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MY MOTHER’S BIRTH
This one, before my mother bin’ born. Today this boab is down at the school in Warmun.
Gardiya (whitefellas) never cared if they were breaking a woman or not. They made ‘em work.
One day the gardiya, maybe a police man, I don’t know, one day the gardiya grabbed my grandmother and chained her to that tree. They bin’ belting her, hitting her with a stick. She was feeling sick. She was feeling sick – for 5 or 6 days she was feeling crook.
And that vegi garden that used to be down at the junction, that’s where she had my mother. Mrs Radigan found them in the afternoon when she was collecting cabbage and carrots for dinner. She heard a baby crying. This baby was my mother.
My grandmother was all swollen up. She had died but the baby was alive. Mrs Radigan been cut my mother’s cord and saved her. The Radigan’s grew her up. My mother spoke high English, but she also spoke Gija. Me, I speak like my father.
