{"id":3926,"date":"2013-07-07T13:52:02","date_gmt":"2013-07-07T03:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stumblingpast.wordpress.com\/?p=3926"},"modified":"2022-08-04T00:25:14","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T00:25:14","slug":"review-paint-me-black-by-claire-henty-gebert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/2013\/07\/07\/review-paint-me-black-by-claire-henty-gebert\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Paint me Black by Claire Henty-Gebert"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Book<\/a>
Paint Me Black by Claire Henty-Gebert (Aboriginal Studies Press: Canberra, 2005).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One day I was reading brief accounts in the newspaper written by some people who were over one hundred years old.\u00a0 And there she was, Margaret Somerville, the link to the book Paint Me Black<\/em>, that was waiting on my bedroom floor to be read.<\/em><\/p>\n

I was a missionary, I went to Croker Island, just off Darwin, and was a cottage mother at a home for part-Aboriginal children. The government had asked the church to take over care of these children. I’d been up there a few months when Darwin was bombed and then we had to be evacuated. The government and the church worked together to get us to Otford, a [then] campsite on the NSW south coast. It took six weeks to get all 95 children there. We spent four years at Otford and once the war was over,\u00a0 I was the only staff member that went back to Croker Island. I was there for\u00a0 24 years.<\/p>\n

Sydney Morning Herald<\/em><\/a>, 4 March 2013.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Claire Henty-Gebert was one of those children evacuated from Croker Island under the care of Margaret Somerville and her fellow missionaries.\u00a0 Henty-Gebert’s memoir,\u00a0Paint Me Black,<\/em> is an absorbing read.\u00a0 The clarity of her language and the power of her story engrossed me in this book. She has an amazing story to tell.<\/p>\n

Henty-Gebert’s mother was Aboriginal and her father was white.\u00a0 She was born sometime in the 1920s in a remote part of the Northern Territory.\u00a0 Along with thousands of children like her she was removed from her Aboriginal family at a young age.<\/p>\n

She was first brought up in the Bungalow, a government institution in Alice Springs with other Aboriginal children who had been removed from their parents.\u00a0 Then in November 1941 Clare and other children were moved to Croker Island off the north coast of Australia.\u00a0 They arrived there just days before the Japanese strike at Pearl Harbour.<\/p>\n

Women and children were evacuated from the Northern Territory, but not the Aboriginal children at Croker Island.\u00a0 They were taught how to identify Japanese planes – a useful skill as the island was on a major wartime air route.<\/p>\n

Darwin was bombed by the Japanese on 19th February 1942.\u00a0 The children and missionaries were still on the island and now potentially in great danger.\u00a0 In early 1942 they left the island and walked through Arnhem Land to Nourlangie. \u00a0 They spent some time at the military base at Pine Creek which was where American soldiers were based:<\/p>\n

The American soldiers were very good to us. Our camp was made ‘out of bounds’, and they gave us a guard to watch over us every night.\u00a0 Bombing raids were conducted over Darwin every day now, and enemy planes were coming down over Pine Creek and as far south as Katherine.<\/p>\n

p. 26<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From Pine Creek the children and their carers continued an epic journey south to their wartime refuge near Sydney. [googlemaps https:\/\/maps.google.com.au\/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Croker+Island&daddr=nourlangie+to:Pine+Creek,+Northern+Territory&hl=en&geocode=FRp2Vf8dkkTmBykjMTJ8hv_FLDEwtrANqRcCDw%3BFWG8O_8d523qByE8cDG-Q28KFCnrNF5GiXW3LDE8cDG-Q28KFA%3B&aq=0&oq=pine&sll=-12.908198,131.182251&sspn=4.047089,4.943848&gl=au&mra=ls&ie=UTF8&t=m&ll=-12.506303,131.759033&spn=3.217292,2.340088&z=8&output=embed&w=425&h=600]On the map above, ‘A’ is Croker Island, ‘B’ is Nourlangie where the children walked to from the coast, and ‘C’ is Pine Creek where the children rested briefly on their way south. (If this map does not load properly, the problem should be fixed by refreshing the page.)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

After reading this gripping account I was left with wanting to know more.\u00a0 Claire Henty-Gebert was young when she was evacuated and so would not have been privy to all the details of what was occurring. Even the adults would not have completely understood the situation because of the censorship and general confusion of being in a war zone.<\/p>\n

This is not just a story about wartime Australia.\u00a0 Clare Henty-Gebert shares her life in Darwin after the war, her experience of Cyclone Tracy and her quest to find her family from which she was removed so long ago. I don’t want to spoil the story for you so I won’t reveal any more.<\/p>\n

There are many ways that a person can respond to misfortune and injustice in their lives.\u00a0 I was struck by how Henty-Gebert talks with gratitude about her life.\u00a0 How many of us would do that when faced by the same circumstances as someone who was taken from her family at a young age and raised in an institution?<\/p>\n

Yet there was sadness in Henty-Gebert’s heart:<\/p>\n

… I would never see my mother again. To this day I don’t understand why I can’t remember being taken away from my family… I believe I will find the answer to my loss of memory one day and hopefully my family research will help me piece together the missing years of my childhood.<\/p>\n

p.8<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I was left with a concern that the book leaves the impression that the serious injustices that Henty-Gebert suffered in her life were not that bad because the author does not share many negative feelings she has with the reader.\u00a0 Yesterday I read a review written by Heidi\u00a0 Stabb<\/a> of Trisha Goddard’s memoir, Trisha, As I Am<\/em>.\u00a0 Heidi made a comment about Goddard’s memoir which may be pertinent to this memoir by Claire Henty-Gebert:<\/p>\n

\n

The style itself tends towards the breezy, and there often seems to be a surface shallowness. But I think the breeziness belies a great deal of hurt for Goddard, and that skimming over the surface is the only way that the story was going to be told.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If I wrote a memoir (which I have no intention of doing) I would not want to share many negative things that have happened to me as I don’t want to dwell on such things and I would not want to hurt those close to me.\u00a0 So I respect Claire Henty-Gebert’s decision not to delve too deeply into such matters.\u00a0 I hope that readers of this memoir take this into account and are alert to the occasional allusion that life was harder than the life portrayed in this book.<\/p>\n

This is a moving story and a gripping book which I think many readers would enjoy reading.\u00a0 Claire Henty-Gebert has lived a full life and certainly has a story to tell.<\/p>\n

Additional Information<\/h2>\n