Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images of people who have died. It also discusses child abuse.

Records have been provided by family for the purpose of truth-telling and healing. They request they should not be repurposed or photographed.

Uncle Brian Gray never had his own birthday cake as a child.

“I didn’t know what a cake was,” the Murri man said, adding that his wife gave him his first birthday cake when he was about 25 years old.

“Now I get one every year from my grandkids and kids.”

Uncle Brian spent at least 12 birthdays at St George’s Homes — an orphanage run by the Anglican Church of Australia in the central Queensland town of Rockhampton.

“No cake for birthday, you just got told you weren’t going to get a hiding that day,” he said.

According to archives from Rockhampton’s local paper The Morning Bulletin, St George’s Homes did, however, celebrate its own birthday — complete with cake and speeches.

In 1953, adults gathered around the wife of the mayor while she cut a three-tiered cake. It is unclear if the children enjoyed a piece.

At a 1947 celebration, Bishop J A G Housden told the children: “You may feel that you have not any relations … you can call the state a great uncle.”

The report stated presents were donated and, “as customary with birthdays, there was nothing lacking on the culinary side”.

Although this was before Uncle Brian’s time at the orphanage, he remembers things differently.

‘Thrown in sewers, flogged with bull whips’

After he was stolen from his parents at age four, Uncle Brian was taken to St George’s Homes shortly after he turned five.

“Held up by the legs so you couldn’t breathe,” he said of his memories of an ex-army sergeant who was in charge at St George’s Homes in the early years of Uncle Brian’s residence.

“[We were] thrown in sewers, flogged with bullwhips and cricket bats, tied to a flagpole and stoned,” Uncle Brian added.

“A lot of the punishments are all about humiliating and shaming you … just for being a kid.”

One of the many lessons Brian Gray learnt during the decade he lived at the orphanage was how to be a “nice white boy”.

The instruction stuck.

It was obvious to Uncle Brian that his skin colour was different to his white brothers at the orphanage — but culture, heritage and Aboriginality were not permitted to be discussed.

“I didn’t know I was Aboriginal ’til my 20s when I went to a cross-cultural training,” the 66-year-old said.

“I lived life with a non-existent identity.”

‘What’s a mother?’ 

Although Uncle Brian credits the orphanage with giving him brothers and sisters and — once the ex-army priest left — strong sportsmanship values, moments of heartache will haunt him for life.

As a 12-year-old, an orphanage staff member told Uncle Brian his mother was in hospital and did not have long to live.

“I asked, ‘What’s a mother? What do you mean? Can you explain what a mother is?’

“She said, ‘The lady who you were born from.’

Uncle Brian asked to attend his mother’s funeral but was told by the orphanage staffer that the state would not allow it.

A few years ago, Link-Up QLD — an organisation that connects Stolen Generations survivors with family members — helped Uncle Brian access his orphanage and government records through Freedom of Information laws, revealing a disturbing truth.

“One of the letters was written by them (the staff member), recommending I don’t go to the funeral,” he explained.

When Uncle Brian confronted the former St George’s staffer, they continued to blame the state but apologised once Uncle Brian showed them their signed letter.

In a cruel twist, Uncle Brian said this staffer went to his mother’s funeral and knew where she was buried.

Not long ago, Link-Up QLD took Uncle Brian to his mother’s grave in Rockhampton.

“It was right across the fence from where I played football all this time,” he said.

The ABC put Uncle Brian’s statements to the Anglican Church of Central Queensland and it responded in a written statement.

“In relations to your questions regarding abuse, neglect, and cultural insensitivities it is important for us to note that the Anglican Diocese of Rockhampton does not, and never has, condoned any of these practices,” Reverend Jennifer Hercott and Bishop Peter Grice told ABC’s Indigenous Affairs Team.

“There are some actions which are unacceptable regardless of the time or circumstances, and we, as a diocese are doing everything in our power to ensure that all people, places, and programs are safe and appropriate for all involved. 

“The Anglican Diocese of Rockhampton has done everything in its power to ensure that past wrongs have been acknowledged, and that appropriate actions and support have been, and continue to be made available to any aggrieved party.”

The Bible says, “The truth will set you free,” but Uncle Brian says the truth “will disturb you first”. 

Queensland truth inquiry starts next week

It is this history Uncle Brian will share at Queensland’s Truth-Telling and Healing Inquiry when community sessions begin on Monday.

The hearings are part of the Queensland government’s Path to Treaty Act, which passed parliament with bipartisan support last year.

“That’s where the struggle is, between knowing the truth and accepting it so you can move forward.”

Uncle Brian said he and his extended family still lived with the impacts of colonisation. 

While in the past he has been involved with violence, substance abuse, and the prison system, he says years of therapy and speaking out have brought him peace, healing and purpose.

“It hasn’t always been a bed of roses for me,” he said.

“But I had to break that thing over me. I had to stand up and say, ‘No, enough’s enough and it’s not going to fall on my grandkids and kids.'”

‘We want to be paid full compensation’

Bindal and Birrrigubba elder and educator Aunty Florence Onus has mixed feelings about Queensland’s truth inquiry.

“We’ve been doing truth-telling for a long time. We’ve had that many different inquiries and royal commissions,” she said.

For more than 20 years, Aunty Florence has shared her experience of being stolen to educate and inform primary, high school and university students and the wider community.

In 1938, her family was sent to a reserve at Woorabinda, inland from Rockhampton – a place she regards as a detention centre. 

Later, Aunty Florence and her siblings were sent to a Townsville orphanage before they were fostered to a white woman.

“With the Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry, how many more times do we have to tell our story?” she said.

“We’re tired of telling our stories.

Aunty Florence said it was time to hold the state government to account because it held all the records, archives and information. 

Aunty Florence will make recommendations during her witness statement to the Queensland truth inquiry when it travels to Townsville.

“We want to be paid full compensation for the trauma, the loss and the grief that we and our families have suffered and are still suffering today,” she said.

“We need our own knowledge centres … in every regional centre … to hold all the archival material so our families can access that in a culturally safe space.”

What makes Queensland’s truth inquiry different?

Kalkadoon man and barrister Joshua Creamer is the chair of the inquiry. He said, since 2019, the process had been run by mob.

“At every stage, in comparison to other royal commissions, this has been Indigenous-led,” he said.

“There’s been a significant amount of engagement and understanding of what the community’s needs are, and designing an inquiry that really takes into consideration all those issues.”

The inquiry is meant to run for three years, but Queensland Opposition Leader David Crisafulli withdrew his support after most Australians rejected the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. 

If the LNP wins government in October, Mr Crisafulli has pledged to roll back the Path to Treaty Act and stop the inquiry, which will have already started.

“Truth-telling at this stage is critically important. 

“There is a big focus on capturing the stories of our elders. We all know that generation isn’t going to be around for decades and decades.”

‘The nation is mature enough’

Wakka Wakka man Uncle David Wragge, who has connections to Ghungalu, Juru, Bindal, and Wulgurukba mobs, was born and raised in Cherbourg and he’s made truth-telling his life’s work.

“I spent six years in the boys dormitory, from 1967 to 1973. I’ll be talking, give an account of that, and what life was like,” he said as he prepared to make a statement at the inquiry in its first week.

“We never had love shown to us and we didn’t have any birthday parties in the six years I was there.”

Uncle David credits his loving wife and family with helping him grapple with the trauma of being removed from his family at nine years old, but he acknowledges not every Stolen Generations survivor has been so lucky.

As Uncle David put it, the country is ready to hear about the impact of racist government policies of the past and the lingering impacts on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.

“We should be mature enough as a nation now to participate in the truth-telling, and I’m really looking forward to the work that’s going to happen.”