The Apology (2)

Personally
Tony Saddington

Sue would be in her late 40’s now. I knew her only for one week and she has left a mark on me that will last a lifetime.

I am pleased that we, as a nation, have accepted responsibility for what occurred to the “stolen generation”.

As a kid of 13 or so,back in the early ’70’s, my Aunty brought “Sue” with us to our large home in Sth Gippsland. I was an insulated “WASP”, never having seen a black person before and could not get past the contrast, her dark skin and white palms.

“Sue” said little for the week that she was with us. She never spoke first and was incredibly obedient. She was also extremely uncomfortable and obviously ‘knew her place’ amongst white people.

She told me that she lived on a mission, (I had no idea what that was), did not know where her family members were, had never seen a beach and “Sue” was not her real name.
She was to me, as a kid, the most quiet and saddest kid that I had ever met.

I know now that she was part of “The Stolen Generation”, a policy of enforcing white Christian beliefs and standards on children by forceful removal and subsequent destruction of Aboriginal families by assimilation,- a truly un-Christian policy.

It is important that we know what we are apologising for, as a nation we owe something. To me, an apology goes a long way in lightening some guilt that I have carried,(by proxy), for 30 odd plus years. Children were still being removed, (as U.K. kids were during WW 2 ), during my lifetime and people in my own family did nothing to oppose it.

My aunty still believes that she had done what was required of a good Catholic and that a poor child was given a good holiday.
I believe that Sue would have been far better off at the mission, or better still, at home whatever it may have been, with the love and support of her family.

Something that I knew, but she never would.

Sue would be in her late 40’s now. I knew her only for one week and she has left a mark on me that will last a lifetime.