CHARACTER PROFILE

CHARLIE FEEHAN: The central character, Charlie Feehan, is a risk taking young man who finds himself growing up just a little too fast when his father dies. ‘When the undertakers came to wheel my father's lifeless body out to the hearse, it was as if they took my childhood with them’. It is a challenge just to find enough food to put on the table and to keep the house warm, and so Charlie helps out by rabbi ting in Yarra Park and collecting firewood scraps from the Fitzroy wood yard. At night he runs to keep warm. He has very little interest in school, so when he gets the opportunity to try out for a job with Squizzy Taylor he puts his running skill to good use. Family always comes first for Charlie, and the reader loves the way he supports his mother and young brother, even if it means lying to them about working for Squizzy. Charlie has to grow up fast when he sees how Peacock takes advantage of his mother. ‘That night he turned sixteen years old’. Initially, he is ashamed when he first sees them together. This brings him closer to Squizzy for a while, who perhaps he sees as something of a father figure. For a while he becomes distant from his mother during the period of her illness.

MR. REDMOND: ‘In the streets of Richmond, you would not find two better neighbours than the Redmond’s’. Mr. Redmond can always be found looking at the sky ready to pass on a few well chosen comments about the weather. Beyond this, his great love was the Richmond Football Club. When Charlie struggles to be the man of his house Mr. Redmond is there to offer boxing training, although it doesn't turn out to be quite what Charlie expected so Mr. Redmond gave him advice on running and helped him train for a big race that was coming up.

SQUIZZY TAYLOR: Men like Squizzy are still in our history today. For a while Charlie is taken in. When he first meets Squizzy the gangster Charlie ‘found him easy to be around. Charlie admires him, and this opinion is improved when Squizzy fixes the race so Charlie wins. He ‘was one of them’. Squizzy can fix Charlie's absence from school, and fix up Mr Peacock, but as the rivalry with Fitzroy gang leader, Snowy Cutmore intensifies Squizzy's other side emerges. He is frequently drunk, short tempered and vindictive. ‘Suddenly, as quick as someone flicking a switch, Squizzy turned nasty’, and very nearly shoots Charlie in anger.
Charlie is released and is now able to run for himself, not for Squizzy.