Published on May 18, 2018 – read the full article here.

It has been a long journey for author Gregory P. Smith.

It includes being raised in an orphanage to living homeless on the streets and battling drug addiction, going off the grid in the jungle for ten years and finally attending to university, first as a student and now as a lecturer.

Next week he comes to Hurstville to share his story with the launch of his memoir, Out of the Forest.

Gregory’s father was a violent alcoholic, his mother hardly the maternal type. As children, Gregory and his four sisters were told they were going to visit ‘Aunty Muriel’.

Instead they were taken to an orphanage in Armidale, where they remained for the next two years until reclaimed by their parents. While there, like others in care, Gregory was the victim of physical, psychological and sexual abuse – now known as Forgotten Australians.