Avis Gale was born 52 years ago under a Quandong tree near Ceduna, on the edge of the flat, dry Nullabor Plain in central South Australia. When her Aboriginal mother got pregnant, the white family she was working for sent her back to her people. Only a few months ago Avis discovered who her father, a white man, was.
At one week old, Avis was taken away from her mother by the Aboriginal Protection Board to be brought up by the United Aborigines' Mission at the Colebrook Home, some 500 miles away in Adelaide.
At two months, she was rushed to hospital with six other babies from the home suffering from acute gastro-enteritis. The others died. She survived - and still does, after life-threatening illness, suicide attempts, morphine addiction, violence, prison terms and a horrific drink-induced car smash.
During those years at Colebrook, the children were woken up at 5.30 every morning to read their bibles. When Avis was eight she rebelled. 'It got that way when it didn't make no sense to me. I started feeling very angry at what was happening to me and I took it out on the bibles.'
The Guy Fawkes night bonfire provided the opportunity to burn the pages from the 30 bibles she had stolen and torn up. She was discovered and beaten with a rubber hose. She was told she would go to hell and 'H' was branded on her leg. But hell had already come to her in the loveless years of her childhood, through enforced religion, sexual abuse and the spasmodic visits of a black woman she was told was her mother but from whom she hid.
Later Avis had four children of her own, 'but I was not a good mother', she says. 'I had never experienced love so didn't know how to love my children. I didn't know what family life was.' As an adult, Avis took her mother to live with her for a short time before she died, but they never really connected.
At 13 she was allowed to move to another hostel run by the two women missionaries who had started the first Colebrook Home. They were held in high regard. A couple of stable years followed and she did well at school. But the pain and anger that were never far from the surface kept bubbling over. She was nicknamed 'Wild Dog'. Her constant running away meant confrontations with the law and school authorities. She was removed to a home for 'uncontrollables'. She completed her schooling and later qualified as a child care worker. 'I've never been on the dole,' she says proudly.
Her violent outbursts meant spells in prison. 'Once I had a taste of prison it became my home because I was so confused - where did I come from? What was my culture?' (As children they had not been allowed to ask questions.) She would play up on purpose so that her sentences were extended. It was a secure place with three meals a day-a lot better than the concrete drainage pipes in one of the local parks where she and a friend lived for a while, the ends covered with newspaper to keep out the draughts.
In prison Avis was introduced to drugs. She learnt to inject morphine into her tongue so that there were no tell tale scars on her arms.
A complete breakdown saw her admitted to the local psychiatric hospital, and it was there that she decided, with the help of the doctor, that she was not going to be beaten. With the support of Lois and Amy O'Donoghue, who had been like older sisters to her during the Colebrook years (see Profile) Avis began her journey out of hell.
She became the manager of a hostel for Aboriginal children from the centre of Australia who came to Adelaide for education. In 1995 a National Inquiry was established to report on the effects of the assimilation policies which removed mixed blood Aboriginal children from their mothers. The Inquiry invited those from the 'stolen generation' to tell their stories in confidence.
Avis came forward and for the first time told her story and began to claim her Aboriginality. Her skin colour had made her unacceptable both to her mother's people and to the white community. The pent-up tears of a lifetime began to flow as she shared her hurts with people she started to trust.
'I was just crashing as all the hurts came to the surface,' she says.
She has linked up with a reconciliation group who live around the site of the old Colebrook Home. With them she is raising funds to establish a national memorial on the site to honour the memory of the grieving mothers whose children were taken away. She helped to organize the recent reconciliation day on the site and she is frequently invited to speak about her experiences. So far, she says, each time has helped the healing.
She was recently given a bible. For weeks she could not bring herself to touch it. When she did, she read, 'Love your enemies'. It affirmed the conclusion she had already reached, that her healing and freedom would lie in her decision to forgive. Not to condone and not necessarily to forget, but to let go. And to learn to love.
Recently, the Synod of the Uniting Church in South Australia voted to apologize unconditionally for their part in the removal policies. Avis and others of the 'stolen generation' were invited to receive the apology. 'It freaked me out,' (a favourite expression) she said, because she realized that she too had apologies to make. 'One day they will have to meet their Maker,' she said, 'but so will I.'
Her irrepressible sense of humour and amazingly warm heart have survived along with the physical scars. God, 'that black tjilpi (old fellow) upstairs', she says, 'keeps freaking me out'. 'My job now is going out to the younger generation, listening, understanding, because in my day I had no-one to listen to me.'
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