Home Sweet Home / Tracy's Birthday

Two films: Home Sweet Home (1975) & Tracy's Birthday (1976)

Home Sweet Home

This film shows the organisation and effort required to reconstruct Darwin after it was destroyed by Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Day, 1974.

Early on Christmas morning 1974, Cyclone Tracy crushed the city of Darwin. Forty-nine people died. No water, no power, no shelter, no future. Within a few days 35,000 people were evacuated south in Australia's biggest peacetime mobilization. Ten thousand men, a few women and children remained.

This film shows the organization and effort required to reconstruct Darwin and reveals the social impact of the cyclone. Several families give an on-the-spot account of how they coped emotionally and practically with the cleanup after the devastation. This is the story of the first weeks of Darwin's rebirth.

Tracy's Birthday

Darwin, Christmas Eve, 1975 – one year after Cyclone Tracy destroyed the city.

On Christmas Day 1974 the city of Darwin was devastated by Cyclone Tracy. For a few weeks if captured the headlines and the sympathy of a nation. Then most of us forgot.

Twelve months after Tracy, a Film Australia camera crew returned to Darwin to document the reconstruction - to see how the families had coped in the interim, what progress had been made, and how they planned to celebrate Christmas in a town still shocked and crippled by disaster.

© 2011 National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.