Excerpt from 'The Last Convict'
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
Australian British (England - Cockney, Estuary, East End)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
can you tell me about it? Ah Well there's nothing much to tell a pal and I set fire to a stack of barley in a field a Woodstock near Oxford got caught Rick Burning was taken pretty seriously in country parts Crib in new certainly was around two D. A. The journalists knows since the making of a storyline, was it a political act Sam were you and your mate protesting against the government against the corn laws? The new machines? No young fella, nothing like that. It was because we were starving. Sam allowed a small silence to fall between them before going on. We wanted to go to prison to get something to eat regular meals like wow. Was that all Joshua felt the story slipping away from him. No grand defiant gesture here, no heartless landlords or cruel tyranny. Samuel speed was no Luddite. Just another criminal. And and I suppose you could say the old chap waived any further discussion away with a laugh that we got what we asked for. Years of meals provided courtesy of the government and he sipped the lukewarm dregs of hospital t in his mug. So few words so much left unspoken behind them, nothing much to tell or would tell. Yet in his mind Sam traveled that whole live long day again. He could see the disappointment in Crimmins eyes that he had not something more newsworthy to tell his readers. But in that one day on that one act turned the whole pivot of his life striking a match and setting it to the bali stack. Had led Samuel speed to 72 years exile from his native land. Yes. And he was back there now, tramping the slippery road from Bladen village. That saturday afternoon in early august 18 63 Sam and his mate Tommy jones. A baker with the army had lost this place some weeks ago. The two of them so hungry from lack of work and money that every step felt a burden. And there was Tommy cooking up such vivid pictures of current buns with icing and bread smoking hot from the oven. You could almost eat his words until they dissolve the moment Samuel reached out to take them, would they never get a job, Anything would do? Just a few shillings in the pocket, or even a good meal from a farmer's wife to fill the stomach and return for helping with the pigs or the hay stocks. But the answer was always the same. Nothing. Only half an hour ago the two had gone into a yard back down the road. The dogs barking in the farmer, eyeing them suspiciously as they came through the gate. Sammy couldn't blame him. Not in retrospect, for the two young men were both pretty ragged and not very clean, shifty too, for when you are desperate, the desperation always shows we were wondering, sir, if he was looking for a couple of hands about the place Tommy began. The two had not been together long by being the elder and a former military man. He usually took the lead, both good workers. Sorry, but I have all the help I need. Strong, willing useful in the fields of barley is already in the farm accounted and we're not ready to cut in a poor start to summer milk the cow for you, bit of thatching drainage. I told you the man became threatening for he knew a couple of vagabonds when he saw them. I've got all the help I need. We've got nothing young. Samuel pleaded. Then the ***** workhouses just up the road at Woodstock built for people like you. We've been there before and they sent us on our way. We'll go somewhere else. Now be off with you and close the gate the same everywhere. And to be sure Samuel knew the summer had not started very well. The farmer spoke truly. Their spring had been fine, good rain and a little warmth for plowing and sowing and work had been reasonably plentiful for an itinerant labor in Oxfordshire, the farmers had even been talking of a bumper year, but then had come a long dry spell and word along the wayside. And even in the weekly paper when Sam found a torn page turned to fears of drought, not as he was to know months, years of drought in Western Australia, but bad enough in english terms to raise concerns for the harvest. The wheat so far had been soft and unripe the meadow grass without rain, slow to grow for hay making. And so in the nature of things, the casual rural work speed dependent upon had also dried up. The 30 shillings he'd been able to save began to evaporate as well.