Grief
Charlie's Dad is with him throughout this story. He is there in the holey boots Charlie runs in, and despite wearing Squizzy's new replacements for a while, when Charlie really grows up he goes back to wearing the boots he could never bring himself to throw away. Charlie often recalls his father's advice, e.g. about the true test of character and to find himself a girl who can dance.
After his father's death, Charlie gets so confused that he sometimes doesn’t know who it is he’s supposed to be. He really hasn't had time to grieve as he has been so busy growing up and trying to support his mother, and he hasn't really been able to talk about his father's death despite the many well-wishers who would help him, only Nostrils comes close to doing so.
Friendship
There are several critical moments in Charlie's friendship with Nostrils when Charlie's behaviour is put under the spotlight. Their friendship began with a lie and is brought to crisis point when Charlie leaves Nostrils to be beaten up by Barlow. It is not until after the race that the debt is repaid.
Chance
The novel is located in Richmond and Fitzroy, working class inner city suburbs of Melbourne, as Charlie runs errands for Squizzy. ‘The streets of Richmond were like the pages in a book. They told a story...This story was full of hardship’. Newton captures the mood of the strugglers who live there with their colloquial language, and he captures the sensations of living in an industrial area. Scenes are played out in the book in streets that are recognisable today. But life is not without its simple pleasures: a hot bath, a warm fire, or a dance to the only record played on a borrowed gramophone.
Taken from Anon, (2016). [online] Available at: https://www.penguin.com.au/mini_sites/educationcentre/pdf/teachers_notes/PDF/0143302078.pdf [Accessed 9 Jul. 2016].
Runner by Robert Newton
Call Number: FIC NEW
Synopsis:
Runner is the story of Charlie Feehan, a fifteen-year-old living in Richmond, an inner Melbourne suburb, in 1919. This area, for sometime known as Struggletown, is the scene of great poverty at this time, but it is also the home of one of Melbourne's best-known gangsters, Squizzy Taylor. Damp and cold are two of the area's worst enemies in winter, and when Charlie's father dies in the Spanish Flu epidemic that devastated the world at that time, Charlie finds himself having to grow up rather too fast as he literally tries to fill his father's boots.
Charlie Feehan
The central character, Charlie Feehan, is a gutsy young fellow who finds himself growing up just a little too fast when his father dies. 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 rabbiting 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. This race shows his determination, a quality that Squizzy was quick to recognize and support, but there is a fair amount of naivety that goes with it that is a risk for Charlie. Family always comes first for Charlie, 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. Initially, he is ashamed when he first sees them together, but he soon leaps to her defense when Peacock attacks her. 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, as he finds it difficult to negotiate her neurotic behaviour. Things don't stay like this for long, as Charlie goes about the business of growing up and closing the gap between imagination and reality.
Norman Heath
Nicknamed Nostrils because of his big nose, Norman is the friend Charlie needs. There is an immediate respect and attraction between the boys. When Charlie is tired of well-meaning neighbours, Nostrils is ‘something fresh’. During the course of the book he will teach Charlie the meaning of friendship. He is an honest voice, able to see through Charlie's illusions. He is loyal and has a great sense of humour. Even though their relationship is built upon a lie, their friendship will survive even greater challenges.
Squizzy Taylor
Men like Squizzy loom large in the history of places like Richmond and it is easy to form too pleasant an impression of them. For a while Charlie is taken in. When he first meets the gangster Charlie ‘found him not in the least bit unsightly. However on the canvas, he looked like a weasel, cunning and beady eyed’. Charlie admires him, and this opinion is improved when Squizzy fixes the race so Charlie wins. 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 and very nearly shoots Charlie in anger.
Cecil Redmond
Cecil 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 a the 'ouse,’ Mr. Redmond is there to offer boxing training, although it doesn't turn out to be quite what Charlie expected, and when it fails to live up to Charlie's grandiose daydreams, he is there to offer more unconventional advice on running training for the Ballarat Mile Race. It seems that Charlie's close acquaintances may live in the slums, but they have big hearts and big imaginations, so it comes as no surprise when the reader discovers that Cecil's ‘bit o' runnin' was from the school bully and he is not quite the experienced trainer Charlie thought him to be.
Taken from Anon, (2016). [online] Available at: https://www.penguin.com.au/mini_sites/educationcentre/pdf/teachers_notes/PDF/0143302078.pdf [Accessed 9 Jul. 2016].
This guide was prepared by Salam Caldis and Sue Patterson of Marymede College in Melbourne. Recreated here with permission and gratitude by Angus Pearson 2018.