Vale Lionel Rose

Comments (8)

1. Following the Framlingham link, I see that at one time, their children were taken away to be “civilized”. Or rescued or some other damn fool nonsense. My husband’s maternal grandmother was also forcibly removed from her tribe and made to live in a Quaker boarding school for some years, her traditional language forbidden. To this day, she despises the sound of the classical music she heard there.

   How’s that for spreading Western Culture!

   1. We now call it the Stolen Generation, and it was a collaboration between government and church based on the faux anthropology of the time. It persisted until the 70s in Australia, like many post-empire atrocities.

2. Your story about Rose got me thinking.

   I grew up about 20 minutes drive from Framlingham. We occasionally would drive through the forest when the gates were open. Sometimes the owners would close the gates to us outsider. I don’t know much about the situation between the families or tribe, but I had a brief association with some aboriginals through a mate. These guys lived in Warrnambool, and had a reputation for being hard men. They never caused me any trouble, and I certainly never caused them any because they had been inside and one was a 4th dan Karate exponent! Anyway, they had claims to Framlingham and so did others such as the Clarks you mention. There was squabbles between them over things like collecting firewood to sell from the forest at Framlingham. It’s pretty stuffed up how we herded a group of people into a small mission, took away their land, kids and culture, and didn’t recognize them as Australians until not so long ago and all the rest. No wonder they are often on the margins on society and were reduced to squabbling.

   I never met Banjo, but did see stories about him in the papers. I know that Geoff Clark is a hard man (he was called Bora when I was growing up and was no slouch at bashing guys on (and off) the footy field such as the ’87 grand final between the Purnim Bears and Noorat) . I reckon you have to be a hard man (or woman) to survive as an aboriginal. Most white folks were pretty distant or scared by the aboriginals. He did well to get to the top of Atsic.

   I haven’t seen the Framlingham forest in a decade. Last time I saw it, the Koalas had denuded the trees. They had nowhere to go because the forest is surrounded by farmland. The government wouldn’t cull them before they killed the trees because it looks bad when it makes the news that Koalas are being killed and scares away tourists. So, they starved. I saw bags of Koala fur in forks in the trees, starving or starved to death. The aboriginals didn’t give a stuff about tourists, and shot some of the poor buggers before they died painful deaths. I hope it’s recovered and there’s still Koalas there.

   Call it white man’s guilt, but we haven’t done the indigenous animals or people much good.

3. Banjo was Geoff’s dad? Shit. No wonder he was angry in the late 70s. This explains a lot.

4. I don’t know what the relationship was exactly. I’ll need to check:
   According to this link:
   http://www.faira.org.au/cerd/man-of-the-land.html

   He is a blond Koori married to the white teenage sweetheart he met 30 years ago. His blondness comes from his father, a Scottish-born Melbourne wharfie, Jeff McIntosh; his Aboriginality from his mother, Maisie Clark.

   His second cousin, Len Clarke, claims his own late father, Banjo Clarke, brought the six-month-old Geoff back from Melbourne “because no-one wanted him”

   I brought up Geoff and the other stuff because your story about Banjo and Framlingham revived memories of stuff I’d long forgotten. Anyway… I’m good at going off on tangents.

   So, it appears he was related through his mum to Banjo, but not Banjos son. I

5. If Geoff didn’t like Banjo, maybe this had something to do with it:
   Clark frankly admits he has made enemies. Among them are his second cousin, Len Clarke, administrator of the Framlingham Aboriginal Trust until he took over in 1979. Their relationship is so bitter that both men make unpublishable allegations about each others’ activities.
   From the same article.

   1. Families, huh. Like a marriage, outsiders don’t know what is going on when families go bad.

      1. You aint whistling dixie there John. I gave up explaining to people why I don’t talk to my mother and 2 brothers. Nobody could walk in my shoes. Nor would they want to with the bad foot odor I manage to create. 😉

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