'This is an exceptional little book. Its humorous tone, brevity and limited distribution (Adelaide only) can easily deter from the fact that here is a valuable insider’s account of the formative period of a remote Aboriginal settlement. Former mission schoolteacher and twice Pitjantjatjara translator of Alice in Wonderland, Nancy Sheppard tells a story about and across colonial divides. She spent nine years (1955 to 1964) on what is now Anangu Pitjantjatjara lands in north-western South Australia and has maintained lifelong bonds with her former workmates and friends. Neither anecdotal nor scholarly, yet more than a personal memoir, this perceptive portrayal of daily life on the former Presbyterian mission station of Ernabella and the first two years of the Fregon settlement is a welcome contribution to the social history of the region and Australian colonial history. Poignant depictions of the physical environment, the station and especially the classroom are interspersed with thought-provoking arguments about literacy, language learning and bi-cultural education, notes on parent–teacher interaction and excursions, stolen children, patterns of work and resource distribution, illness, diseases and accidents, intellectual challenges faced as a former evangelist, sexual abuse, nuclear tests. All are presented as life experiences through the lens of encounters with remarkable individuals, black and white.' (Introduction)
'This is an exceptional little book. Its humorous tone, brevity and limited distribution (Adelaide only) can easily deter from the fact that here is a valuable insider’s account of the formative period of a remote Aboriginal settlement. Former mission schoolteacher and twice Pitjantjatjara translator of Alice in Wonderland, Nancy Sheppard tells a story about and across colonial divides. She spent nine years (1955 to 1964) on what is now Anangu Pitjantjatjara lands in north-western South Australia and has maintained lifelong bonds with her former workmates and friends. Neither anecdotal nor scholarly, yet more than a personal memoir, this perceptive portrayal of daily life on the former Presbyterian mission station of Ernabella and the first two years of the Fregon settlement is a welcome contribution to the social history of the region and Australian colonial history. Poignant depictions of the physical environment, the station and especially the classroom are interspersed with thought-provoking arguments about literacy, language learning and bi-cultural education, notes on parent–teacher interaction and excursions, stolen children, patterns of work and resource distribution, illness, diseases and accidents, intellectual challenges faced as a former evangelist, sexual abuse, nuclear tests. All are presented as life experiences through the lens of encounters with remarkable individuals, black and white.' (Introduction)
