My Grandfather’s Story During a recently visit to Brisbane I found myself drawn to a statue of a little boy simply because he was carrying what appeared to be a Globite school case or port as they were called in Queensland. Globites were part of my childhood but this statue turned out to be a monument to something that wasn’t – it was a memorial to children who suffered or died whilst in church or state care. Both of my mother’s parents spent part of their childhoods in institutions – not so bad for Nanna who was rescued by her older sister but Grampy doesn’t actually appear to have ever had a childhood. He never knew where he came from, what his name was, when he was born or what happened to his family. His earliest memory is of leaving a ship in Brisbane with a man he thought was his father and a woman who probably wasn’t his mother. His next recollection was a bleak one that lasted for a good many years. Somehow, he found himself in the orphanage that used to be on the site of what is now Central Station in Sydney. He was abused and malnourished and he stole food from the babies he was supposed to feed just to stay alive himself. The only kindness he remembered was being given a flower by a woman who would visit the grave of her daughter at the cemetery next door. He would wait for her at the fence every Sunday and she would come and speak to him. Grampy was farmed out to work as a domestic servant in the Blue Mountains at a very young age. It was cold and the work was demanding. He had no shoes or warm clothes and suffered more abuse and malnourishment. The story goes on and so did the abuse as learned behaviours so very often do. A cousin’s revelation a few years ago made me realise that there was no way I could get drunk enough quickly enough to numb just a little of what she was saying. And this did not come out of the blue; it simply took things on one generation further than what I was already aware of. I have only three vague memories of my mother’s father who died on my sixth birthday. They are kindly memories of a kind man who never allowed another to go hungry while he himself had food. In fact, there were times during the Depression when he fed half the street and brought hungry people home for dinner from whatever meagre work he could find in those terrible years. There was little money but he farmed three-quarters of an acre in what is now suburbia, kept a cow, few ducks and some chooks and he always provided. Grampy’s family situation was quite possibly beyond anyone’s control back in the 1880s, and orphanages were sad lonely places where there weren’t enough clothes or things to eat, but child abuse is always a choice and it is never a child’s choice. How much better a man might my grandfather have been?
Posted on: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 06:51:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015