‘I present a program on the Stolen Generations, to help people gain a better understanding of the anger & pain felt by a lot of my people at having been disconnected from family & country’. – Fred Reid

In the mid 60’s, when Fred was a kid, he was playing with his older cousin in the creek when they looked up & saw an old brown Holden kicking up dust as it approached his family home: a few tin shacks up the hill. ‘Look it’s the welfare man’, said the cousin. ‘C’mon Fred, quick, let’s hide’. They both scarpered off under the little bridge & waited. They sat under the bridge waiting & waiting; then suddenly the wooden planks above rattled, creaked & showered them in dust. Spluttering & coughing they came out & ran up to their home.

Fred’s two little brothers; his older sister & another older cousin were gone.

The next time he saw that brown Holden it came for him. Fred was taken to an orphanage where he had some good times but a lot more sad times: the nuns that ran it were very nasty to the children. In the late 60’s, as the voice of aboriginal activists was at last being heard, things got a little better: Fred was fostered to a non-aboriginal couple who, though very nice, did not help with the emptiness he felt inside. He often ran away longing to be home with his family. As civil rights continued to get better Fred was re-united with his sister in Armidale, but still longing to be home, he took off for Woolbrook. When he got there the family’s home was gone. The tin shacks had been pulled apart & carted off. This was devastating: ‘Home wasn’t home anymore’! The anger & pain this caused led Fred down a path of hatred & self destruction; booze, aggro & all kinds of trouble.

In STOLEN Fred tells his story & stories of other children taken from their homes.

Each session begins with an acknowledgment of country & a traditional song to repel the bad spirits & to invite the good spirits into the performance space.