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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 46 | August 2000


Songs tell the story of an amazing life

Bob Randall

Bob Randall performed a number of songs during his Spotlight talk. Photograph: James Nomarhas

I've had an amazing experience of life and have a lot of stories to tell,’ acclaimed Australian folk singer/songwriter, Bob Randall told the audience during his recent Spotlight talk on Oral History at the National Library.

Bob has recorded his experiences for the Library’s Oral History Project ‘Bringing Them Home’, which is collecting accounts of Indigenous people separated from their families and others involved in the child removal process under the then-Government’s assimilation policies.

‘I tell my stories through my songs. Oral history is the way my people have always passed information down, through stories, song, dance or painting. Use these methods and you will never need pen and paper.’

Bob was born in 1934 at Middleton Pond on Tempe Station in the Central Desert region of the Northern Territory. He is a member of the Pitjantjatjara people and one of the listed traditional owners of Uluru. His mother, Tanguawa worked as a housemaid at Angus Downs cattle station for Bob’s father, station owner, Bill Liddle.

Bob and his mother lived away from the main house with their extended family and he had little contact with his Scotsman father. At the age of eight, Bob was taken away from his mother, whom he never saw again.

‘I was institutionalised because I didn’t wear clothes or live in a house. In that natural way of living, there was no need for me to have anything other than what I had.

‘It was not that I lacked love. As well as my biological connection, I had five mothers and six fathers. More than that, every single person in my nation is part of my family.’

Bob was sent to Bungalow Telegraph Station in Alice Springs, the receiving home for Indigenous children from Central Australia.

‘They gave me clothes to wear and put me in a house—and I didn’t like it.’

At age nine, Bob was moved north to the Croker Island Reservation in Arnhem Land. He remained at the reservation until he was 20, working at various jobs, including as a carpenter, stockman and crocodile hunter. While still a teenager, he married Amy, a member of the Amadjera Tribe who had also been removed from her family. They settled in Darwin soon after their son Allan was born, followed by John, Dorothea and Anita. [Bob also has three children— Itima, Tjugingji and Shane—from his second marriage.]

In the mid-1960s, the family moved to Adelaide, where Bob completed a welfare residential worker’s course.

‘A lot of our kids were being locked up in jail at this stage and I thought I would like to help them.’

In 1970, Bob helped establish the Adelaide Community College for Aboriginal people and lectured at the college on Aboriginal cultures. He began to gain recognition for his song writing in the early 1970s, when his song, ‘My Brown Skin Baby [They Took Him Away]’ caught the attention of an ABC journalist. This led to the ground-breaking ABC documentary of the same name, which won the Bronze Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and focused national and international attention on the issue of separation. The song was also later used in the award-winning 1986 Australian film The Fringe Dwellers, although, added Bob, ‘they changed some of the words. They were too strong for some politicians.’

Bob Randall,  Pam Gatenby & Doreen Mellor

Bob has appeared in the documentary films Mixed Up Man and Secret Country by John Pilger and had roles in the movies Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave. His work with Aboriginal communities has taken many forms. He has served as the Director of the Northern Australia Legal Aid Service and established Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander centres at the Australian National University, University of Canberra and University of Wollongong.

He continues to present his cultural awareness programs at schools and other institutions and in workplaces. His life-long efforts were recognised in 1999 when he was named ‘Indigenous Person of the Year’ at the 1999 National Aboriginal and Islander Day of Celebration (NAIDOC) awards.

Bob is writing his autobiography but it is proving a difficult task. ‘There is so much to tell, how do you fit it all in one book?’

[The $1.6 million Bringing Them Home Project was launched in 1999 in response to a recommendation of the report of the same name into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. Between 300–400 people will be interviewed for the project, including separated children, family members, foster parents, administrators and missionaries. After the project is completed in 2002, the interviews will be compiled into a major publication, documenting a significant period of Australia’s history.]

Above right: Bob Randall is pictured with (from left) Assistant Director-General Collections Management, Pam Gatenby and Project Manager, Bringing Them Home Oral History Project, Doreen Mellor. Photograph: James Nomarhas

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