Robert F Becker

 

 

 

Set in the rugged wildenerness of the Kimberely in Australia's northwest, this epic tale unfolds through the eyes of a naive public servant, sent up to try to make a difference in child protection in the region. He and his family find themselves caught between two wolrds as tectonic shifts occur in the starkly portrayed meeting of two cultures.

​Much of the material is drawn from fact and meetings with people who left deep impressions on my mind. In this story I have tried to treat them with the utmost of respect. Still there are those who may take offence at the depiction of Aboriginal culture and to them I say, help me understand.

 

From Chapter 11:

Light and darkness, the constant interplay.

One looks out upon the other, where they meet neither holds exclusive sway.

Who's to say? If one is right and one is wrong.

It depends on which side of the great divide

we find ourselves

On which side we consider we belong

 

This is a story that has to be told, painful and shameful as it is. 

Driving through the barren landscape north of Halls Creek, the tale begins:

 

From Chapter 1

The land from the hill crest looks tame and harmless but if I were to venture out too far from the ribbon of the road it would consume me without mercy. Nothing familiar seems of any great importance anymore. Everything dissolves into an endless smelt of distance at the shimmering horizon. I have just arrived in Halls Creek, a small outback Kimberley town perched liked a giant stick insect on the Great Northern Highway, somewhere between Broome and Kununurra. Eighty per cent of the population here is Aboriginal. Many appear destitute. They have been dispossessed and ravaged by more than a century of colonial rule. People lie lost and broken, sleeping rough in Dinner Camp, a barren dusty paddock pegged with discarded VB cartons and scattered broken glass glittering in the evening sun. I pull up across the road outside the fenced motel compound where the tourists, truckies and public servants stay. Tonight we will dine on beefsteak, salmon, beer and chardonnay.......       

 

 

Download free iBook here