1st National Conference on the Mental Health Aspects of Persons Affected by
Family Separation
Held at Liverpool Hospital
October 2002
name withheld to protect privacy)
Abstract
At five years of age, after his mother passed away, Ian and one of his young brothers were sent to an orphanage where
he remained for the duration of his early childhood. Ian will tell in his own words how the trauma of his family separation
and the ongoing effects of growing up an orphanage boy impacted on his life and ability to speak.
On I9th December I945 I came out of St Joseph's Orphanage in Surry Hills, Melbourne. An older brother, Frank, and I had been placed in this
orphanage four years previously by our alcoholic father.
A BOY FROM AN ORPHANAGE: ITS LEGACY
I was a week off my fifth birthday when I entered the orphanage. Our mother
had died just weeks before of meningitis. I was the third youngest of I2 children - a normal, fun loving little boy with no
physical or emotional impediments. Yet, when I left that orphanage, I carried
the emotional baggage that no nine year child should ever have to carry.
The emotional abuse - whether it was intentional or not - started from day one of entering the orphanage. It was the policy of the nuns to immediately separate brothers so Frank and I were not allowed to talk
to each other, play with each other, or even to be seen to be near each other.
The nuns were paranoid about this.
A week after entering the orphanage my grandfather brought me a big red metal toy truck for my fifth birthday. That night my dormitory mates and I played with the truck under our beds.
A nun came in and told me to put the truck in a cupboard. The next morning the other boys and I ran to the cupboard but the truck was gone. We were all crying and the nun said to me "lan, we had to take the toy away because none of the other boys
have toys and if they don't have toys neither can you". That was the last I saw
of that toy. It was the last toy I saw for four years.
Even though this happened in the first week of being in the orphanage, it has remained my strongest memory of that
horrible place. I seemed to have known right there and then that these nuns were going to knock out of me any sense of individuality.
Though it would be years before I would hear the
term “the lowest common denominator", already at the age of five my friends and I were being controlled by that demeaning
principal.
One of the greatest problems I have in coming to terms with my time in the orphanage is that those four years are virtually
a blank as far as my memory goes. The memories that I do have include being lined
up outside the toilet block to drink hot salt water.
The salt water would turn my stomach and I was always strapped around the legs by the nuns for spitting it out. I also
recall the terrible chilblains. My hands, feet and ears were swollen and blistered
with chilblains, which were never ever treated.
Another vivid memory is from my last year in the orphanage. My brother
Frank had been moved to the older boys orphanage at the Christian Brothers St Augustine's Orphanage in Geelong. On this particular day we were told that some boys
from St Augustine's would be having lunch with us.
I was hoping that Frank was amongst them. We were lined up on one side
of the quadrangle as the St Augustine's boys filed in. Frank
and I saw each other at the same time and rushed to each other-
A Christian Brother grabbed Frank and a nun grabbed me and both proceeded to hit us as hard as they could, calling
us horrible little brats. Why??? I was then 8 years of age and Frank was nine.
Our terrible sin was that we wanted to be with each other, to be with our brother.
These are about the only memories I have of those four years. Last year
I attended the first reunion of St
Joseph's Orphanage. I was shocked
to learn from former inmates of a particular practice of the nuns. A practice
which, no doubt, has had an enormous detrimental effect on my life.
These ex inmates, who were in the orphanage at about the same time as myself, were discussing the practice of the nuns
hitting any boy who stuttered - and the stupidity of the nuns for doing this - as the more the boys were hit the more that
they would stutter.
I was incredulous as I could not recall this happening. However, they
were emphatic that this happened to any boy who stuttered.
My mind must have blanked out any memory of this, as I came out of that orphanage with a most debilitating stutter.
I was told by the former inmates that my life must have been misery in the orphanage as I would have been constantly strapped
by the nuns in their efforts to cure my stuttering.
Stuttering must have been of epidemic proportions in so-called "care" institutions. I was surprised at the first public
meeting of (a care-leaver support group) to hear that over half the speakers (approx. 20 speakers and all ex inmates)
had speech problems.
Frank and I had no social skills whatsoever when we left the orphanages. The
other kids in our street treated us like lepers as we didn't know how to play cricket or football, or how to ride a bike or
the other one hundred and one things that kids knew at that age.
On top of being shamed for having no social skills, and being a social outcast
after being locked up in an orphanage for four years - from age 5 to age 9 - I also was shamed to the core by my inability
to speak without stuttering. I was so ashamed and humiliated that I prayed not to wake up in the morning.
This stutter was a result of the emotional and physical abuse inflicted on me by nuns at St Joseph's Orphanage. It was further aggravated by being sexually
abused by our parish priest who used my stutter as a pretext for his own sexual kicks.
At ten years of age I, together with my brother Frank, became alter boys at St Monicas, Moonee Ponds where we both
attended school.
The parish priest was Father ******* who had a reputation for touching
the alter boys on their bottoms. In order to leave the sacristy after Mass we
had to pass by the priests' room.
Fr ***** would be in the priests' room reading his "office". We would try to sneak past the room without him hearing us, but if he heard a sound he would call out "here
boy". We had this understanding amongst ourselves that only one boy would go
in whilst the others ran out the sacristy door.
Fr ***** would be sitting in a straight back chair which had arm rests and would have this big book on his lap. He would make the boy stand beside him on his right side facing the same way as him.
He would then start to stroke the boy's bottom as he talked. As far as I am aware that is all that happened to the other alter boys - I didn't hear of him doing anything
else - which only made me even more ashamed of what he did to me.
I would get very tense if it was my "lot" to go in whilst the other boys escaped.
Fr ***** would always say that my stuttering wasn't improving. He
would stroke my bottom and say that I was tensed up and that was causing my stuttering.
He would then move his hand to my front to stroke my genitals. I would be willing
my body not to respond to his touch but I would get an erection.
He would continue to stroke me on the outside of my clothes - he made no attempt to open my pants - saying that my
whole body was tense, and that I had a very bad problem with my dickie, and that unless I learnt to relax I would never overcome
my stuttering.
I cannot find words to describe my sense of absolute shame. I was ashamed of my orphanage background, I was deeply
ashamed of my stuttering and I was shamed beyond belief that I was unable to control my body when ***** was stroking
me.
It was enough to be sniggered at in the classroom when I couldn't read from
a book or for Brother*****, the Christian Brother teacher, to make disparaging remarks that, as he didn't want to be there
all day listening to my stuttering, he would skip having me read.
But for***** to dump on me that my stuttering was caused by my inability to control my penis was more than I could handle. I hated myself and only wished to die.
The episodes with ***** happened about once a month and continued for four years (from age I0 to age I3). My school life was a series of running away from home and wagging school whenever
I could. I hated school, I hated myself and truly wanted to stop living. I left school at the age of I4 a complete mental
wreck. I couldn't hold down jobs having I2 different jobs from age I4 to age
20.
In the early 1950’s there was a well known stage hypnotist by the name of the Great Franquin.
My brother Frank went up on the stage and was immediately hypnotised. This impressed me as Franquin also advertised that he could cure stuttering, smoking etc. I went to see
Franquin in his St Kilda Rd apartment and he assured me that he could cure my stuttering.
However, after three months of sessions once a week, he gave up as he couldn't
get me to relax in order to put me under. He said that I had too many dark secrets
and that I wouldn't let go!! It cost me a lot of money for nothing.
When I was in my early 30s my doctor introduced me to an elderly Welsh woman who was a retired speech therapist. She had many famous clients in England including Richard Burton.
Again, after about a year of seeing her every week, she gave up saying that my problem was too deep for her to overcome.
I joined a public speaking club called Rostrum, to force myself to speak in public.
This did help a little, but it has only been the passing of time that has allowed me to control my stutter to a certain
extent.
A support group advised me how
to get access to my records from St
Joseph's. I looked forward with
great anticipation to receiving those records, hoping that they would give me an insight into those four terrible years that
my memory had successfully blocked out. But my hopes were in vain. My total records consisted of one line - who my parents were and the date of my admission to the orphanage.
I sat down and cried my heart out. It was as though the emotional abuse
of the orphanage was still continuing. As though Frank and I never existed. I
was told by Mackillop Family Services that there were ample records for all the other boys who were at the orphanage, however,
as Frank and I were private admissions by our father, we only rated one line each.
The media has given justifiable coverage to the many cases of sexual abuse perpetuated by various representatives of
religious organisations.
However, I believe that the public is not aware of the extent of the emotional
and physical abuse of innocent children who were placed in the so-called 4 4care" institutions of these same religious organisations.
Nor is the public aware of the long term effects that this emotional and physical abuse has had on the tens of thousands of
ex inmates of those institutions.
In my case, it has caused me untold shame and misery throughout my life. However,
after listening to other members telling their horrific stories at support meetings, I realize that I was
relatively lucky. I was particularly lucky in returning to everyday society at the age of nine.
At least that gave me from nine to fourteen years of age to adapt into so-called normal society.
However, the boys that I left behind in that orphanage had no such chance. They
were moved to St Augustine's Orphanage at the age of nine.
At the age of fourteen, with absolutely no social or work skills, the kids were turfed out onto the streets to fend
for themselves.
This system, replicated by other religions and charities, perpetuated an underclass
of poor, uneducated and an unloved sector of society.
I was distressed to read sometime ago of the cavalier attitude of the Federal Minister for Employment and Work Place
Relations, Tony Abbott, to the son he "adopted out '.
The term "adopted out ' is, in many cases, just a cold hearted euphuism to justify an even more cold hearted decision
to give away an unwanted baby. It was obvious that, rather than accepting his
responsibilities for the child he had fathered, Tony was more interested in pursuing his university career.
Tony does not seem particularly perturbed that he has denied his son the natural
right to be raised and cared for by his father. And this same man has the gall
to lecture other people for shirking their responsibilities.
Furthermore, neither Tony nor his government seem to give a damn for the estimated 30% of the children who were "adopted
out” or placed in "care" and who eventually end up in prison. Nor for the
estimated 40% of the prison population who were "adopted out" or placed in "care" as children.
Yet people who were "adopted out” or placed in "care" represent less than I % of the Australian population. What an indictment of the system!
Imagine the huge outcry, the screams for government action if 30% of the students of Riverview -Tony's alma mater -
ended up in prison, or that ex Riverview students represented over 40% of the prison population. But this has been the plight of ex "care" children for generations, and no one has given a damn.
Suffer the little
children for they shall see God - so the church taught us. And by God, they made
sure we suffered and still suffer.
