He later also did manual work "in and around Bacchus Marsh in the milk factory, digging potatoes, picking tomatoes and fruit".

According to biographer Jenny Hocking[1] 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 June 1943 he transferred to the Second Australian Imperial Force and in July was posted to Mataranka in the Northern Territory with the 7th Advanced Ordnance Depot.

[7] 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.

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.

Prosecutors alleged that Power Without Glory criminally libelled John Wren's wife by implying that she had engaged in an extramarital affair.

[8] 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.

[citation needed] Hardy founded the Realist Writers Group,[11] which he represented in 1951 at the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in Berlin.

Frank Hardy died at his home in North Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, from a heart attack on 28 January 1994, aged 76.