This page is under construction. If you have any information related to this production, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
"When Grief Hath Mates"
This play is dedicated to the memory of my comrades who lost their lives while they were prisoners of war; and to those who came home. I have attempted to reproduce a little of their existence in the prison camps, to show how they suffered, how they laughed, and hoped. I could not recapture their spirit, for it was too noble for words.
Austin McCallum 1951
Who alone suffers, suffers most i the mind, Leaving free things and happy shows behind;
But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip, When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
King Lear Act III, Sc. 6
Ballarat writer Austin McCallum enlisted in 1939, and was a member of the ill-fated Gull Force, spending three and a half years as a POW on the islands of Ambon and Hainan. When Grief Hath Mates was based on his experiences in the camps and won a national playwriting competition held by National Theatre Movement. It was first performed at Ballarat's Little Theatre in 1950 and was revived at Her Majesty's for the Australia Remembers year in 1995.
