… when Molly Hadfield was 10, she was told that nursing was not for her – ‘you can’t do the exams’ – but she would be welcome to work in the nurses’ dining room. She took the job. Under the rules lunches were set out on tables for nurses, but sisters and matrons’ meals were kept in the oven. Sisters and matrons sat down to piping hot fare. Cold and cooling meals waited until nurses finished their shifts. The unfairness of the hierarchical system struck Molly Hadfield then and stuck with her, as did the distinction made between kitchen and nursing staff which prevented her from meeting on the premises with cousins and friends who were nurses.
Tag: ‘Living Generously – Women Mentoring Women’
Descended from a Matriach – Part 2
It was the late 1960s and we were gearing up for the 1967 referendum. The Doug Nichols Hall had been established by that time, and members of the league came in to work, we had photocopiers everywhere, and they were going all the time. We printed thousands and thousands of pamphlets and cards to be handed out at voting booths. Uncle Doug and Stan Davey, as well as the directors of the Aborigines Advancement League, were being interviewed on radio and television constantly. When the referendum was won, we had a huge celebration at the Doug Nichols Hall …
Descended from a Matriarch – Part 1
I wanted to be a nurse, but the family put a veto on that, because three or four members of the family had been to nursing training and they were not treated well: they suffered racism. Also at the time Mum worked in the hospital in the children’s ward as a cleaner. She didn’t think it was the best area for me to go into.
My family wanted me to work in a bank …
Soaring with Eagles – Part 2
Lillian Roth once said her life was never her own, it was charted before she was born. Boy, you’d better believe it. Within a month or two I met an Englishwoman who had lived in India for 11 years and had vowed, after the spirit and vivacity of India, never to return to her homeland. She was looking to fill the void, and found it through workign voluntarily with fledgling Aboriginal organisations adn people. At the time I didn’t really know this, it is only in retrospect, but on first encounter she hugged me like a daughter and I was to become like a daughter, for she became my second Mum, my ‘migloo Mum’, for want of a better word. (‘Migloo’ is a Queensland Aboriginal term for ‘whitefella’.)
Soaring with Eagles – Part 1
Oh sure, Mum pissed me off at times, as she cautioned me against this and that. That I needed to relax, was still too highly strung, needed to slow down, stop impressing ‘the snows’ (which is what she called whitefells) and told me to believe in God. At the time, this was a bit too much for me, especially the remarks about God, as I was a card-carrying Marxist and hell bent on changing the world. When I did object, she’d tell me I was getting a bit too big for my boots and would cut the conversation short by saying: ‘I don’t know what they teach you at uni, Lillian, but it certainly isn’t manners!’