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Glen Morris: Burnt Bridge, The Welfare Board, Doctors

My name is Glen Morris

My name is Glen Morris. I was born in 1951 in Kempsey on the Mid-North Coast of NSW. Me family lived on a Reserve there called Burnt Bridge. There was four of us in the family, me elder sister, meself, younger sister and younger brother. My father worked at the Golf Links as Green Keeper at Kempsey.

My mother passed away

I remember that when I was about 6 me mother had passed away. I remember vaguely she was pegging clothes on the line and it was raining and she died of a pneumonia. The Welfare Board in those days didn’t allow one parent to look after the family so we tried to negotiate with the Welfare Board to have one of the Aunty’s look after us while our father worked as a green keeper.

They didn’t allow this to happen they wanted to take us away and to adopt us out. So me Uncle decided that it was time to move. He had an old T Model Ford truck and he put us in the back of it, covered a tarp over us and transported us then from Kempsey to Armidale.

The Welfare Board came and wanted to take us...We were terrified of the police and we didn’t want to deal with the government departments

When we were in Armidale the Welfare Board came out to me old Aunty’s and again wanted to take us but the old Aunties and the Granny hid us out the back of the mission every time the police would come out to take us. We used to hide in the manholes in the ceiling. This happened for about at least two years before the Government accepted that we were better off with our own people and that one of me old Aunty’s could adopt me. It made us shy away from dealing with the government, the government people. We were terrified of the police and we didn’t want to deal with the government departments or the police themselves.

Painted white...I avoided doctors

I remember when we were living on the Armidale reserve there was old Doctor Ken Chews, she was a short little lady that comes. She had these big glasses on and she’d come out and she’d examine all the children and give them these like big horse tablets, like worming tablets, and they’d strip all of us, girls and boys, in the main street of the Reserve and then they would paint us with this white paint.

We thought it was paint, but it was a lotion that stopped people from getting scabies and of course we didn’t have scabies. But it burnt the hell out of you. We would of make out we could stand the lotion they put on us and then no sooner than the government doctor, Dr Ken Chews went, than we would run inside and wash it all off and dry ourselves.

Then years later I finally realised why I didn’t go to the doctors all the time. I avoided doctors because of the experience I had when I was a kid, being painted for something you didn’t have wrong. I avoided doctors right up until I was about 44 before I went to the doctors. I always maintained I was healthy, nothing wrong with me and I didn’t go to them. It has only been in the latter years now that I have started to trust the doctors and go back to have check ups to find out what is wrong with me. It’s an experience a lot of people went through.