Fremantle Press - Mother and Daughter

Sally Morgan

Sally Morgan was born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1951 and grew up in suburban Manning. She completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at The University of Western Australia in 1974, majoring in Psychology. She also has postgraduate diplomas from The Western Australian Institute of Technology (now Curtin University of Technology) in both Counselling Psychology and Computing and Library Studies. She has three children.

As well as writing, Sally Morgan has established an international reputation as an artist. She has works in numerous private and public collections both in Australia and North America. Her first book, My Place, became an instant national bestseller, and has been published to considerable acclaim in Britain and North America.

Some of the personal names included in this book have been changed, or only first names included, to protect the privacy of those concerned.

To My Family

How deprived we would have been

if we had been willing

to let things stay as they were.

We would have survived,

but not as a whole people.

We would never have known

our place.

I was fifteen when I first realised that my family was Aboriginal. Until then, I had believed I was Indian, for that was what my mother and Nan, my grandmother, had always said. I was the eldest of five children. My father died when I was nine years old, and my mother was left to bring us up. Nan, my grandmother, lived with us as well. Helen, my youngest sister, was only eighteen months when my father died. My other sister was Jill, and I had two brothers, David and Billy.

Our home was a rented house in a working-class suburb of Perth. We had a warm, loving family, all very close to one another.

I shall never forget the day I came home from school to find Nan sitting at the kitchen table, crying. I froze in the doorway. Id never seen her cry before.

Nanwhats wrong? I asked.

She lifted up one arm and thumped her clenched fist hard on the table. You kids dont want me, you want a white grandmother. Im black! Do you hear, black, black, black! With that, she pushed back her chair and hurried to her room. I never did find out what had upset her so. I think it was all to do with us growing up and not being little kids any longer.

I remember how I continued to stand in the doorway. I could feel the strap of my heavy school-bag cutting into my shoulder, but I was too stunned to remove it

For the first time in my fifteen years, I was conscious of Nans colouring. She was right, she wasnt white. Well, I thought logically, if she wasnt white, then neither were we. What did that make us, what did that make me? I had never thought of myself as being black before.

I was very excited by my new heritage, and ever since that day I had been trying to find out more about our family. My mother wouldnt openly admit the fact that we were part-Aboriginal until I was at University and then the truth slipped out by accident in the middle of a conversation one day. Since then, shed become as eager as I was to find out about our people.

After I married, I still saw my family nearly every day. There were such strong bonds between us it was impossible for me not to want to see them. Just as well Paul, my husband, was the uncomplaining sort! Though in fact he fitted into our family very well. I had married Paul Morgan in 1971, while I was at University. Paul was a teacher. He had spent his childhood in the north-west of Western Australia his parents were missionaries. When he was thirteen, they had moved to Perth to start a hostel for mission children who came to the city to attend high school. At that time, Paul spoke only pidgin English; hed had a hard time adjusting to his new life at first. We now had three children. Our daughter, Ambelin, was born in 1975 and we had two sons Blaze, born in 1977, and Zeke, born five years later.

In 1979 I had decided to write a book about our family history. My mother was very willing to help me, but my grandmother had always been very secretive about her past. She absolutely refused to talk about it. I knew I couldnt expect any help from her. I had already recorded the reminiscences of Nans brother, my Great-uncle Arthur Corunna. He completed his story just before he died. I knew that he had a premonition he was about to go. He said at the end of his story: To live to ninety, thats an achievementNow my life is nearly over, Im lookin forward to heaven I look back on my life and think how lucky I amI got Daisys granddaughter [Daisy was my grandmothers name] writing my story. It should be someone in the family. Its fittin. I want everyone to read it. Arthur Corunnas story! You see, its important because then maybe theyll understand how hard its been for the blackfella to live the way he wants. Im part of history, thats how I look on it

It was a wonderful story, and it made Mum and me determined to continue to find out as much as we could about the family.

In 1982, when Zeke was only six weeks old, Mum, Paul and I and our children set off to visit Corunna Downs, Nan and Arthurs birthplace. They had both been taken away from their people when they were children and placed in a mission. Back in the early years of this century, that was what happened to hundreds of half-caste children. Neither Arthur nor, it seems, Daisy ever saw their Aboriginal mother, Annie Padewani, again. Nan was not really sure who her white father was, though Arthur was positive she was his full sister, and that they both had the same father, Howden Drake-Brockman, the owner of Corunna Downs Station at that time. Later, Howden had married a white woman, and Nan became nursemaid to his daughter Judy. There were still quite close links between the Drake-Brockmans and our family. Nan and Judy were always friends, and I had asked Aunty Judy what she could tell me about the old days. But Howden had sold Corunna Downs when she was still quite small, and the family, together with Nan, had moved to a big house called Ivanhoe at Claremont, on the banks of the Swan River. So Judy Drake-Brockman was not able to tell me very much.

My mother did not really know who her father was, either. Nan had always refused to discuss the matter with her. Mum believed he may have been an Englishman, Jack Grime, who was a close friend of Howden Drake-Brockman, and lived at Ivanhoe.

During our visit to Corunna, we had discovered which tribal groups we belonged to. My mother, Gladys, was Panaka; I was Burungu; and Paul was Malinga. What had begun as a tentative search for knowledge grew into a spiritual and emotional pilgrimage. We now had an Aboriginal consciousness and were proud of it. By the time we left we had so much to think about, and much to come to terms with. And, as a result of what we had learned, we had more insight into Nans bitterness, her refusal to talk about the past. More than anything we wanted her to change, to be proud of what she was. We had seen so much of her and ourselves in the wonderful people wed met. We belonged to our Aboriginal heritage, now. We had found our place.

When we arrived back in Perth, Nan was really pleased to see us, and so was Beryl, a friend of Mums who had been looking after her. Nan had gone through all the money Mum had left her and had had Beryl on the go non-stop, running up to the shop for chocolate biscuits and putting bets on the TAB.

We rounded up the rest of the family the following day and insisted on showing the video we had made of our trip. To our dismay, the film turned out to be pretty mediocre. It suffered from the faults common to most home movies: lack of focus, zooming too quickly and panning too slowly.