australian television information archive

Produced by: Nine Network and PBL Productions
Executive Producer: Ian Bradley
Producer: Bill Hughes
Screenwriter: Ken Kelso
Directors: Marcus Cole & Henri Safran

Aired: January 1985

A four-part miniseries based on A. B. Facey's best-selling autobiographical novel which tells of the early trials and tribulations of Bert Facey. At eight years old, he was forced by economic circumstances to start the backbreaking, dawn to dusk life of a farm labourer. Unschooled, his father dead, abandoned by his mother, by the age of twenty he had survived the rigours of pioneering the harsh Australian bush and the slaughter of the bloody First World War campaign on the Gallipoli peninsula. Despite this early deprivation, he finds happiness in his marriage in 1915 to his wife of nearly sixty years, Evelyn. A Fortunate Life is an inspirational tale of one man's struggle against seemingly overwhelming barriers to achieve peace and contentment. (4 x 90min)