by Beth Pinkerton (guest author) on 22 February, 2010
I didn’t really have any memories until I saw the ad in the paper for the Parragirls Reunion and Hay trip.
I wasn’t in Hay, but I went.
Sitting in that bus with all the women, was the first time I have ever felt I fit in.
I remember the girls coming back from Hay.
The way they came to attention and the way they looked at the floor.
The Hay girls were the best bit of advertising Parramatta ever did.
Their behaviour terrified me.
What had happened to them to make them like that?
I kept that in mind when I was sent out to work from Bethal.
I had seen the superintendent so many times ‘visiting’ a girl in Bethal.
So when I refused to go back out to work, because the man I worked for was assaulting me. Our superintendent made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Either go back out to work and let that man have sex with me, or, go to Hay.
I took the first option.
I came out of that place broken.
I stayed that way until I gave up using when I was 48.
I am now 58.
My life only really started when I turned 50.
All those years wasted in violent relationships and addiction.
I went to the apology on the bus with the Parragirls.
I cried because I saw so many men and women like me, broken and ill.
I cried because finally we had been acknowledged.
But for me sorry isn’t enough.
But it’s a start.
