Caroline Carrollwas made a ward of state and placed in a home aged only 14 months. Her troubles were only beginning
I WAS made a ward of the state and placed in Bidura Children’s Home at 14 months after being charged with having no fixed place of abode.
My file says I had a brother aged 13 and sister aged seven already in care at Westmead Boys Home and Brooklyn Orphanage.
At two years I was placed in my first foster home in Coffs Harbour. My memories of this period of my life are not happy ones. Most days the foster parents drank. They would often become violent, screaming, pushing, even throwing knives at each other.
I would huddle in my bed if it was night or stay well out of the way outside during the day.
During this time beatings were common. There were other punishments too, such as being locked in the pitch-black garden shed covered in spider webs and crawling with mice or being frightened to the point where I would wet myself and then be beaten.
I don’t remember ever being hugged. I know I never felt loved, just lost and bewildered by my life.
I was at this foster home for about seven years and then I was returned to Bidura.
My file says: “The ward seems quite a good type, has not given too much trouble. She is quite bright but shows traces of nervous behaviour. Certainly quite placeable.” Then it was on to a new foster home in Lithgow. I was never belted there. They had other ways of dealing with me – religion and guilt.
After I had been there about nine months, another ward arrived. She was younger than I was, but she was much more street smart. I didn’t like her but the foster parents did.
I was told I was to be sent back to Bidura as they could no longer deal with my attitude. This is very hard to write as I still carry enormous guilt about it. I stole some money from the foster father. I took it to school and bought lollies for kids in my class.
Well, that was the last straw. I had dragged their good name through the mud – they had never been associated with criminal types before.
I was returned to Bidura. The psychologist’s report reads in part: “Caroline’s sense of rejection and general insecurity would best be met by a placement in a warm and sympathetic foster home.”
Of course I was never told this.
On arrival back at Bidura I was given the standard vaginal tests – legs tied in stirrups.
When I protested I was told they knew “how quickly I would open my legs for a boy”.
I was nine years old.
I had no idea what they were talking about. The pain was horrific and I was crying.
The matron just pulled me off the table and told me to shut up as I was “nothing but a dirty stealing tramp”.
From there it was to King Edward Girls Home in Newcastle, and then Lynwood Hall.
The head, Daphne Davies, hit, kicked, punched and dragged you around by the hair. She would get so angry she would spit all over you as she screamed the foulest language. This woman rarely addressed us by name. When she wasn’t calling us sluts or whores she called us by a number.
We were kept very busy. School was on the premises, but it was less than basic. While at Lynwood I learned ballet. I was quite good and the teacher encouraged me, even arranged for me to have extra lessons at her studio, where I met a friend of hers who eventually asked me to live with her and her family.
This woman was lovely, but her husband left her, so again I was on the move. Her sister offered to take me.
I was never happy there and, when I was 14, this woman decided I couldn’t stay there as she knew when I turned 15 I “would be off after the boys”.
So back to Bidura, then Lynwood Hall.
Around this time a man walked down the path and asked for me. He turned out to be my brother. I hadn’t been told he was coming. This was my introduction to my family. A few weeks later I had more visitors – my parents.
All of a sudden I had a family, but no explanation of where they had been all my life.
I wasn’t offered any help or support in suddenly being confronted with them.
As I was now 15, the department told me I was old enough to look after myself. They found me a place to live, a job in a kindergarten, and I was on my own. I didn’t even know how to catch a bus to and from work.
When I look back at that scared lonely kid I am amazed she survived.
They had taken my family, my confidence, stolen my education, and left me with huge guilt that it was all my own fault.
My relationship with my parents was not successful – they were strangers. My brother drifted away as he was older and had made a life for himself in the country.
Years later I was to learn my sister was in an institution a couple of suburbs away.
She had written many letters to the department asking about me, but she never had a reply.
I found out at 15 that I was one of eight. I have managed to meet two siblings: a sister and my eldest brother.
It has taken me 50 years to be able to say I am a former state ward. I suffered physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Because of this harsh early treatment, I feel my life has been a huge struggle.
I have always felt alone.
I married young and had two children. The marriage didn’t last. Without doubt my background would have contributed to this. I worry what insecurities I have inflicted on my kids. That fear of rejection never leaves.
The apology coming from prime minister Kevin Rudd is hugely important to many forgotten Australians. It is the acknowledgement of our pain and suffering and most importantly that we are finally being believed.
We hope to see our families acknowledged – many children of forgotten Australians have also had difficult lives because of our childhoods. And when our families hear this apology, they may get a clearer understanding of us.
I was a ward of the state. According to my dictionary this means a child under the care of a guardian or the protection of the courts. I had neither.
Caroline Carroll is a senior worker with the interim service for Forgotten Australians. This is an edited extract of her submission to the senate inquiry into the treatment of wards of the state