Redfern community honours leader’s survival story

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s wife Therese Reid came to honour the life of the Redfern mentor, as well as Sydney Deputy Lord Mayor, Marcelle Hoff, while the rest of the locals packed out the Redfern Community Centre.

A member of the Stolen Generations, Simon was a 10-year-old boy when he and his brothers were taken from their parents and locked up in the notorious Kinchela Boys Home until adulthood.

“My future was in the hands of strangers, and even though I didn’t know it at that time they were purposely going to make my life miserable for a long time to come. These men were about to change what should have been a normal Aboriginal life. Nothing would ever be the same again,” Simon read from his book to a shocked and weeping crowd.

“We were handed a pair of pyjamas with our numbers printed on them. I was number 33, not Bill, not even Simon, just a number. For eight years I was number 33.”

Ms Reid recalled how the community leader turned to a life of self-abuse and crime, and eventually imprisonment.
“Bill’s story is very hard to read,” she said.

“A lot has happen to Bill that is distressing, disturbing, frightening, unjust and frankly enraging.”

However, as the local Indigenous choir members sung “moving forward” over and over, the horrific thoughts gave way to optimistic overtones.

“I am telling this story because I think it needs to be told,” said Simon.

“I ask that my brothers and sisters of the stolen generation read my story, it is their story as well. I ask that non-indigenous people read my story so that this bad chapter in our history can be better understood.

“We can’t heal the nation unless we know the truth.”

In 2005 Simon teamed up with Redfern Pastor Ray Minniecon to offer long-term help to the survivors of Kinchela Boys’ Home in northern NSW, a place now widely recognised for the brutal torture of Aboriginal youths.

Source: www.altmedia.net.au/redfern-community-honours-leader’s-survival-story/8003