'I am Ku Ku Yalanji Bama. My name is Karranjal John Hartley, and I was born in Kogarah, New South Wales, in 1956. My ancestral homeland is in far north Queensland.
'I wrote this spoken-word piece for a men's talking circle when I was in my mid-thirties, some twenty-five years ago. It covers some of my earliest memories over a period of some thirty years, from when I was four years of age and living in returned soldiers barracks at what was then called Herne Bay and is now known as Narwee.' (Introduction)