Revelations that potential clandestine burial sites may have been detected on the grounds of the notorious Kinchela Aboriginal Boys’ Training Home near Kempsey, New South Wales, have come as no surprise to six of its survivors. They call themselves the Uncles, but still, even decades after their traumas, know each other by their number. It was a number given to them when they first arrived, when they were incarcerated there as children.
These are their stories.
Number 12
Uncle Roger “Pigeon” Jarrett was 11 years old when he was forcibly removed from his family at Bowraville Mission.
My name is Roger Jarrett, number 12, Kinchela boy. I was born at Corindi beach, 1947, on the beach. I lived with my grandmother at the old campsite, a birthing place. I was born cripple because Aboriginal people weren’t allowed in the hospital. I got an operation when I was three on my legs, so they straightened them out as best they can.
I first went to primary school at Corindi beach. A loving family, there were 11 of us. The boys used to sleep in a big double bed and my sisters slept in another room, with Mum and Dad in the other room. We didn’t have the best of food because Mum was given rations. We can get sugar, flour and tea. That’s all we can get and we couldn’t really get any meat.
And after I was about seven they put us from Corindi to Bowraville where we were put on a mission down there.
A sergeant from Bowraville police came up on the mission on the 25th of June 1958. In a big black English Riley. He sat Mum down and said, “Mrs Jarrett, if you sign these papers, your kids will return within 12 months.” Mum had no education at all. She heard the words and she signed the paper.
I came through that gate and Roger Jarrett stayed on the other side. I became number 12 for six years.
I was raped in here as well. A lot of the boys were. At night. I used to cry. I used to go to Catholic school with God on the cross. They’d say: “You scream out to him and he’ll come and help you.” Well, I screamed out and screamed out. It’s like getting out of the dark, the world is screaming and nobody can hear you. I gave up on that God.
The food was substandard. Little black weevils got in there and multiplied by the millions. They cooked that up and they give you that plate until you completely finished it, even the weevils. Everything in it.
Some of the boys used to go out and try out at night, and get extra food because you didn’t get that much food. Each and every day you got a flogging. Some of the boys said trivial things like they might have said someone’s name. They’d get you sent down the line.
They would put 30 this side and 30 that side and they’d send this boy down. You’d have to punch him hard and if you didn’t punch him hard enough, the staff would walk behind you and belt the crap out of you with a cane. If it was not hard enough for them, they’d send you down the line.
Over the back, there’s the fig tree. It had a six-foot chain on it. If a boy said something trivial, again. They’d cut sleeves out of an old sugar bag, put it on and wet it. Take him out there, they chain him up, padlock them and leave them there, they just walk away.
The staff here were all ex-army; why the government put them in charge of us, I don’t know. Luckily they’re gone now, they’re all dead. So nobody was charged for what happened to us.
We all have different parts of it. A lot of the boys came out and got on grog and just drank themselves to death. By the time they were 30, 40, their livers, kidneys were gone, they just died. I was lucky.
They sent me down to [Sydney to] wash dishes and make toast for the young non-Indigenous boys that were from the country to make them linesman and technicians. I met a non-Indigenous girl and we’ve been married 57 years.
We had a son in 1966 – I was 18 and she was 17 – and had a daughter in 1969. I have nine grandkids and I got 10 great-grandbabies. So as far as I am concerned, I’m a bloody king.
Number 24
Uncle Bobby “Bullfrog” Young (number 24) is a Gamilaroi man from Quirindi. He was incarcerated in the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys’ Training Home at the age of five in 1949. He says he was told that his parents were dead. He left the institition at age 16 and moved to Sydney to live with a foster family. Two years later he discovered his mother was alive – and living in the next suburb. He is 74.
When they got you through those gates, they’d strip you down and burn your clothes and shoes and socks. They’d march you down to the shower block. They’d shave your hair off and we’re standing down here with nothing on, and while you were standing there they’d chuck dog powder over you and see if you had fleas. Back then they didn’t give you shoes – you’d walk down to the shower block barefoot across bindis and burrs.
I was five years of age, me and my cousin. And so you imagine walking into the showers and the cold water up on your feet would be stinging you. They didn’t care. After that, I can remember when I got my supposed uniform but they was just old rags, our numbers were printed on the shirt, me and my cousin. My number was 24 and my cousin was 23. But we all had nicknames. The boys used to call me Bullfrog. I used to call my cousin Mighty Mouse, so at least we had names.
But we had animals in there and they had priority over us. They all had names. One horse we used to call Sue and they had three German shepherd dogs. One was called Prince and if you didn’t call him by the name there was another punishment.
They would cane you. This is at the age of eight so imagine what all the other younger kids went through. It was a concentration camp, it wasn’t a happy home. Even now when cars are driving by they don’t know the background of that place. It was terrible.
I came out of this hell of a place at the age of 16. After I was told my mum and dad were dead, I went to my foster parents in Alexandria. And my mother, she was 150 yards from where I was living, and I didn’t know. When I turned 18 I decided to go to a TAB in Redfern and I was in the TAB and this lady was looking at me and she recognised me, because I’m the spitting image of my father. She came over and mentioned my name and she said, “You’re Bobby Young”, and I thought “Wow, I’ve got a name not a number”, not knowing it was my mother speaking to me.
So later on down the track, she said to me, “I guess you don’t know who I am.” I said no. She said, “I’m your mother.” I said, “Mum, I’m only 150 yards from you.” But why didn’t the government or the welfare let me go straight to my mum’s place? She told me my dad was living, in Moree. I had four sisters and one brother on my mum’s side and on my dad’s side I had four brothers and one sister.
Lies. All those lies I was told.
We’ve been coming up to Kempsey for years, to walk the walk and talk the talk but nothing’s happening. There’s people out there that still got control over us, won’t even let us have the site. But what we want for our future next generation and descendants and sons and daughters and grandkids is that site carried on through them. So what we’re really wanting to do is turn it into a healing place and museum. People still don’t know the history of this place. There’s only 56 of us left out of 600 boys that went through this home, and so if we can get that back I’d be happy. I’ll be real happy.
Number 36
Uncle James Michael “Widdy” Welsh (number 36) was born in Coonamble, taken from his mother age eight and sent to Kinchela, where he stayed until he was 16. He is the current chairman of Kinchela Boys’ Home Aboriginal Corporation and wants to see the former institution become a healing centre in his lifetime. He is 72 this year.
Where the shower was, was really scary too because when we went into the showers, be it a male staff watching or be it one of the [male] staff’s wife or the manager’s wife, who would be sitting there watching us when we were stripped off naked or going in the showers. Myself at that stage from the age of eight upward it looked terrible, terrible and scary to me because some of the other brothers at this time in their life, they were of age to be pretty well developed in that area of manhood. And it must have been really uncomfortable. Because it was for me, to be naked in front of these men and women that we didn’t know. But it wasn’t as bad as the other stuff they used to do to us anyhow.
Down the end [of the property] was a weather shed that we used to finish our chores in the morning and we’d all rush around and we’d sit there and watch and wait for that first ray of sunlight that would come over the Smoky Cape lighthouse, and whoever was there first would get the first bit of sunlight on his foot, on the cracks we used to have in our feet, because they wouldn’t give us shoes or socks and that. This is one of the other reasons why we used to jump into cow’s poo, because that was nice and warm. And we never realised but the fact was cow’s poo is pure and it was actually doing some good for our feet.
I was lucky in that sense that we took up sports. We’d go into the swimming, we’d go into the cricket, into the football, all of those things we were really into because on the weekend we’d go away. All of these things were our chances to get away from this place. So when the fights were on, we’d want to be picked for the fights. Then we’d go to other towns away from here.
I haven’t had a drink in 12, 13 years. But what I would do is I would lower my little wall – I call it my little wall – my wall of sensitivity would come down. And then I drank to wipe that pain out. I didn’t drink for the enjoyment of it and the loving of it. If you only have a few beers of alcohol, it makes you feel good, and everything’s good. But I’d gotten to the point where I wouldn’t remember a thing about what happened to me when I was drinking. And then they’d tell me about it next day, or I’d wake up busted up from a fight, or my knuckle would be busted up on somebody else. I didn’t know what that was. I didn’t want to know what it was. As long as there was just the silence, keep it there.
It was seeing what’s happening to my children, and the ignorance of other people, and waking up in the jail cells.
I had to find something, and I’m still working on the place that I still want my family structure rebuilt, that’s the most important thing to me in my life is my family structure because the family structure helps us to take care of each other, and gives our little children and grandchildren someone to go and tell when something’s not right.
It’s time to break free from all this stuff. It’s time to do what I’m doing now because the only thing that ever stops the pain from hurting me inside is what I’m doing now.
Number 41
Uncle Ian “Crow” Lowe (number 41) was taken from Burnt Bridge Mission when he was seven to Kinchela Aboriginal boys’ home and didn’t leave the institution until he was 14. He has fond memories growing up with his family just outside of Kempsey. He was able to reunite with family several years before their deaths. He prefers to use poetry as a way to express his experiences as a survivor of Stolen Generations.
I am Crow, number 41, in Kinchela.
My name is Ian Lowe but I’m a Ward and a Duroux as well. And we come from Burnt Bridge. I just want to read this poem.
It’s called You Take MeAway. This is the first poem I wrote that calmed me down. Because I was pretty wild. And I started writing poems.
You Take Me Away
You take me away from love and loved ones.
But you said “Come on. It’s alright.” Now we know, years later, it’s to be wrong.
So why? You take me to the home but not my home of love.
Away from my family, my loved ones.
Years later, my family met.
Now we are family again once more.
So why?
You take me away, as I know in my heart, I did not do anything wrong.
Well, okay, bear it and you say it’s alright.
But now we know, now. It is to be wrong.
And I’m still wondering to this day. Why did you take me away? Why? Why? Why?
I got about 50, 60 poems. All the KBH boys get up and tell their story. We’re still all emotional. I get too emotional, I can’t talk, I’d rather read my poems.
I was seven when I was taken away. I was happy on the mission there at Burnt Bridge, five miles out of Kempsey. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the archives – they said I was neglected. Never had to worry about a feed and we were always clean, we went to school, so how was I neglected?
Dad used to work up at Uralla, on the bananas. He’d come home, he’d buy us eggs, everything we need, we’d go fishing or hunting and shooting.
We used to make our own shanghais and go hunting. We made go-carts, Dad had an old Model T Ford out the front of our house and we’d get in there and pretend to drive to town. I’ve got pretty good memories growing up there on the mission.
One day, the [Kinchela Aboriginal Boys’ Training Home] manager Mr Hendrickson came with his son in the car and I thought it was alright because he was there and he said “Come for a drive” and the next minute we’re here at Kinchela.
It was after that 1963 flood and you could still see water on the paddock. I got here, the boys were doing the garden, weeding, all different boys, Koori fullas here. I said, “Oh, it must be all right here, they Blackfullas.”
Straight away they gave us a haircut and made us strip. Put white powder all over us, then we had to have a shower and we walked up here where the stall was. They had these little boxes. That’s where the clothes were. They never fit – big fullas or skinny fullas wore them before you. You still had to wear the clothes. If you don’t have a belt, we used to use string.
They said, “This is your number, you’re not a name no more.” If one of the boys called me by my name, they’d get in trouble and I’ll get in trouble.
It wasn’t the best treatment at home. You’d get in a fight with one of the boys, the officer would grab the both of us and put boxing gloves on and we had to fight. We were little slaves, officers ex-army, ex-navy, ex-air force and they would make you march. If you didn’t get a step right they’d hit you, they’d slap you in the back of the head or ear hole.
They were hard on the big boys compared to us. If you played up they would all have to get in a line like a tunnel and the one in trouble would have to walk down and all the other boys would punch him. I mean punch him, not tap, actually punch him.
But I was alright here, I was looked after by five brothers and they were boxers even before they came to the Kinchela boys’ home. We all tried to look after each other. Even when we left this place.
I don’t really like it being back here. But I feel better each time we come here. This was my home for seven years. That was the best day I reckon when it closed.
My sister, my aunties and my mother were taken to Cootamundra [girls’ home]. Only one they didn’t take was my grandmother because she was out on an island and they tried. They sent three dogs after her. She drowned two, they called the other one back and they left her alone. Nan’s family, my uncles, they ended up in Kinchela.
I’d rather burn Kinchela down but I can’t. We want to turn it into a museum. We’ve got big plans for it but I wish they’d hurry up – we’re dying.
Number 28
Uncle Richard “Bear” Campbell (number 28) is a proud Gumbaynggirr Dunghutti man from Bowraville. He was eight or nine when he, his elder brother and three younger sisters aged seven, five and 18 months, were all taken on the same day. He and his brother were sent to Kinchela in 1965.
The welfare was always there watching us and waiting for Mum and Dad to go away, and [one day] they came in and grabbed us. We was supposed to be neglected. We were never neglected. So they separated us from our three younger sisters and that was the last time I seen them for another 15, 20 years.
When we first came here and walked in the gate, the first thing they said was, “You’re not Richard any more. You’re now number 28.” And they belted you in the back of the head or across the ears and these are ex-army fellows, six-foot plus.
If you didn’t do anything right you got punished. The worst punishment was sitting out in the swamp with no clothes or standing in the pool with no clothes on, and you had to stand there all night. Most of these punishments were around winter and the water’s cold. We used to get the water from the river, so you can imagine what other little creepy-crawlies used to get into the water. In the swamp the worst ones we used to be feared of were the bloody leeches. I hated leeches!
[We got punished for] wetting the bed. Not cleaning your shoes properly. Not cleaning your teeth. Things like that. Bloody anything, anything. If you didn’t do a hospital corner on your bed properly. When they dropped the coin on bed, if it didn’t bounce you had to do it again. If it didn’t bounce again they waited till night-time, stripped you off again and sent you out there.
The worst one was over at the tree. They used to tie us up with the chain to the tree and the men, you know, did whatever they liked to you whether it’s physically, mentally, sexually and they did all three of them.
When government and officials used to come in then they’d get us dressed up, put shoes on; we never used to have shoes. But they’d dress us up. We’d make sure our shoes were polished up, we’d all be standing stiff like that. We used to get around like we were really in the army. Because they want to make us look good, or make them look good, because the officials were only really coming in to look for boys themselves. The wives were actually good, but they never stopped it. They never stopped it.
When we got out of here, I was in another state. All I wanted to do was belt every white person I seen and sure enough I did. Because they taught me how to hurt a person, they taught me how to grab hold of you, and block and ... it was ex-army people teaching us army bloody manoeuvres and we thought it was a natural thing to do because an adult showed us. I was on a suicide trip like most of the boys, I couldn’t get out of it. They call it intergenerational trauma now and it was going on before, but before the bloody boys’ home built. Colonisation, that was the first part of it.
When you try and abolish a whole nation, what do you call it? Genocide? They softened it here, they called it assimilation. They still doing it. They assimilating our kids. We’re all a commodity, our kids. My kids were a commodity. My grandkids are a commodity because they are in and out of bloody jail. People get paid to look after them.
They created this history. It’s their history too. They tried to get rid of it by throwing all the kids in the boys’ home, by getting rid of all of us ... and they didn’t want us to tell the story until we all started talking about it, about 15, maybe 20 years ago.
Kids are innocent. We were innocent. How do you rape innocence? They stole our innocence. They took it. And they did it legally under the eyes of the parliament.
Number 4
Uncle Allen Roosevelt “Boomp” Cooper was forcibly removed from his family and community in Nowra on NSW’s south coast when he was 14 years old along with his older brother and abused at Kinchela Aboriginal Boys’ Training Home. He was reunited with his mother at 19, just two weeks before she died.
My name is Allen Cooper and I am from Nowra, a beautiful part of Nowra, down in the south coast, just beautiful. Often, even to this day, I am still wondering why I got taken, we were going to school every day, clean clothes, packed lunches all done nice.
One day I got picked up by this woman in a Volkswagen waiting for a bus at the school. But this woman, she was a welfare woman. I thought we were going to the beach or something but we didn’t, we came here.
It’s really hard, a lot of things, to bring things out, what happened to me in the home. I am still grieving. There’s lots of things I never talked about.
We used to walk up the road here, kids up shop, buy some lollies or whatever with pocket money but as we were walking back one of the boys, he said, “Come here and look at this, at the bank of the river.”
Things happened. It wasn’t my fault, I was young and he was older than me. He told me, and I am very inquisitive and I wanted to have a look. He said, “Look at that fish, see that fish” and I went right on the grass and things happened.
He said, “Don’t tell no one, otherwise you won’t live another day.” I was young and too frightened. That’s a thing I never told my kids about what he done and for anyone to talk about but you can’t charge him because he’s dead, I put it away, I couldn’t do nothing.
I’m very quiet but I am a good listener, I can listen to people. What would you tell them? I am here to tell my story, but I am very quiet.
People didn’t understand what happened to you. Because they said this place was a holiday camp. That’s what I first thought it was, coming through the gates with the boys playing, kicking the ball around, the pool there, it looked good.
It wasn’t a holiday camp. It was hard labour. Mowing the lawn, cleaning the buildings out, cutting the veggies for tea, milking the cows in the dark, and cleaning the dairy, coming back and having a shower in the morning before school.
Maybe it made me a better man? It made me strong. I didn’t want to take abuse no more. I felt like punching out, but that wasn’t me.
I just kept everything to myself. I talked to a few of the boys, I knew a fair few of the boys before they came here. We are like a band of brothers, we all know each other. We’re men now but we still laugh and joke, simple things.
When I got out I met my mother; it was two weeks before she passed away. She always wondered where I was and why I didn’t come home from school. She knew nothing, they didn’t say her boys had gone to the home.
Mum was an older lady, but she was a pretty woman, slim, and always had a handbag on her arm. She was sitting on the front verandah of her house as I came through the gate in Nowra.
She looked very frail, very sick. I’m glad she held out long enough for her son to come home.
For information and support in Australia call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for a crisis support line for Indigenous Australians; or call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Mensline on 1300 789 978 and Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636
