Faktorovich: Other than being separated from your family and community, can you give specific details on how the Churches of Christ Carnarvon Native Mission was a harmful experience for you?
Collard-Spratt: Well, it damaged me. Not being with my family. I was disconnected from everything Aboriginal—my language, our own spirituality, my identity, and the Dreaming, which embraces all the teachings and wisdom that the elders hold.
Faktorovich: You say in the book that the chores were strenuous, and included ironing, floor polishing, and food preparation. You also describe corporal punishment. Perhaps you can elaborate on the worst parts of these types of indignities?
Collard-Spratt: When you’re a little child you’re meant to be a child, to play games and spend your time having fun. But we spent hours doing this hard labour. We had to boil the clothes in the huge copper; we were just little kids. Each kid had to get up one end and twist the sheets to ring them out. I felt sorry for the little boys, who had to wash their sheets by hand when they wet their beds. They couldn’t reach the trough or the line, so I helped them. We had to clean the toilets using fen oil. When the washing was done, we had to bring it in and spray it with starch and iron it all. It seemed like we worked more than we played. Many times, they used to pull our pants down and flog us in front of everyone, and that was really embarrassing. I didn’t want anyone to see me cry, especially the missionaries, so all this anger and emotional stress was locked up inside me. I had no way of releasing it. They were quick to punish us, to use violence, but they never showed us any affection. They flogged us with a cane or a leather strap around your legs, your back, your bum, your hands. We grew up thinking that violence was the only way to solve things. Even today, most of my mission brothers and sisters use violence because that’s what we learned as little children. And we hold everything inside.
Faktorovich: You have clearly grown up to be a very talented artist and writer, so hasn’t the education you received there been beneficial?
Collard-Spratt: Yeah, it made me fit into the white world better. But they haven’t learned from us; it’s just a one-way learning.
Faktorovich: Do you think you might have achieved more in life if you went to an Aboriginal school, or another school that would have been available without the Mission?
Collard-Spratt: I went to an Aboriginal school, but all of our teachers were white. The mission school was just for Aboriginal kids because that’s who lived there. We weren’t allowed to go to town school; it was just for white children. At town school, where I went from age 10 when the Assimilation laws came in, the first week was a culture shock because the white kids called us names, like boongs, niggers, and coons. Because of this, we were in many fights, because of racism. No matter where I went to school, I would have achieved because that’s the sort of spirit I have.
Faktorovich: From a summary of your life’s events, it seems you started facing serious racism and harassment after you left this school, when you lived with foster families. So, is the chief problem that you were taken from your mother and forced into the foster system, rather than the educational style in the Mission’s program?
Collard-Spratt: Racism was with us all through; we weren’t free. We were controlled by the Native Administration Act 1936 (WA). Under the Native Act, Aboriginal people had to apply to the Chief Protector of Aborigines to marry; they couldn’t leave reserves or missions; and they didn’t have property rights or human rights. When we went to the white school, we were the only ones to get the cane; the whites weren’t. There were two rules: one for the blacks and one for the whites. It was so unfair. White kids didn’t have to have a note to leave the school. We had to have a note from the missionaries; they controlled every aspect of our lives. We had no control. We were owned by the government. I carry the burden of both racism throughout my education and childhood as well as the lifelong trauma of being separated from my mother. Even today I still have nightmares about things that happened to me at the mission.
Faktorovich: Why didn’t you go back to living with your mother after the Native Mission program was finished?
Collard-Spratt: I didn’t return to my mother after leaving the mission because I was still under the Native Act. It controlled all Aboriginal children’s lives until they turned 21. I had no choice and neither did my mother. In 1958, when I was seven-years-old, my mother needed maternity allowance for her other children. To get it, she had to become an Australian citizen. At that time, Aboriginal people were seen as part of the flora and fauna, and not human, so we weren’t counted as Australians. It was a condition of citizenship that my mother had to cut ties with her Aboriginal culture and family. That included cutting ties with me and my little sister, Debbie. If I had returned to my mother at that time, I would have been jailed.