by Adele on 17 January, 2011
Oranges and Sunshine, a film produced in 2010 and directed by Jim Loach, tells the story of Margaret Humphreys who brought public awareness to the British child migration scheme and who later established the Child Migrants Trust.
Director Jim Loach and lead actor Emily Watson talk about their involvement in the film:
by Cath on 12 January, 2011
ABC Open’s Now and Then project links old and new photographs. In one example Alex Smee used an image of Broome’s Holy Child Orphanage in 1941 to link with a new photograph of Ida Kelly, a former resident of the Children’s Home.
by Adele on 11 January, 2011
Building 105 within the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct is currently the subject of an application for conversion into an information technology facility. Parramatta Girls Home was also located within the Precinct. The Female Factory Action Group wants the Precinct to be declared a National Heritage Site. Information about the Group’s campaign can be found here.
by Al ‘Crow’ Fletcher (guest author) on 10 January, 2011
Al Fletcher’s horrifying but sadly true story as told to Cheryl Jorgensen, Brutal: Surviving Westbrook Boys Home was re-released in 2010. With a foreword by former Senator Andrew Murray, this book can be purchased from New Holland Publishers.
by Adele on 10 January, 2011
The report Beyond the Home Gates: Life after Growing Up in Catholic Institutions is based on interviews with 40 people aged in their 40s to 70s who left Catholic children’s institutions in Victoria between 1945 and 1983. The researchers are Elizabeth Branigan, Jenny Malone, John Murphy and Suellen Murray.
The research was guided by a reference group chaired by MacKillop Family Services, with membership including representation from people who grew up in institutional care and the support and advocacy groups VANISH and Broken Rites.
by Garry Shooks (guest author) on 10 January, 2011
Garry Shooks writes about visiting day at Royalstone Boys’ Home in Glebe, Sydney.
I’ll be your mate
Its Sunday the bell rings, we all take our positions on our lines.
They are numbered the lines,
It is the same lines you stand on for lunch or when ever the bell tolls,
But its visitors as you know that today at 10am hey give it a blast so they can read out the visitors list,
Every Sunday I’d line up for months that ran into years, but only ever once did my name get on that list.
See I say to the others I do have a mum or I do have a dad and they are coming to see me.
All the other Sundays your name never got read out so you were dismissed to go back to what ever you were doing but all the while hoping that the ones or one name that was read out was your mate, course he would come back into the yard from up the top house with his lollies or a toy he was aloud to have.
All the kids would gather round hoping and reminding them that there your mate and can ya have a lolie or play with em so maybe you get a lolie.
Yeah well after forever my name was read out and I ran up to be showered and put on the suit that we all had to wear from that huge cupboard of suits, the long wait out the front sitting on the bench out side the superintendence office, me feet could not reach the floor so I’d swing em back and forward just looking out the closed 6 foot gate,
A long time I sat there like that till the super came out and said I’m sorry Garry your visitor is not coming today,
The shame, they were ya lolies, you have not got a mother or father have ya or they would have come, true, I’d say to myself but out a loud I’d yell I have but they got lost and they be here next week you see,
In all my years I think I got one visitor from me dad but he was turned back at the gate because he was drunk,
Ha who wants a visitor I know I got a mum and dad and one day they come get me,
The weeks turned into months and then years, I never got a visitor, but I did have me a couple of mates, they were true blue, gave me lolie or two and we were the best of mates all those years.
by Adele on 17 December, 2010
Inside is taking a holiday from Friday 17 December, 2010. You are most welcome to continue to send us your contributions and comments, but we will not be able to publish anything until the week beginning 10 January, 2011.
Please be assured that you will remain in our thoughts while we take a break. We thank you for your generosity, courage and honesty in sharing your experiences and views. Do take care over the holiday season. We hope to see you again here in the new year. Thank you for all that you have taught us.
Best wishes from Adele, Cath and Jay
by Lynn Meyers (guest author) on 16 December, 2010
Lynn Meyers shares her photo of her with Beryl, taken at a gathering to remember the first anniversary of the National Apology at Queensland State Library on November 16, 2010.
by Adele on 16 December, 2010
On Friday 10th December the memorial to Western Australian Forgotten Australians was unveiled on the grassed area in front of the Western Australian Museum’s Jubilee Building, Perth Cultural Centre, James Street, Perth. A Forgotten Australian pauses at the memorial to share her memories.
by Janene Carey (guest author) on 15 December, 2010
Janene Carey is a journalist with The Armidale Express in northern New South Wales. Here is her interview with Nicola Woolmington about the significance of her documentary The Forgotten Australians, the long haul of bringing it to completion, the feedback she’s received since it aired, and her background as an ex-Armidale resident who became a filmmaker.
by Bob McGuire (guest author) on 15 December, 2010
Below is the memorial plaque that they have put on the site after 107 years, naming 24 babies who died at Parkerville.
They forgot to mention the six others buried here without names.
by Adele on 14 December, 2010
This leather strap was made by William ‘Bill’ Brennan when he was aged in his 50s as a copy of the ones he made as a boy in the leather workshop of Clontarf Christian Brothers Home. Bill made the strap as a ‘witness’ to his experience in the Homes and gave it to Bruce Blyth, who was an early researcher of the history and advocate for former inmates of the Western Australian Christian Brothers Homes.
Bill Brennan, along with his brother Anthony, spent most of his childhood in the Christian Brothers Homes. He was in Clontarf from 1945 to 1952. Unlike most of the other inmates, these boys were not former Child Migrants but local Australians. His parents suffered mental illness and were unable to care for their children.
At the age of about 12, Bill’s schooling finished and he was set to work in the leather workshop of Clontarf. One day one of the Brothers asked to make him a strap. He had detailed instructions for it, including that it should contain a section of band saw and a lead pellet. Other orders followed, each with their own instructions. Bill remembers having made about 20 straps, of which 12 were accepted. Bill then had to watch his fellows being beaten with the straps he had made.
The task ended when a lay staff member arrived at Clontarf and was appalled that a boy should be required to make these items.
by Bill Brennan (guest author) on 14 December, 2010
Bill Brennan, a former resident of Clontarf Boys’ Town, and maker of this leather strap, wrote about his experience of being cast a “child lover”.
by Cath on 14 December, 2010
On Tuesday 16 November, to mark the first anniversary of the National Apology to Forgotten Australians and former Child Migrants, ACT Forgotten Australians and Women and Prisons (WAP) marched across Commonwealth Avenue Bridge in Canberra. Here are the photographs of the event taken by George Serras, the senior photographer at the National Museum of Australia.
Click on photos to enlarge.
by Adele on 6 December, 2010
This is a piece of concrete, not much bigger in size than a hand. It was rescued from the demolition of the swimming pool at the former Clontarf Boys Town Christian Brothers Home in Western Australia.
The photo of the boys building the pool was taken by Michael O’Donoghue, who used his Box Brownie camera to take not only this, but many photos around the Boys Town.
Clontarf, like Bindoon, another Christian Brothers institution located outside Perth, used the labour of the boys to build the institutional infrastructure. Michael has vivid memories of building the pool. They laboured before and after school and at weekends to complete it, using picks and shovels. Boys who did not work hard enough risked being beaten. Michael still suffers the effects of an injury he received from a blow across the chest by one particular Brother.
Violence, both physical and sexual, was part of the life of boys at the Boys Town. Some boys suffered more. ‘I was this Brother’s ‘punching bag,’ ’ remembers Michael. Later in life, a doctor asked him if he had ever been in a major traffic accident, because his body bore all the signs of such a major trauma.
These traumatic injuries were gained not only at Clontarf but at the Home in England where Michael was before he came to Australia as a Child Migrant. His mother had placed him in the Home as a young child, after the loss of Michael’s French-Canadian soldier father. Michael was chosen to come out to Australia as part of the Child Migrant scheme, although his mother had never given permission for him to be taken out of the country. He left England on his 11th birthday and arrived in Perth in August 1953. He went straight to Clontarf and remembers the shock of seeing poorly-clad boys, who to him seemed clearly neglected. He was sent from Clontarf just on 16, having been forced to leave school a year earlier, although he had asked to continue.
Michael gave evidence to the Senate Inquiry which led to the ‘Lost Innocents’ Report. He felt compelled to talk about it, to release ‘all that history inside me’, that ‘terrible repression’ of memories he had not been able tell because he had felt nobody would believe. Reliving it is painful, and brings back the memories and the nightmares. ‘I peel off a straitjacket every time I remember’ says Michael. But he feels a powerful obligation to tell, not only for himself but for others, because he can remember what some others have blocked out or have lost through trauma.
by Adele on 6 December, 2010
Can anyone help the National Museum with our query? Arthur Stace is well-known for writing the word Eternity on the footpaths of Sydney from 1930 to 1967. Arthur was a Forgotten Australian, having been declared a ward of the state at the age of twelve.
Does any one know if he was placed in a Children’s Home? If so, do you know which one? If you can help, please feel free to post a response to this site.
by Fred Wingrave (guest author) on 6 December, 2010
In this excerpt from Burnside from the Inside 1916 – 1926, Fred Wingrave describes his experience in working in the laundry at Burnside Children’s Home and his affection for Mrs Bunker, one of the women who worked in the laundry.
by Adele on 4 December, 2010
The Salvation Army apology for survivors of Salvation Army Girls and Boys Homes of Australia will take place on Tuesday 7 December at Old Parliament House in Canberra. An article in today’s Sydney Morning Herald discusses the significance of the apology.
by Jo Malham (guest author) on 4 December, 2010
Jo Malham’s father-in-law, Ernie, is a Forgotten Australian. Here, she shares some works inspired by Ernie’s history.
Jo explains:
I am an artist currently studying my Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts). Throughout 2010 my works have been inspired by stories and the plight of Forgotten Australians. My father-in-law, Ernie Malham, was taken from his parents when he was seven years old. He was never told why and never told where his eight brothers and sisters were. Ernie is 84 years old now and lives contentedly with his son and myself, his daughter-in-law.
My art is a mixture of painting, mixed media works on canvas and digital images. The images contain symbolic messages to communicate the wretchedness of being a Forgotten Australian. The finished paintings and mixed media go on to be photographed then manipulated to show another aspect to the message being communicated.
by Gabrielle Short (guest author) on 2 December, 2010
Gabrielle Short shares her photographs from the unveiling of the permanent memorial to Victorian Forgotten Australians on Southbank Promenade in the City of Melbourne.
by Kathryn Lucas (guest author) on 26 November, 2010
Kathryn Lucas would like to find more information about the Royal Park Depot in Melbourne. Can anyone help?
Kathryn Lucas, while researching her family history, discovered the death certificate of Edna Muriel Holmes, the daughter of her great grandfather.
by Adele on 18 November, 2010
Wilma Robb nee Wilma Cassidy held up this napkin in the Great Hall of Parliament House during the National Apology to Forgotten Australians and former Child Migrants on 16 November 2009.
Wilma Robb was first admitted to Dalmar Children’s Home, New South Wales, at the age of five when her mother became ill. During her primary school years Wilma was moved within various care settings within her family, foster care and later was committed to Ormond institution for girls as ‘Uncontrollable’ and ‘Exposed to Moral danger’. At the age of 14 she ran away from Ormond and slept in a phone box in Villawood. She was gang-raped by a group of bikies. A few days later she was picked up and admitted to Parramatta Girls Home where she was diagnosed with venereal disease. She was labeled a ‘loose girl’, without investigation of the circumstances in which she acquired the disease and never talking about her rapes till in her 50s. Her ‘unsatisfactory’ behavior there led to her being sent to two periods of detention at Hay Institution for Girls.
As a teenage girl in Parramatta, Wilma, had never been charged with a criminal offence, (only a Welfare charge) was treated she believes as a de facto criminal. She was assaulted by staff (one bashing by the Superintendent resulted in her having to receive a full set of dentures at the age of 15 after her face was smashed into washbasins. Girls were internally examined to assess the ‘status’ of their virginity on arrival to Parramatta girls home and Ormond institution for girls. –. Girls who were defiant received further punishments – solitary confinement and some put on medication with the psychotropic drug Largactil.
Because of her refusal to be broken by the system, Wilma was sent, from the Parramatta Girls Home to the Hay Institution for Girls which opened in 1961-1974 as a maximum security closed institution for girls aged 13 to 18. Girls were sent to Hay despite their having committed no crime and without a legal trial. Girls were never to speak, without permission, or to establish eye contact with anyone ever. This rule was enforced despite the fact that the ‘silent system’ was outlawed in New South Wales in the late 1800s. Girls endured a regime of hard labor without school education.
The bodies of these ‘incorrigible’ girls were controlled at all times by the system. Movement was with military precision and governed by a strict regime. Girls could only speak to each other for 10 minutes a day, while maintaining 2m distance; they were forced to sleep on their right side facing the door. Twenty minuet surveillances happened all night. Girls were surveyed 24 hours a day by male staff (who were the only ones with keys to the cells) and personal experiences such as menstruation were public and exposed humiliated and deprived of privacy . Wilma said on a visit back to Hay:
It was very Cruel, inhuman and sadistic. You can still smell, feel and hear the pain in that place still today.
In later life she took up an occupation as a housekeeper to the family of Manning and Dymphna Clark. Manning Clark was the author of the general history of Australia, his six-volume A History of Australia. Manning Clark is described in The Oxford Companion to Australian History as ‘Australia’s most famous historian’. Dymphna Clark was an eminent linguist and campaigned for the rights of Aboriginal people. Wilma Robb still works as caretaker of Manning Clark House.
The napkin itself is a significant object which holds other stories. It was part of Dymphna Clark’s household items originally brought to Australia from Norway by Dymphna’s mother Anna Sophia Lodewycz circa 1910. However, enough is known of the life of the Clarks to know that visitors, significant in cultural, political and academic worlds, both national and international, were part of their social life.
At the National Apology to Forgotten Australians and former Child Migrants, Parliament House, Canberra, November 16, 2009.
Prior to the National Apology, Minister Jenny Macklin contacted Wilma asking her to submit her personal history so that it may be considered as part of Kevin Rudd’s speech. In her letter to Kevin Rudd, she explained that the Hay Institution for Girls was the equivalent of a colonial jail in its use of silent treatment. Robb was concerned that Rudd’s use of the word ‘institution’ would not cover her prison experience. Robb realized that she may not have a chance to say this on the day, so she grabbed one of Dymphna Clark’s linen table napkins, and wrote ‘WHAT ABOUT CHILDREN’S PRISONS’ in thick ink marker on each side of the napkin. When the moment came, she was nervous about holding it up.
‘I felt sick in the stomach,’ she told the National Museum of Australia.
To support her, Keith Kelly a former inmate of the equally notorious Tamworth Institution for Boys who was sitting behind her took the other side of the napkin and held it up with her. He would have equal reason to refer to the institution he had been held in as a prison. This impromptu protest sign was one of many items made by Forgotten Australians and brought to the Apology.
by Adele on 18 November, 2010
This soft toy was donated to the National Museum by Jeanette Blick.
Jeanette was a resident of Orana Methodist Home for Children, Burwood Victoria. The toy was made by prisoners at Pentridge Gaol:
A Pentridge prisoner with a propensity for, say, woodcraft or textiles might have found himself encouraged to join the ‘Pentridge Toy Makers’, a group founded in 1961 to produce toys for ‘needy’ and ‘destitute’ children. Products of the Toy Makers’ labours (upwards of 6,000 toys and hobbies annually, at their peak) were ceremonially displayed and distributed at lavish Christmas events held in the jail, to which groups of children from refugee communities, orphanages, and so on, were invited.[1]
The teddy bear was given to Jeanette circa 1962. She recalls receiving the gift:
I can remember receiving the teddy one Christmas as I did not have a family to go to for the holidays, so I had to remain in Orana over Christmas. Christmas day, I remember finding the teddy on the bottom of my bed. I did not know where it had come from as it was not wrapped and there was no tag/card on it.
I took it to the cottage mother and told her someone had left this on my bed and she said it was for me. She also told me that the prisoners in Pentridge Gaol had made the teddy.
I think I cried most of the day. This was the first gift I had received in years.
In the New Year a family came and took me for the rest of the holidays. I left the teddy on my bed as I was instructed to do (I wanted to take it with me but was not allowed) and when I came back it was gone.
I never saw it again until I opened my suitcase when I arrived in Cobram at my mother’s house. Someone must have put it in the case with the toothbrush, pyjamas and knickers that were there as well. I do not know who had done this or why.
[1] Wilson, Jacqueline Zara (2004) ‘Dark tourism and the celebrity prisoner: Front and back regions in representations of an Australian historical prison’ in Journal of Australian Studies 82: 1–13. The activities of the Pentridge Toy Makers ended in 1976 as a result of fire in their storage shed. (ibid., p. 172).
by Adele on 16 November, 2010
The National Museum of Australia honours the first anniversary of the National Apology to Forgotten Australians and former Child Migrants by sharing a series of video interviews recorded at Parliament House, Canberra on Monday 16 November 2009:
by Don Aziz (guest author) on 15 November, 2010
Transcript
I’m Don Aziz and I was taken from Broken Hill and put into Mittagong Boys Home at the age of 12 and then I grew up there, and then I was returned back to my mother who was a Second World War widow. And then from there I was taken back down to the institutions again, and had to put up with what was dished out to us. And then virtually went from there to Mount Panang, which is another institution of the welfare system, and from there I went back to Broken Hill and I worked on the mines up there and got on with my life.
The apology today means a great thing to not only myself but thousands of Australians that had suffered all these years without no recognition of any apology. We were lost, confused and left out there. A lot of people didn’t believe what actually went on in these places.
Today is a great day for a better future for Australia. Life itself in those homes was a lot of physical, mental and sexual abuse and a lot of misunderstanding, a lot of alcoholism by the welfare people that were in care, and a lot of abuse by the boys to one another. But it gave a sort of direction where I came from because I was living in those times of the year – it was racism against the Indigenous.
I was copping both sides from the Indigenous side and also the welfare side of it. I still carry the demons. I have to live with that until the day I die. But I believe the church, the people that were responsible for all this abuse, are not here to answer for it. So the organisations they are with should be committed to this apologies. I thank the Australian government for what they have done to bring all this together, you know. I know I can die in peace now that this has all been over and done with after today. I will get on with it again.
