My name is Tom Williams, not my birth name which is a common transition amongst those of us who’s childhood beginnings still dictate their every adult step. My experience started at 2 years old till 16, 5 placements but I was not a ward, I was private entry & in between lived with a mentally ill mother, a common story sadly. And yes when the gate finally open’d I wanted to run straight for the forest. I won’t get long winded here, as much as you already know that is one of the traits we excel as Forgotten Australians.

What I wanted to say sir, was thank you for taking up to completion the learned journey you’ve walked looking for all of us in a shape and colour that only those of us raised in these institutional environments in those times can recognise. You have truly brought a tear to many of us I’m sure. So many of us myself included in later years found ourselves in emotional pain enough to pursue studies as a means of identifying with ourselves or at the very least a means of finding ourselves. I had hopes and dreams too, and buried myself in all kinds of books, mind sets, and number’s looking for an explanation as to why?

But my hopes to go further were replaced by a need to care for my wife, someone who held out her hand to me while the hell of memory ate my soul for all to witness. You know how that works Gregory, when nobody else was there, you only see that person nothing else seems to matter anymore.

So now I’ve arrived at 67 & the mirror is still the keeper of a confused child. But my shoe laces got further away a long time ago now so I walk with the stride of denial in a facade built from my right to be here. Yes like many of us I’ve lived basically under a shrub, down the beach and in the hills. Strange isn’t it, we yearned to belong while we scurried from view so often. I’m guessing the society jigsaw never quite offered our shape enough for us to fit in completely. A bit like a grey triangle trying to fit into a black and white square.

Anyway Gregory, again thank you so much, I am not well these days, my life is showing it’s once distant door a little closer now & melancholy inflicts my eyes with a tear more often. But I wanted to honour you in a brief contact to let you know you are quietly loved by those of us who shared those times and places. Take care of yourself brother:

With highest regard. Tom.

‘The reasons we are & the people we’ve become, can find their origins in the innocence of a child’.