ABSTRACT
The experience taught the author much about what might and might not be possible for families to achieve when they met after a lifetime apart. Not even the Aboriginal communities seemed aware of why or how so many of their children had been removed, nor how they had been transformed into feeling ashamed of their Aboriginality. Removal in 1983 was still almost unmentionable by any family member involved. It seemed to reflect equally badly on one’s family and oneself. In competition with a recently demobilised white labour force, the chances of finding either may not have been great, but whatever hardships the Kings suffered is unknown. Probably in June 1923 they fell in with a welfare officer who told them that if they did not give over their child to the Board she would be taken anyway, and for a longer period.
