Frank Rooney, one of the unsung heroes of the struggle to preserve democratic unionism in Australia and defeat the Communist Party’s bid for power in the 1940s and 1950s, died recently after a long illness.Born in 1914, Frank grew up in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, where his father was a poor share-farmer. His education was limited, because he and his brothers had to work in the fields.In the Depression years of the 1930s, he began work in the local coal-mines, and there became deeply a…
