Educational Media Reviews Online

Not all people prefer to be domesticated. Some of these make their living as sheep-shearers. Others work as "roustabouts," those who pick up and pack the sheared wool. Shearers and roustabouts travel from one shearing shed to another following the shearing season in Australia. While it is a hard life, it offers independence and a freedom of speech and behavior that is difficult to find in the city.

McLeod attempts to capture the life of the shearer by focusing on one family, the McDonalds. The mother, Mary, is a shearer's cook. Her son, Errol, is a shearer and single father of a four year old daughter named Kayla. The documentary follows them as they travel to Budgerygar Station in the outback of New South Wales, settle into their rooms at the station, make acquaintances and await the beginning of shearing.

According to Mary, the shearers work the hardest, the roustabouts hard, but the cook the longest. At 4:30 am, she is the first to rise and her work continues until dinner is cleared and put away. Throughout her tenure as cook at the station, she is beset by problems such as not enough food stocked in the kitchen the day before the shearing is to begin, the perpetual problem of bugs, and being asked to work weekends as the season draws on and the shearing falls behind in schedule. In spite of all of this, Mary declares that she'll continue to cook as long as she is able and as long as she continues to invent new dishes and menus.

As a shearer, Errol McDonald owns his tools and can set his own pace. Paid per sheep, the shearers decide to work hard or slow depending upon how much they want, or need, to earn. As a single father, Errol is facing the decision of whether to give up shearing and settle down so that Kayla can go to school. She is a self-reliant child, yet, it shows as the weeks wear on that she is lonely. Both he and his mother want Kayla to have an education and to not have to work in the sheds. This was also a hope that Errol's parents had for him.

This film is slow to start and may be boring to younger viewers; and, at times the accents can be difficult to understand. There is a graphic scene of a sheep being slaughtered for dinner as well as a scene of a sheep being sewn up after it was cut deeply during shearing. Appropriate for ages 16 and up, this would be suitable for classes on economics, anthropology, and social studies.