Thursday, 31 July 2014

Irony, Beauty, Family and a little bit of Hi-jinx from the Great Cricket Ground in the Sky...


Several months ago I was chatting about my families military history in Australia with a new FB friend and how I am in the process of writing a family saga based on all our military history in Australia.

I told my new friend about Leslie Dogworth Tunks who was a Trooper in the NSW Lancers and went to the Boer War where he died of disease, not Battle Field injuries. The NSW Lancers were in existence prior to Federation.

My new FB friend mentioned that she and her husband had just retired from the NSW Lancers and began to help me finding information. All I had was Leslie's basic details and a photo of the memorial to the Boer War Soldiers that is in Parramatta, where the Tunks family had settled after William Tunks arrived on board the Sirius, Flagship of the First Fleet.

Not long after this discussion with my new FB friend the Tunks Descendants Association Inc approached me to write and article for the Tunks Talk Newsletter in relation to the Australian military history from my line of the family.

One irony occurred when I shared the newsletter with the family association, they didn't know that Leslie had even existed, he died without kids and in a foreign land, so he'd never been documented as part of the family. The good news is he is home, and part of the family albeit in our records.

Leslie was the grandson of John Tunks, son of George Henry Tunks. and he was the Great Grandson of William Tunks the Marine.

William Tunks and Sara Lyons had three children, Ann Tunks, John Tunks and Charles Tunks.

Just last week I thought to share this article with my new FB Friend. Her reply was 'oh I have a Tunks in my family tree' ...

I downloaded the family tree to show her, she is a descendant of Ann Tunks. She is my family.

And more significantly she and her husband never knew how they were honouring Leslie Dogworth Tunks' memory through their service in the NSW Lancers.

I have a new cousin, Sue Akela - Day.


Thank you to all those family members who've gone to the Great Cricket Ground in the Sky for orchestrating my friendship with Sue. If there are others your planning to reunite can you spread them out a bit time wise, just so we can manage the birthdays etc 


Tuesday, 29 July 2014

Small Town + Small Minds = Racist Pigs

I need to put some extremely hurtful and utterly racist rumours to rest.

It was only two months ago when I learned from Brett Tibbett, Chairperson of the Grafton Ngerrie Local Aboriginal Land Council that the community had been apportioning blame for the fire at my property last year to a young Aboriginal Person. I had not been privy to these nasty rumours until Brett told me what was being said in the community.

Today I went to the local Chemist to have a script filled and the beautiful young woman who served me said "Oh you own the shop in Westlawn that was burnt'. I replied with yes and for the record it WAS NOT a young Aboriginal person that burnt my property. Her response was at first a massive shocked look on her face and then she commented 'But everyone has been saying it was'.

My reply was that if a 17 year old Aboriginal person had set fire to a property where a young family were sound asleep, with three children ranging in ages from 6 to 20 inside they would have been straight into the Adult Court and given no bail and would have been charged with at the very least Attempted Manslaughter and the relevant Arson offences. 

I knew the minute the Police told me that the young offender, who was 17, wouldn't even be taken before a court and that they were going to put him straight into the Community Conferencing program without a court appearance that it was obviously not a young Aboriginal person. In fact when the Officer concerned relayed this very information to me that was my first response to him 'so, he isn't an Aboriginal young person then?'

Because of the Law around Juvenile Offenders I cannot name the offender. All I can say is he WAS NOT ABORIGINAL. I've also seen enough of the treatment of Aboriginal people through my career in Law Enforcement and through my subsequent years of study, community and youth work and volunteering. These attitudes held by the ignorant racist members of our Community are the greatest human rights breach there is. Prejudging a human being because of their 'race' is the underpinning flaw in not only the thinking of human beings, but thinking of those we elect as our advocates to government. THIS MUST STOP.

I've lived in the Valley for 7 years now, this is my mothers home, and her families home since non-Aboriginal Settlement.

In that time the most respectful, helpful, appreciative, honest, supportive friends I have made have in the majority been people who are Aboriginal.


I WILL NOT TOLERATE ANY FURTHER SLANDERING OF OUR ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY.

Friday, 25 July 2014

The Australian Governments Smoke & Mirrors continuing to subject Aboriginal people to Assimilation through attempts at Constitutional Recognition


I’ve discussed this issue with many of my Aboriginal friends, of those many friends none have expressed a desire to be submitted to the final indignity of inclusion in the Constitution. 


A Treaty is ALL they've ever asked for and ALL they've ever wanted. 


I would be directing our tax payer dollars at removing the continuing racist sections of existing legislation i.e. the NSW Parks and Wildlife Act where Aboriginal Human Beings are still listed as Native Flora and Fauna. 


Then I would direct those funds to removing the lubricious requirements of the Office of the Registrar of 'Indigenous" Corporations (known as ORIC) where unlike ASIC (Australian Security & Investments Commission) they are not afforded even the slightest hint of privacy that is not only legislation for in our Commonwealth, but is expected to exist by so many of us. I was HORRIFIED to discover that our Aboriginal community have every single detail of their lives open to anyone in the public that searches the ORIC website, that's anyone in the world! Not only can you access the DOB, Home Addresses and other contact details of the Directors of Aboriginal Corporations (something that simply is outlawed on free publicly available ASIC searches), then to add insult to an already massive injury, you can also obtain all the personal details of every member of that Corporation, there is no way that the shareholders personal details such as addresses and dates of birth would be made available freely for ALL the world to access on the ASIC database.


These are ISSUES of far greater importance and deserving of priority than imposing another form of 'assimilation' on an already dismissed and undervalued blessing that is the Aboriginal people of this land. 


I am constantly introduced to issues such as these I've detailed and by either self-discovery or through my friendships with Aboriginal people. They are HORRIFIC MAJOR LEGISLATIVE ABUSES AND INSTITUTIONALISED RACISM and they are permitted to continue while the Governments of the day divert our attention to efforts which in no way bring reconciliation, let alone a celebration of the gift and blessing that Aboriginal people are to this land now known as Australia

Wednesday, 23 July 2014

Living with Major Depression & PTSD

Randomness of the impact of these dis-eases is the most difficult aspect of managing your own well being.

One minute you feel you've conquered the 'Black Dog' and there can not possibly be a trigger for your PTSD that you've not encountered and designed a coping mechanism for. 

The next your back in  the 'depths of despair' as my hero Anne of Green Gables would say.

It's exhausting just trying to manage your days and weeks. When I am well and functioning I'm panicked by the pressure I put on myself to 'make hay while the sun shines' wondering the whole time when the next spiral down will be triggered. Or even worse if it will ever be triggered and that I'm actually well, but just a lazy person. Then out of the blue the next spiral downward commences.

Who or what do you turn to drag yourself back to your former functioning self? How do you turn to someone? How do you ask for help? When I'm in the downward spiral the last thing I feel I deserve is help, I don't feel worthy of help. If I can't fix myself with all the knowledge and ability that I have then what right do I have to ask for help?

Something that seems to be terribly misunderstood about Depression particularly is that when the spiral downward begins it isn't a matter of 'feeling sorry for yourself' as many people try to tell you when they say 'just snap out of it'; it's a matter of feeling completely unworthy and without hope that your life has any meaning at all, in fact often it is the feeling that not only do you have no meaning but that your life to date has been filled with so many errors that it has been detrimental to those around you.

Looking to the future is difficult knowing that you can't make these dis-eases go away no matter how hard you try, how much you rationalise and intellectualise your circumstances, they are what they are and you may never heal.