For more than four decades, hundreds of children were incarcerated under Stolen Generations policies in the notorious institution near Kempsey. Only 56 are still alive. Here, six survivors tell their stories
may have been detected on the grounds of the notorious Kinchela Aboriginal Boys’ Training Home
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. 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.Uncle Roger ‘Pigeon’ Jarrett
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. 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.
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.
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 asMy 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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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.
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.Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardianwas forcibly removed from his family and community in Nowra on NSW’s 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.
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