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As far as I can remember,
I've always had dreams of houses and doorways
and hallways and hiding places.
As a kid, we tend to push things down.
But when you turn to adult,
I think that's when all the feelings start coming back.
For a long time, I didn't know who I was.
I knew I had fragmented memories
of a little white sister.
But I couldn't put the pieces together.
I had to get answers.
I had to find out who I was.
I've never shared this story before.
And I don't think anyone's heard it like this before.
I've had to go back so I can move forward.
Uh...
We're here one reason and one reason only,
as far as I can make out,
and that's Brenda.
And I can only fill in bits and pieces,
but I hope it all works out.
Why are you nervous?
I don't know. Just sort of...
All this gear around and...
Now I'm here.
Well, I met Connie in the sole milk bar,
which was run by her dad.
I got sight of her and I thought,
"Jeez, this is a nice-looking girl working in there."
He came back for lunch.
Sort of met and, um...
Yeah, sort of, things went on from there.
And I ended up with a hamburger and a bride
in the end, so that was alright.
We were in a house, which we sold,
and then we rented a place and we built our own home.
I cut the frame out myself, bricked it up.
And it come together very nicely.
We had our first daughter, Rebecca,
and then we thought, "Well, let's keep going."
We were always thinking
of having a bigger family.
We'd talked about adoption a bit.
There were kids out there that needed... needed a home
and that weren't as fortunate as we were.
We thought, "Well, why don't we go and pick up the papers
"and see what we have to do to fill them in?"
It just got put on the shelf, I suppose, for a while.
I fell pregnant in between that and I had a boy.
And then we got the surprise call.
The department rang, wanting to know
if I was still interested in having a child.
They said, "We have someone here,
"but it's a little Aboriginal girl."
And I thought, "Well, that's interesting."
When my baby was only nine weeks
and my little girl was only two and a half,
I said, "Oh, well, it'll be hard but it'll be worth it.
"We've been waiting long enough."
We had good room in the house.
We were paying our bills and eating well.
So we landed up ringing them back
and saying, "Yes, we'll take her."
We got to delivery date at the railway station.
We stood there for a while
waiting for this train
and we kept looking at each other, sort of thing,
and gee, excited, apprehensive, I suppose.
Then there was a lady with a little Aboriginal girl.
She said, "Mr and Mrs Ockers?"
I said, "Yes."
She said, "This is Brenda."
Yeah, I can live that moment forever
even if I get to be 200 years old, I think.
It was a very quick exchange.
Was just really... and not much said at all.
Then she walked off and that was it.
Brenda didn't say a word.
Was a big step for her too,
a little girl to come to a family she doesn't know.
All aboard!
One day just melded into the next.
She just went along with Gene and Becca at those times.
Life began as a family of three children.
And that was the good bit.
It was good.
This way a bit.
Yeah, but you...
- Darling... - I had it perfect.
I know you're perfect.
No, I'm not perfect. I said I had it perfect.
When I first met Mark,
he was taking children on cultural camps.
I've had the honour of paddling and walking
with the Bundjalung people.
I collaborated with them
to get other people to experience
what I have experienced.
It was a bit scary at first.
He looked like a drill sergeant,
especially when he spoke.
Once you've thrown your gear in the rescue boat,
come and grab a PFD out of the two red bags.
The pocket goes to the front.
Once you've done that, go to the back of the trailer
and grab your paddle, please.
I started warming up to him
when I went on the camps with him.
It was a time for me where I was learning myself.
But before we start, just going to
hand you over to Jarulah.
He's gonna do the welcome to country.
When I first met Brenda,
yeah, it was a bit of a mystery.
She was shy, timid,
couldn't really even look you in the eye,
especially to a whitefella.
At the beginning, Mark just wanted to know
more about me,
and I hadn't shared that with anyone before.
That drew me to her
because I could see Brenda was carrying a story.
We just needed to find out what that story was.
Rebecca and Brenda's relationship was very close.
They held hands. They played together.
You know, there was no arguing about the clothes.
Connie dressed them basically all the same.
We had a playpen thing and they all got in.
And Brenda said,
"How come the baby is not black, is not dark?"
I knew then that I had to actually tell her
where she came from.
She took it as it was.
She was quite happy.
She started school. We enrolled her.
We put her in as Brenda Ockers.
We were gonna hope she's gonna be an Ockers eventually.
That's the whole system
that we were going through -
to foster to start with, to intention for adopt.
The whole family loved her, you know?
She was part of us.
Down the line we put an application in
as an adoption.
Within a very short time, we got a visit
from the welfare that was looking after the case.
We were hoping it was all gonna go through,
that's why he was there.
You know, get some paperwork done.
We thought, "This is a home run."
She just wanted to be loved and secure,
and that's what she had with us.
Everyone seated. Stay nice and tight.
Come on down, Aunty Brenda. Give her a big clap.
One day, Mark asked me to share my story on camp.
I didn't know much about my story,
but I knew that I had a little white sister.
I don't think I could really remember any detail,
but I just remember her.
I remember that...
...there was love there.
This guy from the welfare,
he come in, sat down on the lounge
and we said, "Well, we're gonna adopt her."
He says, "Oh, no, no."
He says, "Things have changed, mate. Things have changed.
"She's gotta go up to Newcastle.
"That's where her family is."
And that shocked us, because we had no idea
that we were going to have to give her up.
He says, "We'll give you some more instructions,
"and you'll have to take her up there for a day visit."
I said, "Why,"
seeing we had her already for so long,
and what was... how can they do that,
and they said, "Oh, the father is a reformed alcoholic."
And Connie was talking to Brenda a bit,
trying to set her in the situation,
which would have been very difficult.
How can you say to a child,
you know, they haven't been home for five, six years,
and say, "Oh, this is your mummy"?
When we first got there to take her there,
it was quite nerve-racking.
We both got out and took Brenda...
...and walked up to the front door.
We were given no intel at all,
even at that time.
We weren't told about all the other kids.
And then Brenda's mum was standing
at the end of the table
with this cold stare at me.
It was... something I'll never forget,
how desperate she looked, you know, and hurt.
You could see she was hurt in her eyes.
Her mother wasn't very happy.
I didn't have eye contact with her.
You know, I couldn't even talk to her.
All I said is,
"Brenda, we'll see you later in the afternoon."
She knew the protocol, that she had to go back that day.
But that was... that was quite remarkable...
...when you face that.
And you think, "What have I done?
"What have I done?"
Oh, I gotta stop.
Nah.
After my first time sharing,
I felt good.
I felt a bit of relief.
But every time I shared it,
it was scary and it was, again, hurtful,
because it was triggering the trauma that was inside of me.
I started getting more flashbacks, more memories.
Mmm!
Yay!
But it was still not knowing anything
about my white family,
who were missing in my life.
When we went home, she was very quiet.
You can imagine how she felt,
in a little tricky visit for three or four hours,
and then you gotta go.
Once we saw what was there,
we knew that it just wasn't right.
You know, what... what went on wasn't right.
We thought we were the heroes
but we ended up being the villains
in the piece, really,
to deprive a mum of her child.
So, it wasn't long after the first visit
that we had to pack up all her belongings
and take her back.
We spent a bit more time
than we normally would with her,
that's for sure.
Made it special, you know, just with the little things.
And, uh... tried to prep her a bit
for what was coming up.
And I said to her, "Don't you ever forget us,
"and make sure when you get older, you come and find us,"
and she said, "I will, I will."
Had I known that I'd never get her back,
no, I don't think I would have taken her on,
because even after she left,
they asked us if we wanted another child,
and it was complete, straightaway, "No way."
I didn't want to break my heart...
...have anyone else break my heart like that.
Just packing away the stuff was sad.
Then you know it's all over.
I couldn't go back into the house then after that
when we dropped her off.
I landed up staying in the car with Rebecca,
'cause we took Rebecca with us,
'cause we thought that'd be nice for her, to say goodbye.
We had to walk in there - the longest walk I've ever had.
You're sort of thinking, "Jeez, you know,
"this is it.
"This is the end of that chapter of our lives."
And that was a pretty quiet drive home.
We just had to get on with our lives then,
but hoping that, you know, she was... she was happy.
But it was hard.
It was hard.
When I came back, I didn't talk to anyone about
my white family and living with them,
because my black family,
they looked like they knew each other
and they lived with each other for a long time,
and I had no connection to that.
And I felt like I was intruding in on their family.
Growing up, Mum had told us
that we were all taken away from her,
that we were part of the Stolen Generation,
because we were stolen children.
Were you taken away from your parents?
Yes, I was taken away from my mother as a baby.
Did this just happen to you?
Who else did it happen to?
Oh, quite a number of children.
Why were they taken away?
I don't know what the reason was.
I suppose they thought they could give us better homes
away from our mothers.
Between 1905 and 1969,
Indigenous children were taken from their families
to be assimilated into white society.
We wasn't told where our mother lived,
who were they, none whatsoever.
They've become known as
the Stolen Generation.
It's estimated 100,000 Aboriginal children
were removed before the practice was abolished
in 1969.
Compensation is certainly owing,
and I think what is owing to white Australia too
is the true history of this country.
The true history of this country has not been told.
The first time I heard about the compensation scheme
was when my husband took some politicians
on a paddle.
He met somebody... named Jan Barham.
She said to me,
"I'm the lady behind the compensation scheme
"to help get Indigenous people get compensation
"for being stolen from their families."
And I said, "That's amazing."
I said, "My wife's Stolen Generation.
"She was taken away in 1973."
And her mouth sort of dropped and she said, "1973?"
I said, "Yeah, 1973."
"You sure she was stolen?"
I said, "Yeah."
Survivors of the Stolen Generation
stand alongside members of parliament
only decades after government policies
changed their lives forever.
Jan invited us down to Parliament in Sydney.
Every other Indigenous person that was there
was removed before 1969.
Brenda was the only one that was removed after 1969.
But never did we feel like we were any different,
because everyone in that room was taken by welfare.
As a mother, I just cannot even comprehend
what it was like for your mothers to lose you.
And it was the state's institutions
who told them to think white, act white.
We can never give you back those years,
but we can try to make amends.
After I applied for the compensation scheme,
I just waited on an answer.
For me, it wasn't about the money.
It was about helping...
...my family heal from that.
Helping them find justice.
Growing up, we never talked about
being taken away,
being black, acting white.
Trying to find my identity in all of that...
Where do you belong?
I have five children of my own and four grandchildren.
Mark has four children of his own.
I needed to find out who I was
so I can let them know who they are.
But also, I knew that there was a longing inside
for me to go find my white family.
I think it was Rebecca's love
that was pulling me down that path.
I could feel it but I couldn't see it.
And I realised that I had to get answers.
I had to find out who I was.
I had to go back.
Brenda.
This is your street, Brenda.
-Same. - Yep.
It's not the same, eh?
Brenda Mum. Here she is.
Look at you.
- Hello! How are you? - Hi, Mark.
- Good, thank you. - Wonderful to see you.
Mmm.
This is the home that we got, um...
...to get our children back who were taken from us.
Planted a lovely big strawberry tree out there.
You can see the strawberry tree.
Mulberry tree.
Mulberry. Whatever it was.
And, um...
...we used to get the strawberries off it.
Mulberries.
And this is where, when we...
I'd say my mother is...
...giving...
...and kind and gentle.
She's funny.
She'd just break out in song and dance anywhere.
And she's got a confidence about her that...
...yeah, I really admire.
Dad was a pastor.
I think it was their faith
that held them together for so long.
He'd get his tape recorder out
and we'd just sing Christian songs all night.
That's what he was like.
So, I got those tapes
and I got them put on...
...some of them put on CD,
so I'll be able to play them when I go to my new home
and sit down and bring back all those memories.
About 10 years ago, Dad... had a stroke.
He's been in a nursing home for 9 or 10 years now
and, um... he can't walk.
Um... he can't see.
But he can hear.
We go in and we'll tell him how the family's going,
how... how we're all doing.
He's a strong-willed man and he's still there today.
It's an old, um, film.
Come home one evening,
My little children
weren’t running around anymore
...they were missing
And I felt pretty well down-hearted
without children to greet me home.
When I got home, um... my wife said
that our little children's been taken away from us.
All seven of them.
We was terrible down-hearted
and big emptiness in the heart
where nobody could... nothing could fill it.
Only your little children filled that spot.
So when we were taken away,
did they send us all to the one home
or did they separate us?
They sent you to the one home when they...
Which one was that?
...took you all from the courthouse.
Like, in Gil or Dubbo. I don't know where.
Yes, but which home...
And from there, we didn't know.
- Don't know nothing. -Oh, OK.
We never gave up, me and Pop see.
If he was there when Pop come...
...Pop was home when he come to the house,
I know what Pop might have done to him.
He wouldn't have let him take...
He wouldn't have let him take his kids, don't worry.
No, he wouldn't have. He'd have...
He could've brought the police and everybody there.
He wouldn't have got them.
He just happened to be at work that day.
"On 22 February 1973,
"at the age of two years,
"in this day, charged before this court,
"for that, at Gilgandra...
"..is a neglected child..."
"..hereby committed to the care of the minister
"to be dealt with as a ward
"admitted to the state control...
"..given under hand and seal at this court...
"..this 10th day of April, 1973."
When I received my welfare files,
it didn't make sense to me.
It just didn't add up.
It was just all disconnected and rearranged.
I knew the family.
I got to the first page
and I broke down.
I felt for Brenda.
I couldn't believe what they were writing
about Brenda's mother and father.
They were making all these accusations
but they never had the story because they never asked.
Someone else telling our story made me angry.
It wasn't who we were.
It wasn't reflecting our family structure.
It wasn't the truth.
♪ I got the joy bells
♪ In my heart
♪ I got the joy bells
♪ In my heart
♪ I'll sing his praises
♪ Throughout the ages
♪ I've got the joy bells
♪ In my heart. ♪
I'll never forget them songs...
...'cause it meant a lot to me
to sing them in the churches and that.
Yeah.
Oh, everything made us happy, Everything.
When we got married, we were just so happy.
We had children. We were happy with them.
And Gary, he was a pastor.
He loved talking about the Lord to people.
We went places, done a lot of travelling around.
And, like, if we was at one house,
they'd ring up and say,
"Oh, we're gonna have a cottage meeting tonight.
"Can you come over?
"Bring the guitar, ukulele, whatever."
All night, just singing and praising the Lord
and sitting up just talking, you know.
One day we just decided to go out to Gilgandra.
Gary was working on the council with his brother.
We stayed with a Christian family.
But before he goes to work,
he used to get a bag of lollies,
and every time they'd come home,
they'd run out to him.
They loved him.
Every day he'd just go to work
and I'd be home with the children,
sending them to school and that.
We just heard a knock on the door one day.
They said they wanted to talk to me.
And when I went out, it was the welfare.
He just had his papers there and he said to me
that he'd come to take my children.
And I didn't know what to say or do.
And I begged him and asked him not to take them.
I said, "Just wait until my husband comes home."
But he said no, that he had to take them then.
So I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know where they went to.
They didn't tell me where they were taking them.
I had seven children
and the whole seven of them were taken.
When Gary came home,
he asked me where the children were,
and I told him what happened.
He went down to the police station
to see if they could help him.
He said to Gary that if he gets a better job,
decent house,
he would help him get them back.
That's what they told him.
And that's the police station you run down to
to tell them that your kids were taken.
The police station, yeah.
- Yeah. -That's it.
Gilgandra Courthouse.
That the courthouse there?
-Yeah. -That's the courthouse?
That's all changed.
Mum had asked us
to go out Gulargambone for a reunion with the family.
Gulargambone and Gilgandra,
they're neighbouring towns.
We went to the courthouse at Gilgandra.
Mum wouldn't get out of the car
but I wanted to have a look.
Come on, then. Brenda.
To me, that's the place
where we were deemed neglected children.
That's where we were told
Mum and Dad wasn't doing their job
as a mother and a father
by their standards.
Come on, let's go.
We can't hang around here with the police here.
It's funny, 'cause you're in a story together,
but you're on different journeys,
you're on different paths.
And sometimes it's hard to see someone else's path
when you're stuck in yours.
It's hard to see the trauma in someone else
when you're stuck in your own trauma.
When we had to go to court,
I just sat out with the children.
I thought it'd be easy
and that, you know, that they'd just say
"Oh, well, made a mistake,"
or, you know, "They can give your children back to you."
Gary came out and said that they have to go.
And then when he came out, the welfare...
...I said to him, "Can I make a bottle?"
And that's when I made the bottle.
Give it to Gary to...
...just give it to her when she got hungry.
He just put all the kids in the back,
drove off.
And they were just all trying to turn around
and look at their mother and father...
...to wave to us.
What could you say?
You can't say anything.
We were very lonely.
We'd just sit on their beds,
pick up their little teddy bears, dolls,
and cuddle them.
What can you do?
No little kids running around,
singing out, "Mummy, can I have this?"
"Daddy, can I have that?"
There's nothing you could do...
...but sit there with all that pain and hurt...
...of your children being taken from you.
It's all you can do.
This is where he took youse all, from here.
Do you want to go see it?
It's OK.
- Come on. - I'll be fine.
Hmm?
- It's good. - And where was we?
When they come and got us?
- Inside. Youse were playing. - Inside.
And I was out here talking to him, yeah.
Yeah.
And Pop was at work.
So we can go and see Bubbie.
Do youse want to go inside or what?
Yeah.
She hadn't been to the house where we were taken from
since we were taken.
I just wanted her, I suppose,
to go back to that haunted place
and to let her know that, you know,
it might be a scary place in our memories and our minds,
but I think returning to these places
brings a sense of healing.
That's all covered in too, eh? There was a bedroom there.
Yeah. There's still a bedroom out the back there.
The bedroom out there, that's where we were staying in,
that bedroom out there, yeah.
A lot of them down in...
I thought returning to the house
would bring back some memories for myself.
But...
...I-I didn't have any memories.
It felt...
...like being in an empty room.
That's how I could describe it.
There was nothing in there.
♪ Spend my time
♪ With my family
♪ Spend my time
♪ With my family. ♪
I tell you, it was very, very... lonely at night.
And all those lonely nights and Christmases
that they were away from us,
we were very sad
that we couldn't spend it with them.
But we knew in our hearts that we'd get them back.
We found a house in Armatree.
We made the house homely.
Gary would get up early to go to work.
I'd have to get up then with him
to get the house ready, clean,
for the welfare to come and check the house out.
He never said anything to me.
He'd just walk through the house, check it,
and away he'd go again.
What more could I do for the welfare?
Them fellas out there in... Gilgandra,
they wouldn't...
...wasn't helping us enough,
because they would just come into the house, check it out,
and you'd... you'd never see them until the next week.
We just thought that if we come back to Newcastle,
we'd be seeing other welfares down here.
And when we came back down here,
we got a house in Mayfield
and that's where we had our other baby that we had.
I just done the house up
the same way I did in Gilgandra.
Gary would be at work every day
and the welfare would come, talk to me.
Very kind fella.
All of a sudden,
we got them saying, you know,
you can get your children back.
And we were just excited.
So thrilled, we was.
We got two home.
Then we got another two home,
another two, and then...
It was good that we had those children with us,
but I knew the other one was coming.
All my children came back to me,
and that's the most important thing in my life...
...'cause I don't know what I would have done
without my children.
And when I got them back,
we just enjoyed life.
We settled down,
tried to give them the best life that we could.
I'm a good mother.
Yeah. Good mother.
Going back through Mum's side of the story,
I felt like I was finally getting some answers,
but I...
...I just couldn't put the pieces together.
There was pieces missing, like a puzzle.
And if I didn't go back and find answers
on both sides of my families,
black and white,
I still wouldn't know who I am.
I still wouldn't know where I belong.
I've always had a memory there.
I knew it was my white father
taking me back to my mother and father's place.
I thought that they had just dropped me off
and, you know, I thought
they were coming back to pick me up and take me home.
For a long time, I felt abandoned by my white father.
I thought that they didn't want me anymore.
I wanted to know now
did they ever love me?
Did they ever think about me?
And I knew there was something missing,
and that was my little white sister.
There was a deeper love there that nothing could take away.
And that longing inside of me was calling me.
When I went back into the files,
I saw the address that we had lived at.
So I just searched up and down the street
on the... on Google.
Things started coming back to me.
I had some sort of connection there.
I had been there before.
My memories were there.
I just didn't know how to reconnect to that place.
She was so excited to find the address.
But at the same time,
it was that fear of being rejected again,
the scariness of all the "what ifs",
'cause she knew if she opened that door,
it could hurt.
But also, I couldn't...
...do it out of respect for my mother.
And I wanted to...
...get her permission to do that
before I even went there.
Brenda was putting it off.
She was hesitant and reluctant and she wanted me to do it,
and I said to Brenda, "This is not my space.
"You need to do this. This is your story."
I was beating around the bush
and just making conversation, I think, and...
...I just plucked up the courage to ask her.
"Can I go see my white family?"
Yeah, and she just said,
"What do you want to go find them for?"
I'm her mum.
I was the one that had her.
And I fought for her...
...until I got her back.
"Why would you want to go
"and visit your white family again...
"..when you've been taken away from me?"
You know?
"And to get youse all home, it was just..."
Just so happy to get them all home.
And to say, "Nobody will touch my kids again, nobody.
"Nobody will take my kids again."
She had a story and I had a story,
and my side told me that there was love there...
...where her side was telling her
that there was hurt and pain there.
And I could understand that.
You know, why would she want to go back
and see those people,
her white parents who looked after her?
But there's also a bit of love in me that...
...I can give to her a blessing
and say, "Right, well, you can go back and you can...
"..search for your white mum and dad.
"Find out."
Mum had the grace
to let me do what I needed to do,
and then I thought, "Oh, this is it."
Are you putting them herbs on now?
Yeah.
I thought we could look up the name,
my little white sister's name, Rebecca Ockers.
So, Mark's daughters, Kiara and Amy,
started to search for that.
I think we had 'Ockers'.
All we had was Ockers, and it was Eugene, Jesse and Rebecca.
- And a Conchita and... - And a Conchita and Herman.
We were just searching, searching, searching.
And then we finally click onto,
like, maybe our 30th web page.
Oh.
This is what it kind of came up with.
"Rebecca Regina Lamond/Ockers."
And then it had, "Daughter of Herman and Conchita Ockers,
"mother to Blake and Shae, sister to Eugene and Jesse."
And they found a death notice...
...of Rebecca's.
And I said to them...
..."It can't be true.
"That..."
So I asked them to look at the birth date on the notice,
with the birth date on my files, from the welfare files.
And it was her.
The one I felt closest to in my life
was now forever out of my life.
All I could do was walk into my room and cry my heart out.
Brenda needed some time, some space
to reflect on that.
That's what amazes me about her.
She's very resilient.
She didn't have closure with Rebecca.
But she was also drawn from the love she had
from her white mother and father.
And our hope was...
...are they still around?
Are they still alive?
Can we find them?
So, that was our next step.
We found Conchita.
We couldn't find her before because her name is Connie.
She goes by Connie, not Conchita.
So we were like, "We found them, Brenda."
"Hi. I'm Kiara Matthews. I'm Brenda's stepdaughter.
"She would love to meet up or even talk on the phone
"if you would want to."
Connie then responded, "We would love to talk to her."
- Smiley face. - Smiley face.
I was... I was really excited.
There's been a whole big gap in my life for so long,
and now I'm... I'm finally getting something.
Connie said to Kiara
that she would ring me that night.
I just wanted to prepare myself.
I just wanted that moment for me.
After so many years, to actually get a message
to say that, you know, Brenda wanted to get in contact,
I was just blown away.
I just couldn't believe it.
I just said, "Maybe it's not her."
Connie said, "It is Brenda.
"And she wants to know if we'll talk to her."
And I says, "Of course! Of course we will."
We were waiting on the table, we're sitting there,
anxious to... to ring.
I think we rang a bit earlier than we were supposed to.
Once we got through, it was just quiet.
And then all of a sudden, we said, "Hello?"
And then we heard Brenda say, "Hello?" very quietly.
I said, "I can't believe that it's you."
I'm speechless.
All I say to them is, "Well, what do youse look like now?"
I said, "Oh, I'm a bit like Brad Pitt.
"A little bit shorter."
He doesn't look anything like Brad Pitt.
So, um, yeah, I was like, "Oh, yeah, do you?"
And he calls me 'Bren' and...
...it really made me feel like
I had something there with them.
I said to them,
"It'd be lovely to come and meet youse."
We were just hoping...
Couldn't come quick enough to see her,
and to get back some of the history
that we'd lost with her.
Then I said, "Oh, OK, then.
"See you soon."
It was a pretty long drive,
but we wanted to get down there,
so we didn't worry about the time.
She kept in contact while she was driving down,
where she was,
so we were getting more and more hyped up
to see her.
Get a phone call, look down, and it's Mum.
When Brenda Mum gives you a phone call,
if you don't answer, she don't give up.
She'll just dial that number continuously,
and I don't know how many missed calls Brenda had.
I think it just hit me after that,
"What if I open this door
"and it doesn't go how I want it to go?
"If it doesn't look like how I want it to look?"
But we just kept going.
It was very nerve-racking,
'cause I kept looking down the driveway
and you didn't know, you know?
We saw the car drive up and that was it.
We just... I just burst into tears.
And...
Because, um...
...it was something...
...we were waiting for for so long.
And, uh...
...when... when she came out...
...we just ran to each other.
We just hugged and...
...and that was... it was such a good thing...
...after so long.
Driving up the driveway,
I told Mark to get it on video, on the iPad.
She gave me one job.
She said, "Mark, take the iPad."
And I'm not good on that at the best of times.
I didn't film it.
So, I didn't do my job well.
But the emotion was too much.
So, we missed the opportunity.
And...
Yeah, we just cuddled and embraced each other.
We sit down, made a cup of tea
and sat and looked at each other in awe,
you know, like, "This is happening."
They showed us photos of all the family.
And in nearly every photo,
me and Rebecca's holding hands
and close, cuddling.
Yeah, I just... I wanted to know,
did Rebecca ever think about me?
Did she ever wonder where I was?
Did she want to find me?
Well, she'd already known that she was passed.
She died of a medical problem.
She was just out of hospital and it went wrong.
How do you get over that? You know?
Rebecca always had...
...wanting to catch up with Brenda again.
I think she was searching as well.
It's just sad that we couldn't... it didn't happen.
But at least they've still got...
...she's still got some photos and some happy memories
of when they were together,
and Rebecca, growing up,
always sort of thinking of her as well.
I think inside it was...
...unlocking doors
that had been closed for a long, long time.
I saw someone who loved that life,
someone who fitted in,
someone who...
...was happy, happy to be there.
After we settled down
and we started asking each other questions,
there was so much to talk about.
Brenda was excited and getting answers
and finding out more about her parents
and more about Rebecca.
And we were both feeling the warmth from them.
Yeah, we were just sitting at the table, yarning.
Then, suddenly, Connie asked me a question.
I said to Brenda, "How's your family?"
I said, "Is your father still an alcoholic?"
I don't know how hard I kicked Brenda,
but I just straightaway gave her a kick in the shins,
as if, "Where did that come from?!"
"What?
"My father was never an alcoholic.
"Why are they talking this way about my father?
"They don't even know him."
And I said, "Oh, we always thought that
"that was the reason you were taken,
"because he was an alcoholic.
"That was... That's what we heard."
It was good, in a way,
because then that opened the door for a conversation
to bring in the truth.
And then Mark jumped in and said, "No, no."
And Brenda too.
There was never any trouble with the alcohol
because, you know, he's always been a man of God.
And I says, "Well, you know,
"this is some of the information we were getting."
They were lied to and we were lied to.
My mum and dad were lied to.
I remember her going down there.
She told me, rang me and told me, yeah.
And I just asked her, "How did it go?"
And... and, "What happened?"
And she brought back some photos and showed us.
And I suppose in my heart I knew that she was safe...
...and she was well looked after
...by these white parents.
And that they...
...that they had the love there to give her,
as well as my love for her.
We were having a yarn with Mum around the table
about our experience down there with my white family
and what they had told us
about what they were told, how Dad was an alcoholic.
She was shocked. She was hurt.
She was angry.
And I don't know what they thought.
I honestly don't know what the white parents thought.
We were a Christian family, preaching the Gospel.
And I don't understand that
or why they'd say things like that.
I couldn't take that.
If that's what was based on
the children getting taken away,
why wasn't it written down?
It just... you just can't get it out of your mind.
Why?
Why did he do it?
"However, it appears
"that until early 1976,
"there has been no requests by the parents
"for information on Brenda."
They're saying at no stage
did you ever request information on your daughter.
That makes you out to be
a mother who doesn't even care for her children.
Care about her children.
It says in another file that...
She's to start school...
...she's to start school in '77.
Yet on there it says '76. She's come back...
And in mine it's '77, 25 June.
So... so what we're now discovering
on every sibling's file,
there's all different dates and all these discrepancies
and nothing adds up.
-Nothing. -Nothing.
I was looking for answers...
...from the system that took us, that broke us.
It was just...
...seemed like lies.
The system pulls you down,
and Brenda didn't need to be pulled down any further.
Nothing is fact, nothing is accurate.
They just write things as they see fit.
Come on, mate. End of the year, every year.
That day, all I can remember is...
...getting taken in the car.
They took us all to a hospital.
I can still remember this smell, eh,
of methylated spirits.
They must have been...
...putting it in their hairs
and just trying to scrub them with it.
I can... listen... hearing all this screaming,
bellowing out for Mum and Dad and...
And, um, I said, "I'm supposed to be here to protect them."
You know? Like...
We never really talked about
what had happened to us.
Some of us still don't.
Going back through story
I think has helped me to open up a bit more,
and now is allowing them
to maybe talk about their story a bit more.
...but because you're the oldest and you remember more
and you got a bit more to tell than most of us.
I was fostered out to this family.
Nelson Bay, wasn't it?
White family up in Nelson Bay.
And we were just doing some shopping.
Next minute I heard this voice
and it said, "There's Gary Boy."
Yeah, I turned around and it was Dad.
That was the...
...sweetest voice you ever heard, you know?
He was so excited and happy.
I wanted to run over and cuddle him, but...
Like, with the... them foster parents there,
I didn't know what to do, so...
You know, they were 12 foot away
but it felt like 1,200 miles, you know?
It's just terrible what they done to us
and what they done to Mum and Dad.
Like she said, they shouldn't have took us.
They should have just left us there. We were...
She looked after us really good, Mum, you know?
They should have just left us there.
To the mothers and the fathers,
the brothers and the sisters,
for the breaking up of families and communities,
for the pain, suffering and hurt
of these Stolen Generations,
we say sorry.
A future where this Parliament resolves
that the injustices of the past
must never, never happen again.
After I applied for the compensation scheme,
I received this letter.
"From the information provided,
"the Stolen Generations Reparation Scheme
"has determined that you do not meet
"the eligibility requirements
"as your date of birth is 24 November 1970.
"This means that you could not have been removed
"by the New South Wales Aboriginal Welfare Board,
"as it was abolished in 1969."
Growing up,
I had been told that I was a stolen child.
And then they turn around and they tell me that...
...I wasn't.
In their eyes,
taking us away was the right thing to do.
That meant Brenda's mother and father
were still classified as neglectful parents
and Brenda was still a neglected child.
It's not right. It's not right.
We have feelings.
As mothers, we have feelings. We hurt.
I never, ever neglected my children.
Never.
It doesn't matter about the Act.
Doesn't matter about it.
My children are still a part of the Stolen Generation.
The Stolen Generation.
It felt like being rejected again,
abandoned.
All I saw was the hurt and the pain.
Who am I?
What's my identity in this space?
We went to the system to try to get help and healing.
And every... door that I thought was open
...slammed on my face.
That just made me even more angrier,
but determined...
...to find another way for justice.
I thought the story needed to be told.
I thought the truth needed to be told.
Expressing all that anger and frustration out on paper,
I can see the lies being uncovered.
I realised that the government were right
in saying we weren't removed
by the NSW Aboriginal Board,
because the Act had changed.
But the action didn't.
The action stayed the same.
And it doesn't matter which Act it come under.
We were still stolen children.
That has given me the will to keep going on
and finding... a new identity.
Oh, hey!
-Hi! - Hello, darling!
It's so nice to see you! You look amazing.
-So do you. - Oh, wow!
I can't believe you're here. It's so good.
Hello.
- How have you been? Good? - Yeah, good.
-Reconnecting again with my white family,
I think I was in a happy space.
I had some sort of connection there.
Well, my very first memory,
so there's nothing before Brenda.
And then I couldn't say goodbye to you.
Like, I remember my mum saying,
"Rich, you've gotta say goodbye. Give Brenda a hug."
I'm like, "No." Couldn't do it.
And that's you and Rebecca.
At some points, I could feel them
wanting to get close to me,
but I would just back off.
When I got back to my black family
and I speak or I talk or whatever,
they tell me I'm acting white.
But if I was brought up with whitefellas
for the first five, six, seven years...
...how else am I supposed to act?
Didn't know culture, we didn't know...
...how to be Aboriginal,
'cause a couple of generations ago
we were disconnected from that.
How are you, Aunty?
Good to see you! Mwah!
This is your family tree here.
I want you to put an asterisk
next to... Maria.
She's Aboriginal.
- She is the mother of Edward. BRENDA: OK.
He's Aboriginal.
We always knew Dad's country was Biripi,
so we had connection there.
But there was another half missing,
until Kim showed us
where Mum's mother was from and her mother was from,
which was in Walla, in Wiradjuri country.
Because you get a lot of your colour from your father.
Mm.
Your mother's a lot lighter than you, isn't she?
Mm.
Very much.
You throw someone like me into the mix,
their policies worked quite well on my family.
They bred the colour out of my family.
They might be able to breed the outside colour out,
but they'll never breed the black out.
Where was the first point of contact with whitefellas
for our...
For our mob,
all this was settled down around Melbourne way.
This gets settled quite quickly,
and also we get people from Adelaide
coming over into these places.
- We do fight back. -Mm.
- We fight back hard. -Mm...
The Wiradjuri had an uprising.
Next thing, martial law's declared, massive war.
Lots of our men were killed off,
lots of women killed as well.
And so many of the babies
were sent to different missions
that were started all around NSW.
So, that's when they start taking our babies
from that area.
Did you know your mother was taken away
and put in a home?
I found those records.
Not only was she in a home,
so was her mother.
My grannie.
I feel like I'm just...
...travelling through a house with nowhere to rest,
nowhere to plant my feet.
I just feel like a wanderer
that just keeps wandering.
You're looking for answers, you're looking for belonging,
you're looking for healing.
But where do you find that
if everybody else around you is hurt too?
Mark can grab the tape.
Hey, we going pretty good.
He said "Where youse going?"
I said, "We're going down here to have a burial."
- Gee whiz.
I haven't heard this one.
There's him thinking himself
don't bother going down there all that in the rain...
♪ "Come home, come home
♪ "It's suppertime"
♪ We're going home
♪ At last
♪ Winding down
♪ An old familiar pathway... ♪
Dad used to always tell us that he loved us.
And he loved singing. He loved singing.
And a couple of times we thought we would lose him.
They told us that we'd have to go down
'cause he wouldn't live to see a certain day.
When we got in there...
...he said, "Where you going, Brenda?"
And so I said, "Oh, I'm not going anywhere, Dad.
"I'm staying here with you."
And he said to me...
..."Sing me a song."
But I couldn't.
The pain wouldn't allow me
to feel joy and happiness.
But I've realised...
...in our culture...
...that's what we did -
we shared stories, we'd sing about them.
And I believe that's what he was telling me,
to sing him a song.
And I'm doing that through story.
I'm singing his song.
Going back and opening the doors
that were hurtful and painful
has helped me to find the healing.
'Cause you can't erase history.
But you can acknowledge it and...
...we can find a way to move forward.
Instead of focusing on the hurt and the pain,
I had to focus on the love.
That was still there. That never left me.
I'm just reflecting my father and my mother.
That's... that's all I can do.
I can only do what my parents have taught us...
...black and white.
Hello, Dad!
-Hello. - How are you?
- Good. - I missed you.
- Yeah. - You miss me?
- Yes. - I love you.
- Yeah. - Mm.
You feeling alright?
Yeah.
Ah.
You missed me, did you?
- Yeah. - Mmm.
Guess where we're off to tomorrow.
We're off to Sydney tomorrow.
I'm taking Mum.
- Can Mum come? - Yeah.
- Come for a ride down Sydney? - Yeah.
I'm going to introduce her to Connie and Mac,
the foster parents.
So she's gonna meet them.
Yeah.
I wish you were there.
I wish you could come with us.
- Yeah. -Mm.
Love you.
Yes.
Oh, feel that breeze.
Oh, my goodness.
What are you worried about, Mum?
It's more, um...
...getting scarier and sort of frightening me and...
...because it's getting closer...
-Yeah... - ...to them.
-Yeah. - ...to meeting with me and...
Yeah.
I know I asked you to meet up with them,
but why did you agree?
Why did you say yes?
I'd just like to meet them.
And I...I gotta prove to them that, these white people,
you know, that I was, this Aboriginal lady,
was a good mother...
...and did... never neglected her children.
I looked after them.
That’s what I’ve got to do.
I'm... I'm nervous.
I'm just... Yeah, just to, um...
-She has been all week. - Yeah.
Thinking about it, you know?
I'm just more than happy to meet her
and... and talk, you know?
Talk out sort of what eventuated
over the years between everyone.
I'll get more nervous when they knock.
Hello, Brenda?
- Hello. - How are you?
- Good. Where are you? - We're about 10 minutes away.
Oh, true? 10 minutes away.
OK. Love you. 'Bye.
Continue on to The Crescent,
then your destination will be on the right.
Hello, hello.
- Hello. -Here she is.
How are you, darling?
Hey? Good.
Oh, it's good to see you.
Good to see you in these times.
Really is.
Yeah, hang on. Hello, darling.
Good on you.
You're very brave to do this.
- Hey? Yeah, there's Connie. - Yeah.
How you going?
Oh, look at you.
Yeah, I can see you.
-Yeah. -Go and sit down.
- Sit down. -Mm.
Bringing my two sets of parents together
was a way of reconciling with the past
so that they can tell each other
the real truth,
not what was written down and made up,
but the real truth that was in their hearts.
...the hard part.
You know, the way...
...me and my husband looked after our children,
the... you know, the welfare had no right
saying them things to youse, you know?
I just want to thank youse for taking care of her...
Oh.
...and looking after her for me.
Anytime.
I can understand how you felt.
That must have been terrible.
- Yeah. It was terrible. - That must have been terrible.
To finally meet up with her and say, you know,
"It's us. We're not... bad.
"We're just sorry for what's happened to you."
Yeah, she's...
She's an incredible lady.
- Here's your little... - I know.
She's accepted us now
and I feel that we can...
...we can both be good parents.
One, two, three.
We can all just fit in together...
...as one.
That's the love that we gotta share with Brenda.
Black and white, share the love with Brenda.
- Mwah. -Nice to meet you.
-Yes. - See you, baby.
- See you. -Take care.
See you later.
'Bye! Love you!
Finally, truth is coming out
that I wasn't a neglected child.
And the system that told me I was
doesn't have any hold on me anymore.
I'm sharing truth on both sides of the story.
And I can share it with anyone.
So for me to pass down healing
to my children and grandchildren,
I couldn't ask for anything more...
...compensation than that.
The truth has set me free.
And I can just walk in that freedom now.
♪ Many years ago
♪ In days of childhood
♪ I used to play
♪ Till evening shadows come
♪ And winding down
♪ That old familiar pathway
♪ I'd hear my mother call
♪ At set of sun
♪ "Come home, come home
♪ "It's suppertime"
♪ The shadow
♪ Lengthens fast
♪ "Come home, come home
♪ "It's suppertime"
♪ We're going home
♪ At last... ♪