Reconciliation and Social Justice Library

Bringing them Home - The Report

Chapter 1 The Inquiry

So the next thing I remember was that they took us from there and we went to the hospital and I kept asking - because the children were screaming and the little brothers and sisters were just babies of course, and I couldn't move, they were all around me, around my neck and legs, yelling and screaming. I was all upset and I didn't know what to do and I didn't know where we were going. I just thought: well, they're police, they must know what they're doing. I suppose I've got to go with them, they're taking me to see Mum.You know this is what I honestly thought. They kept us in hospital for three days and I kept asking, `When are we going to see Mum?' And no-one told us at this time. And I think on the third or fourth day they piled us in the car and I said, `Where are we going?' And they said, `We are going to see your mother'. But then we turned left to go to the airport and I got a bit panicky about where we were going ... They got hold of me, you know what I mean, and I got a little baby in my arms and they put us on the plane. And they still told us we were going to see Mum. So I thought she must be wherever they're taking us.

Confidential submission 318, Tasmania: removal from Cape Barren Island, Tasmania, of 8 siblings in the 1960s. The children were fostered separately.