| Transcript (page 3 of 10) |
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| It was the first place of employment of that grandfather of mine, the cricketer, when he was only a youth, Main Camp Homestead. So its all connected and tied in, you know, and he gave me permission ... when I was doing the research he gave me a squatters diary belonging to his grandfather, Cunningham Henderson, and in that it even had all the written stuff down about our people and how he would never have been able to have his property and run them without Aboriginal stockmen. And there were women too, my mother was a stockwoman, used to muster stock, you know. |
| Frank Heimans: So what sort of things did they write about the Aboriginal people and in what tone was it? |
| Ruby Langford Ginibi: Oh, well it was a real condescending tone, but anyhow he did acknowledge that he would never have been able to have his properties without the help of Aboriginal peoples involvement, you know. Anyhow, he wrote great about grandfather and they looked after grandfather pretty well because of the cricket - they were the ones that played the cricket with him - but they were also the dispossessers of my people for our land and our dreaming there in Bundjalung country, you know. I counted, I think it was, as I said, about six homesteads, Minumia, Gibberagee, Coolum Coolum. Minumia means place of plenty, plenty bush tucker, you know, and stuff like that. But there was six of them that they could rattle off like that, these were properties that they owned. |
| Frank Heimans: Now, what was life like on the mission, on Box Ridge Mission? That was near Coraki, wasnt it? |
| Ruby Langford Ginibi: Yeah. |
| Frank Heimans: Can you tell me? What do you remember about it? |
| Ruby Langford Ginibi: Everything. You had a white manager, and the time that I was born there, like when I was there, what I remember, is Mrs Hiscock, she was the manageress. You had to have permission to come and go. You were not allowed to go for outside work unless you had a little pass from that manager or manageress - they were like white commandants running this place. If your people wanted to come and spend some time with their relatives here they were specified a time and if they didnt leave then the police were sent to hunt them off. These missions were mostly out of town, out of sight, near rubbish dumps, and mine, Box Ridge Mission, was next to the cemetery at Coraki, right on the corner. Today, the last remnants of the racism there is the segregated cemetery, the white monolithic graves up here with all the big headstones and down here youve got the little fence posts, black, red and yellow, and the Aboriginal section. |
| Frank Heimans: You mean the whites and Aborigines were not buried in the same place? |
| Ruby Langford Ginibi: No way. When I was a kid there was segregated schools, a segregated hospital with Abos only, a ward down the back, and today its all in together this fine weather, you know, so its improved a little bit. But the people never intermixed socially. They divided people still; theres not been a coming together of the two cultures there, no, and my people are living in not third world conditions, fourth world conditions. They showed a documentary on 4-Corners in 1961, what the 4-Corners team did of my mission, and its a disgrace. |
| Frank Heimans: Yes, Ive seen that actually. |
| Ruby Langford Ginibi: Youve seen it? Then they had the audacity to come and ask me when I lived at Allawah Hostel would I like to talk about the mission where I was born and I said, I havent lived there since I was a child, you know, If you want to know about Box Ridge Mission you go and talk to the people that are living there. Miraculously, after that television program with 4-Corners was shown, I think it was four or six brand new houses, deadly houses were built, and they pulled down the old ones. Ive got photos of the old ones, Ive even got my sons painting of my Aunty Eileens house. See, Aunty Eileen was the only one left of dads family a couple of years ago, but shes gone now too, you know, so thats the last of dads family gone and the last of mums family gone. |
| Frank Heimans: Was Mrs Hiscock in charge of the mission? |
| Ruby Langford Ginibi: Mrs Hiscock was the manageress and she was a very stern old woman. She used to kick our bloody arses, me and Laurence Wilson who is the elder there now up home. We talk about her every time I go up home, you know. I usually got up every year but this year I havent been able to go up because theres no funds. But Lawrence is still living there but not on the mission. Its got no heart. Its not like it used to be when we were all there together as kids. The family unit was together, you know. We used to go fishing and supplement the old rations what she gave out every month, you know, sugar, tea, flour, plain flour and baking powder, golden syrup or treacle, and supplement it with some bush tucker what the men could catch, like cobra from the rotted willow wood in the river, or fishing, plenty of fish in those days, because the Richmond Rivers not far away, you know. So this was how we survived. |
| Frank Heimans: Well just stop for a minute because theres a chainsaw or something outside. |
| Frank Heimans: Resuming recording after the break. Ruby, Mrs Hiscock had another side to her, didnt she? She went on to run another place, what was it? |