My dad passed away when I was 21, so nearly 50 years later my memories of him have dimmed a little. I went away to boarding school at 12 then moved away to work. But I sometimes wonder how much he understood or concerned himself with the world outside the small farm he owned. My only clues are the conversations I heard him have with neighbours and family as a small boy. By the time I was old enough to take an interest he was already paralysed by a stroke and no longer able to communicate.
Like most rural people he supported the National Party but I doubt that he believed the sun shone out of Joh Bjelke and I am sure he suspected the widespread police corruption that existed at the time. He was long gone by the time the Fitzgerald Inquiry uncovered the full scope of the graft in Qld politics.
My parents were what was called a "mixed marriage" Dad Anglican, Mum Catholic. That divide still affects some of my relatives to this day. Years later I travelled to Europe and passed through Belfast during the "troubles" The barbed wire there separating protestant and catholic reminded me of the fences between the farms of my relatives back home who hated each other with equal passion. My mum was the one who insisted I go to the catholic boarding school run by a the christian brothers. Dad was unimpressed but Mum's family were paying so off I went. I do recall one of Dad's family referring to a local priest as a "wandering stallion" but nothing more was said while us young'uns were around. Whether the rumours of child abuse in the churches got as far as our small community I'll never know but the church was a big part of the life of ordinary people back then and the sudden transfer of priests would have set tongues wagging. There are few secrets in small towns. Many years later I met victims of clerical abuse, including one of the people in this story.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-.../12336012?nw=0 I played a very small part in getting some victims to come foward and tell their story. Seeing first hand the impact the abuse has had on the lives of the victims has left a lasting impression on me. I cannot understand how the last generation were able to brush this aside and cover it up.
Dad might have had hopes that I would take over the farm but that waned over the years. I decided to leave school early and had applied for a number of jobs. By the last day of class I had offers of three apprenticeships and I took the one that brought me to Brisbane and as far from the farm as I could get. A couple of years later I had to register for the draft (I didn't get called up) and became a long haired dope smoking anti-war protester for a while. My family and I weren't talking much at this stage so what they thought of this I never heard. But my impression of many of the older generation at that time was how willingly they accepted the obvious lies from the govt of the day.
The thing that sticks with me is not wanting to be part of the silence of the past generation. many issues were not spoken about; taboo topics like gay and transgender people. They were around at the time, the first gender reassignment surgery and the first gay rights movement happened over a hundred years ago. Where I worked the older apprentices went out on Saturday night "gay bashing". Nobody cared; nobody said anything. i was the quiet farm kid from the catholic school. I didn't either for a while. This was Joh's Qld after all.
So I went from an anti-war protester to an anti Joh, anti-corruption then on to disability rights when my daughter was born, with a few side issues like asbestos exposure and domestic violence. I fear repeating the mistakes of the past, of being like the generation that mostly stayed silent when abuses occurred.