Spoils
of the Moon
Synopsis
1967,
St Ann's Nottingham, a typical late Victorian, working class,
neighbourhood in acute decline, alarming poverty, a slum. Three
hundred of Nottingham's dirtiest acres.
This
is the time and place Brendan and Pauline's son was born, emigration
the only option. They were called Ten pound pommes.
The
journey on the ship, SS Canberra, was as frightening and exhilarating
as the first year shacked up in the Nissan hut at the hostel,
Adelaide, Southern Australia.
Years
before, Brendan's parents and sister, Beanie, had moved there after
buying a farm in the outback.
Brendan
and Pauline settled into a new home in the satellite town of
Elizabeth. Brendan only had one question on signing at the labour
exchange: does the section about National Service apply to him? -- he
was soon to find out.
Pauline
suffered bouts of homesickness, fuelled by Brendan's prolonged
absences of long working hours. A new mother, she soon became
depressed. It wasn't long before Brendan was called up for National
Service.
The year is 1969, a
global celebration of the moon landings. President Nixon, in
commemoration bestowed a hundred and thirty-five gifts of lunar rocks
to friendly foreign
governments. In 1970, Adelaide museum was
proud to display a plaque containing two lunar rocks.
Nobody
thought they would be worth stealing, until Brendan, Beanie's
boyfriend, Troy, and his mate, Brian, on finishing basic training
did just that, with the military precision they had recently learned.
Brendan
hides the rocks and is forced to ask his sister, Beanie, to collect
them. They end up in the police cells after a drunken brawl, hours
after the hoist. The judge orders no custodial sentences because he
was told, unbeknown to these men, that effective immediately they
will be impressed
into overseas
service.
Brendan
is killed saving some villagers in Vietnam. Troy and Brian disappear
- things happen when you steal lunar rocks from the government and
embarrass them. The Americans want them back.
The
news of her husband's death sends Pauline into a mental institute,
leaving Beanie with her son. Beanie recently gave birth also to a
son. She takes both of the boys back to the UK.
This
is the story of those two boys, Jordi and Greg - now men.
The
family business model, started by their mum, Beanie, was to buy
handmade crafts from Asia, repair what gets damaged in shipping, and
then sell them from their market stall in Camden, London.
Beanie
died, leaving them clues to the past and circumstances that cause
both men to go to Asia to buy more products for their business before
the programmed road works cut their access off and potentially ruins
their product-hungry business.
It's
not long before one of them is hanging upside down naked in a small
Vietnamese village near the Cambodian border, tortured by a man with
an American accent. He wants the lunar rocks.
The
American, who has been on their trail since London, chose the wrong
village and was chased off in a hale of bullets. Ordered by an old
villager, one of the men Brendan saved in the war. A translator shows
them a picture of two baby boys. She also hands over Brendan's
identification documents with the same surname as them and various
other personal belongings, along with the story of how he saved some
of the villagers.
The
clock is ticking now and they are on a collision course with others,
tracking down their true family roots and the whereabouts of the
lunar rocks - now valued in millions.
In
Australia, they encounter Brian and Troy, and are helped by Brian's
daughter who is tough, beautiful, and vulnerable to Jordi's charms.
But who is whose son? Only Pauline has the answer back at the family
farm in the outback -- their final destination. They are not the only
ones who turned up looking for answers. The end gives us some
shocking surprises and personal growth.
