Institutionalisation of the Carrolup children

The children's dormitories at Carrolup today. Photograph taken by John Stanton on 26th November 2018.

In recent blog posting, David revealed the memories of Carrolup artist Revel Cooper about life on Carrolup in the first half of 1940s, when the children were ‘running wild’.

In his most recent posting, he described Revel’s memories of the time when Mrs Elliot was teacher between 1945 and the first months of 1946. He also quoted a Mrs Elliot entry in the Carrolup School Journal which, with today’s knowledge, suggests that the children were traumatised.

Today, we have posted a film clip of my reflections on the state of the Aboriginal children before Noel White and his family arrived at Carrolup, which is taken from an interview David did with me back in October 2017. I talk about ‘anomie’, a word I have not used in a good few years… anomie means ‘a sense of nothingness’.

Please remember that you can read a summary of the Carrolup Story in 12 instalments beginning here.

 

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