Re: City in the Sun
  TP

Just looking back through the immigration statistics David, what you're
seeing there in the sea of faces in that film are in fact also a lot of
descendants of immigrants. Apart from the majority who were by descent from
the British Isles, from the mid 19th century, there were substantial
numbers of immigrants from Germany (and its predecessors) and China in
particular, continuing for many decades into the 20th century, as well as
other nationalities. German immigration continued strongly until post WW2
period and they were joined by Italians from the interwar years. In the
20th century, totalitarian persecution seemed to be a strong driver,
accounting for many of the Germans and Italians and continuing post WW2 as
the communist mantle settled on Europe where you can see a significant
continuing wave from those countries from the 1950s until they were freed
in the 1990s and it slowed down again. Dutch and Greeks also arrived from
the 1950s and later Asians from Vietnam, followed by China which has
re-emerged as a major source since the 1990s, then people from many other
countries.

I felt one thing that was disappointingly absent from Loch's film (maybe he
couldn't afford it) was colour. Browsing around, I found this film from
the same time, late 1945, about Australian service personnel, including
nurses, being brought home on various ships. The film covers from Sydney
Heads to Woolloomoloo Bay.
No trams, but some Manly ferries that have been returned to their original
colours and a surprise view of the old four-stack RMS Aquitania. The
harbour was absolutely jam-packed with naval ships, as the RAN was at that
stage the fourth largest navy in the world and the British Pacific Fleet
was there too. The remnants of this spectacle, as the Navy worked through
ship disposals, were still evident on the harbour until the 1960s and
later, as I've mentioned before. Shropshire or Australia is visible at
Garden Island with a Tribal alongside.

If there is a relevance to trams, this sheer mass of people descending on
Sydney helped push patronage over 400 million in 1944-1945, holding that
mark till 1946, after which it rapidly went back down to its prewar level
of about 300 million in 1949. After that, extension of bus services
started chewing into the patronage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW52-3PlmVA

Tony P
On Monday, 11 January 2021 at 09:52:06 UTC+11mcloug...@... wrote:

> Richard Youl posted:

>

> > https://youtu.be/oW-wI1prDg4

>

> Fascinating watching that; an Australia only a decade before my time.

> Thanks Richard.

>

> Two observations:

>

> 1: The frequent shots of trolley buses in a city that hardly had any of

> them (but trams everywhere at the time the film was made, circa 1947)

> suggest to me the producers with a UK audience in mind saw trolley buses as

> "modern" because at the time they were replacing trams in many parts of the

> UK (and had replaced many London tram routes by then; but no more as they

> were even doomed in London, with all further London tram replacements being

> diesel buses). So they incorporated all those trolley bus scenes to make

> Sydney look "modern" to a UK audience

>

> 2: The film is a reminder of how extraordinarily White and Anglo

> Australia was back then, before even Italians and Greeks were allowed to

> join Poms as immigrants.

>

> --

> david mcloughlin, New Zealand

> "I am and always will be the optimist,the hoper of far-flung hopes and

> dreamer of improbable dreams." -- Doctor Eleven

>