Frank Hardy
Francis Joseph Hardy (21 March 1917 – 28 January 1994), published as Frank J. Hardy and also under the pseudonym Ross Franklyn, was an Australian novelist and writer. He is best known for his 1950 novel "Power Without Glory", and for his later political activism. He brought the plight of Aboriginal Australians to international attention with the publication of his book, "The Unlucky Australians", in 1968, written during the Gurindji Strike. He ran unsuccessfully for the Australian parliament twice as a Communist Party of Australia candidate. Early life. Frank Hardy, the fifth of the eight children of Thomas and  Winifred Hardy, was born on 21 March 1917 at Southern Cross in Western Victoria and later moved with his family to Bacchus Marsh, west of Melbourne. His mother, Winifred, was a Roman Catholichis father, Thomas, an atheist of Welsh and English descent. In 1931 Hardy left school, aged 14, and embarked upon a series of manual jobs. According to Hardy biographer Pauline Armstrong, "his first job was as a messenger and bottlewasher at the local chemist's shop" and then Hardy worked at the local grocer. He later also did manual work "in and around Bacchus Marsh in the milk  factory, digging potatoes, picking tomatoes and fruit". There is some debate among Hardy's biographers about the relative extent Hardy personally suffered from hardships during the 1930s depression. Hardy claimed himself that he left home when he was 13 because "his dad couldn't get the dole" with him at home. However, Jim Hardy, Frank's eldest brother, wrote to the "Melbourne Herald" on 6 November 1983 to rebut this assertion, claiming that Frank had never had to leave homefurther noting that their "father never lost a day's work in his life". According to biographer Jenny Hocking in a  more recent biography, Tom Hardy did indeed lose his job at a milk factory at the start of the Great Depression, and the family had to move into a small rented house in Lerderderg Street. In 1937 "Radio Times" published a selection of his cartoons. Adult life. In 1940 Hardy married Rosslyn Couper and they had three children, Frances, Alan and Shirley. From 1954 they made their home in Sydney. Communist Party of Australia. Because of his experiences during the Depression, Hardy joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1939. Hardy stood unsuccessfully twice as a CPA candidate for public  office: in 1953 as a Senate candidate for Victoria, and in 1955 for the seat of Mackellar (NSW) in the House of Representatives. Hardy also stood unsuccessfully for the National Committee of the CPA in 1955 and again in 1967. Australian Army service. According to Pauline Armstrong, Hardy enlisted in the Australian armed forces on 10 May 1943. He was later posted to Mataranka in the Northern Territory which was under "perpetual anticipation" of attack from the Japanese. Initially editing and writing a unit newspaper for the Australian army, he was employed as an artist for the army journal, "Salt . Later his short stories A Stranger in the Camp" and "The Man from Clinkapella" won competitions, and his work was accepted by "Coast to Coast" and "The Guardian". Many of his early stories were written under the pseudonym Ross Franklyn. Journalism. He continued to work in journalism for most of his life. Although he opposed the foundation of the Australian Society of Authors for political reasons in 1963, he later joined the Society and served on its Management Committee. He played an active role in assisting the Gurindji people in the Gurindji strike in the mid to late 1960s. The  documentary film "The Unlucky Australians", which featured Frank Hardy and the Gurindji people, was made by director and producer John Goldschmidt for Associated Television (ATV) and transmitted on the ITV network in the UK. Section::::"Power Without Glory". His most famous work, "Power Without Glory", was initially published in 1950 by Hardy himself, with the assistance of other members of the Communist Party. The novel is a fictionalised version of the life of a Melbourne businessman, John Wren, and is set largely in the fictitious Melbourne suburb of Carringbush (based on the actual suburb Collingwood). In 1950 Hardy was arrested for  criminal libel and had to defend "Power Without Glory" in a celebrated case shortly after its publication. Prosecutors alleged that "Power Without Glory" criminally libelled John Wren's wife by implying that she had engaged in an extramarital affair. Hardy was acquitted and it was the last criminal libel case launched in Victoria; all subsequent libel cases have been civil. Hardy detailed the case in his book "The Hard Way". "Power Without Glory" was filmed by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in 1976 as a 26-episode television series adapted by Howard Griffiths and Cliff Green. Section::::"The Unlucky Australians". In  1968 Hardy published "The Unlucky Australians", with a foreword by Donald Horne and contributions by Vincent Lingiari, Aboriginal Union organiser Daniel Dexter, actor Robert Tudawali and others, telling the story of the Gurindji people based on personal narratives, and the Gurindji Strike. Plays. Hardy also wrote plays, including "Who was Henry Larsen" (first performed 1984) and "Faces in the Street" (first performed 1988, published 1990), which were both based on Henry Lawson. Hardy was a member of the Realist Writers Group, which he represented in 1951 at the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in Berlin. Death. Frank Hardy  died at his home in North Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, from a heart attack on 28 January 1994, aged 76. His cremated remains were interred at Fawkner Memorial Park. Family. Hardy's younger sister, Mary Hardy, was a popular radio and television personality in the 1960s/1970s. His granddaughter, Marieke Hardy, is a writer in Melbourne.