Cirrus@Austlit

'My name is Bill Simon. I’m actually an ordained Reverend on the block here in Redburn. I give communion, I can do marriages, I can do funeral services and I go into Long Bay Jail and marry guys in there, marry white businessmen under the Harbour Bridge, I’ve done all that, I’ve married people here on the block actually. Looking back onto where I came from I’m Biripi, that means I’m in the Shark Tribe, I was born up in Taree Purfleet Mission...' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'Yeah, hello, this is me Frank Byrne. I born station called Christmas Creek, Western Australia in The Kimberleys. My mother was Aboriginal women; her name was Maudie. Her Aboriginal name was Yooringun and I had a good mother. My father was a white fella named Jack Byrne and ... but I ... he actually wanted to marry my mother but in those days they wouldn’t let them so he had to go to another station to get a job...' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'My name is Harold Furber. I come from Alice Springs and my family’s, extended family’s all here. Strong in the Aranda language and culture. I was removed from here when I was four years old and went over a thousand miles North, to Darwin and then a further journey of about 200, about 150k’s, 150 miles North East of Darwin to a place called Croker Island. That is my younger sister and myself were removed and she is a year and a half younger than me and yeah, and we went to Darwin and to Croker. ' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'My name is Marita Ahchee. I was born at Aileron up from Alice Springs. My mother was an Anmetjere woman and my father was an Irish man. As I got a little bit older we moved into town, into the Bungalow, which is now called the Telegraph Station.'

'There were nuns, they were after me all the time. Mum would take me in the hills and hide me there. So we done that a few times I can remember. They caught us one day, Mum didn’t expect them to pull up...' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'Yeah, my name is Herbie Laughton and I was born in the Central Australia here. This is my my grandfather, his tribal place. He’s from here at the centre right up to Darwin. Herbie was born on the banks of the Todd River, Alice Springs. His father was a Russian miner and his mother was a local Aboriginal woman...' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'As a small child, before WWII, Muhummad was taken to a mission on Melville Island, situated north of the Northern Territory'  (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'My name is Eileen Mosley. I was born at Finke, which is on the southern part of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. My parents were from the western side of South Australia, Northern Territory and Western Australia; that border there. You know, the AP lands, Pitjantjatjara lands. And I don’t how come they went across to Finke. It’s such a long way, isn’t it? And I think it is, you know, from the ration days, you know? They had to go where there was depots in order to get some rations because they were way out in the desert near Pipalyatjara. They spoke Pitjantjatjara, which is the language group for the Western Desert. ..' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'...Back in 1952 I was put into a home. Mainly because the rest of my brothers and sisters were there. My poor old mum, she just followed suit. She didn’t have a steady husband at the time and just battled, the poor old thing was just battling and I don’t blame her at all for it. It would have been a forcible thing, the intimidations were there. My old mum just got sick of running around hiding her half-cast kids at a place called Maryvale. It’s about 100 k’s south of here.' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'...They pick us up, police pick us up. We tried to run away but they had a police boy that knew every angle of the Bidyadanga area, you know. And they went chasing out everyone but no one tell him anything – they took us away.

I was only, what, I was six years old I think, six, a little girl then. We were crying, “Mummy, mummy.” No good. White man take us but nobody explained. But we’re not shamed. White man was stole us away and they take us away and being cruel to us, take us away and halfway chuck away mummy...' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website) 

'While I was there in Moola Bulla I was taken away to Beagle Bay in 1946. I would have been five or six. I can remember they took me off the truck my father was driving and kept me on the other one. Well, the truck was full, full tray. We were all packed in like sardines you know. We had enough little room for me to that they dropped me on...'  (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'...I was just too young, too small. Just what I’ve been told, but I’m not too sure of the years. I was taken to Moola Bulla and I think my dad had a lot to do with that. They said he had a lot to do with it because they said he wanted to get me some education and things like that. My mother’s side of the family they use to tell me, they use to paint us up. They always knew when the welfare was coming around to pick you up. They’d paint you up with some red dirt. Or charcoal, and these welfares couldn’t tell the difference, me galloping around with all the other kids until they woke up to it and they used Aboriginal trackers when they were looking for kids, and they could pick you out from a big bunch of us, they could pick out which is which, what they were looking for and that’s how they got me...' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'...About six years old. That time when where one was taken away was ‘46, 1946. Well I wouldn’t know the date. They told us oh they got us to this big bathroom, girl’s bathroom and they said they had us all there, and they said, “Oh we’ll take you for a long drive.” We didn’t know what they meant. Long drive, we drove up to Beagle Bay. Yeah, gee whizz, we was crying too you know...'(Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'...You tell me the story, I’ve always wondered why. Why was I the only one picked out of it. Maybe I was the worst one. I don’t know. But I can’t see anything bad that I’ve done. So they probably just had to pick somebody out of a family them days but I can’t work out why I was. I was ten when I was taken away. I started getting in a bit of trouble and everything else you know, growing up. So, welfare come around and said, “Right, Buddy, you’re messing your life up here”. He talked to the parents and they didn’t want me to go, I didn’t want to go, I was happy there, learning from my mother and father and growing up with the other brothers and sisters. That was the best life I’ve ever had, didn’t want … and they said, “Oh well, we’re taking you whether you like it or not.” And that was it, they were law. There was no bucking it...' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'...It was in March, March 1944 when the Aboriginal welfare board came and taken us. The whole family, there was about nine of us, came and got us and they put us in the car, and they drove us down to this courthouse which we now know was the children’s court in Glebe...' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'...My brother said we’re all – he was looking after us and the whole nine of us. And he said that mum went down to the shop and the next minute that the welfare just came and grabbed the whole lot of us and just taken us and separated us. Three sisters went to Cootamundra and three sisters went to Bomaderry, three brothers to Kinchela Boys Home, up in Kempsey...' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'...When I was – given an age by the government. To say by just looking at me, and say oh he’s three, four to five or whatever. There was no actual date of birth or nothing. We had house parents type of thing, as carers who looked after us in the kindergarten. Made sure that we had proper meals and um, and a place to sleep...' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)

'...When they heard the police was around looking for us, they take me to the creek and all the kids there, they’d put charcoal all over us, make us black, see. And they tell us, don't get in the water until they go, see...' (Excerpt)

'...When I was taken away I was two, my sister Jenny was four. We was at a little place called Weilmoringle playing with our cousins. The Bino sisters. Well while the mothers were all inside talking and doing what they was doing, we played outside in the dirt and just made our own little things...' (Transcribed from the Stolen Generations' Testimonies website)