Harold

Clip 2: Blair’s marriage

Taken from the documentary Harold (1994)

Original title classification PG – this clip chosen to be PG

Please be aware that this clip may contain the names, images and voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may now be deceased.

Curator’s clip description

Dorothy Blair recalls how she met and fell in love with Harold. Mixed race marriage was unusual in the 1950s and both families objected. Dorothy’s sister Florence Trevail expresses her views on the marriage, while Harold’s sister Meryl Thompson recalls the controversy on the Aboriginal side.

Curator’s notes

Revealing interviews with the sisters of both Harold and his wife show the pressure from both sides on the couple not to continue what was an unusual relationship for the time.

Damien Parer, curator

Teachers’ notes

provided by The Le@rning Federation

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This clip shows interviews with Harold Blair’s wife Dorothy Blair, her sister Florence Trevail, and Harold’s sister Meryl Thompson. Intercut with the interviews are still black-and-white photographs of Harold and Dorothy, together and separate, taken in the early days of their relationship. The voice of Harold Blair, who was a well-known tenor, is heard on the soundtrack.

Educational value points

Harold Blair, singer and Aboriginal activist, was born at Cherbourg Aboriginal Reserve in Queensland in 1924. Blair’s singing talent was discovered while he was working as a tractor driver in a sugar mill in the early 1940s. In 1945 he was one of the first Indigenous Australians to sing on national radio. After graduation from Melbourne’s Melba Conservatorium, Blair (1924–76) went to the USA to continue his voice studies. In 1951 a strenuous tour with the then Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) damaged his voice and he took up teaching. In 1962 he started the Aboriginal Children’s Project to provide holidays for mission children. In 1964 Blair stood unsuccessfully for parliament as a Labor candidate. In January 1976 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia.

The clip reveals the negative attitudes expressed by members of Blair’s and his wife Dorothy’s families towards their so-called ‘mixed’ marriage. Blair married Dorothy Eden, who was also studying at the Melba Conservatorium, in 1949. In the 1940s the so-called White Australia Policy, resulting from the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, was still in place. Indigenous Australians were not granted full rights as citizens until 1963 and were, in the 1940s, subject to restrictive regulations. In such an environment racist attitudes gained support and this may explain the fears and doubts expressed by Florence and Meryl in the clip.

The Blairs’ marriage attracted a great deal of media attention. Some media items showed racist attitudes, even though Harold Blair was by then well known as a tenor singer. Harold and Dorothy had two children, Nerida and Warren, and the family remained close until Harold’s death in 1976.

Following his success as a singer, Blair was often featured in the press. Many articles emphasised his success in ‘the white man’s world’, including articles published in the New South Wales Aborigines Welfare Board’s magazine, Dawn. Published from 1952 to 1975, Dawn was distributed to all NSW Aboriginal stations and reserves. Pastor Doug Nicholls and, for a time, artist Albert Namatjira, were also taken up by the media as Aboriginal ‘success’ stories.

The clip provides an example of the work of documentary filmmaker Steve Thomas, whose education includes an Honours degree in science. Thomas worked in the UK and Jamaica before coming to Australia and beginning a career in filmmaking. As well as the documentary Harold (1994), which was nominated for an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award in the year of its release, Thomas has made Black Man’s Houses about Tasmanian Aboriginal history, and The Hillmen – A Soccer Fable (1996), which won an AFI Award for Best Documentary. Thomas has lectured in documentary filmmaking at the Victorian College of the Arts since 1998.