Cecil Bowden, 68, from Redfern, who took part in Monday’s
Sorry Day March in the city, was taken from his family in Cowra at just 18
months of age, along with two other siblings.
Compensation and the recovery of stolen wages is integral to
moving on, he said.
“The apology’s nothing if Rudd and the state
governments don’t do anything else – for a start I’ve got stolen wages that I
earned while I was in a home,” Mr Bowden said.
“My father was overseas fighting during the Second
World War when my mother died.
“The three youngest [children], myself included, the
State Government just stormed in and they just lifted us.”
Mr Bowden said he was taken to a boys’ home run by the NSW
Government on the South
Coast where abuse was
rampant.
He and his other siblings were told both their parents were
dead.
“My father tried to collect us after he returned from
the war fighting for this country but the home staff told him no, so he went back
to Cowra,” Mr Bowden said.
When he was 10 years old Mr Bowden was transferred to the
infamous Kinchela Boys Home in Kempsey, which he described as a “hell
hole”.
“We were made to work and we were flogged and we
weren’t just beaten with a cane – we were flogged. I was there till I was 18.”
Mr Bowden moved to Sydney
after he left Kinchela but found transition to a normal life difficult.
“I came to Sydney
to start an apprenticeship in plumbing but I just could not concentrate, I’d
keep running into people who were brothers and sisters of mine i never knew
existed,” he said.
“I was told in the home I was one of three children but
in truth I was one of 11.
“They lied about everything.
“I still want to take them [NSW Government] to court –
how would they like their kids to be taken from them and beaten and
abused?”
Source:
Courier Central 28th May 2008