gain and a sense of freedom...

..not to mention plenty of sunshine.

And for so many people, Wales just can't compete with all of that.

What I've discovered here is that the Welsh are very comfortable

with a dual identity.

They haven't rejected Wales,

but they have fully embraced this wonderful country

and they've played a big part

in Australia's remarkable success story.

Long may that continue.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd