Bill Lee

My grandfather, he was a whitefella… he grew up there (Beagle Bay Mission) with his mum. When the missionaries would visit they had to blacken up their skin, with charcoal and sting ray fat so the police wouldn’t take em away. Every now and again the police would come up cause some of the old men would spear O’Grady’s sheep. And so the police would come out and arrest these people. They shot a whole family out there one day, out at Skeleton Point, on the east side, near Gulheim. My grandfather and great grandmother, with their kids, everytime they went to the mission they had to blacken their skin. Sometimes they would keep an eye on the dogs, the dogs would smell strangers and they would take off. Mothers would grab their kids, take off after em, until they got news that the police had gone away, then they would come back. When my grandfather reached the age of 17, old Harry wrote a letter … He got a letter back saying yep, you can do that. So my grandfather moved here, and taught em how to read and write. More importantly, he taught em how to build boats. Out of paperbarks and all the gum trees. They built them on deckings, built the hold, then lowered em down onto sandbanks, waited for 10 meter tides, then floated em out. When the war started the army moved in there and burnt them all. They said to the old fellas, we’re expecting Japanese invasion, take your families, take em down south, take em as far away as possible. But the old fellas said we don’t know anyone down that way, so we stay up here. So they burnt their boats. They old fellas loaded the kids onto trucks took them to Broome. My mum Nancy, was 10, 12… yeah. She grew up in Broome. Met my dad. His father was a Japanese Pearl diver. She was 18. Then I was born, all those years ago. Old Harry had to die the year 1919. The old women of his camp got sick of him taking the men out and not bringing them back, so they poisoned him. Cause he was cruel, old Harry. Men, boys, didn’t do what they told, they was shot. If he were out at sea, he’d throw em overboard. And so people would be wondering what happened to their sons, to their husbands. So one day they poisoned him. And I think the reason for that is – such was his cruelty that he um, there was a young fella in the camp there, who had a young wife old Harry wanted, and so he said to the young fella – he got a bag full of rocks, put the sail on the boat, chain and rope. Said we’re gonna go out. Go here, fishing. So the young fella did as he was told, um, they went out there, way out, till they were a speck in the ocean, gave him a knock on the head. Tucked him in the sail bag, with the rocks and chain he’d collected, tied the rope up, and flicked him overboard. Came back and told everyone that the old fella had gone for a swim, that the current took him, and he’d drowned. But the women didn’t believe him. So yeah, they decided they were going to poison him. One day not long after that, I guess, there was an old fella there named Sid Hadley, a master and merchant seaman, anchored his boat in the bay down there and old Harry rowed out there, they got on the piss together, got drunk, and old Harry was telling him how he got his own wife. The old fella remembered that, wrote it down and all the stories came out. But the old women already knew what had happened, so they poisoned him one morning at breakfast. He went down to Broome, to pick up stores and supplies, not feeling too well, he went down below in the bunks, went to sleep and never woke up. They turned the boat around and brought him back here to the red sand and buried him. Every now and again the bones get exposed and we collect em and rebury em again. Yeah, so that’s 1919 he died. Old Fred’s dad made enough money to pay for his dad to go back to the Seychelles. Old O’Grady went back down south and all the sheep died. Couldn’t really sustain them in this heat. So yeah, speaking for myself… If it wasn’t for people like old Harry, I wouldn’t be here.