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Wherever
I Go by Myles Lalor, edited with an introduction and
afterword by Jeremy Beckett. Melbourne University Press,
2000. |
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Wherever
I Go, Myles Lalor's autobiography, consists of a series
of compelling reminiscences on an extraordinary life from
his birth in central New South Wales in 1928. Lalor grew
up as a black child in a small New England town during
the Depression, but was removed from his family to a home
for Aboriginal boys in 1941. He escaped twice but was
recaptured and send to Menindee in the far west of New
South Wales. Employed as a stockman and rouseabout along
the Birdsville Track before marrying and settling in Wilcannia
in the Darling Downs (when he worked as a truckie) Lalor
ended his varied and much travelled career as a community
worker.
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In
his introduction Beckett (Emeritus Associate Professor
of Anthropology at the University of Sydney) details how,
one evening in 1987, Lalor visited his friend and, incensed
at what he had found in his personal files in the archives
at the old Aborigines Welfare Board, asked Beckett to
'do my oral history'. Lalor felt defamed and wanted to
tell his own story. Beckett began taping that night and
later recorded further sessions, with Lalor completing
more tapes on his own and with his daughter for audience.
When Lalor died the next year, Beckett was told he was
expected to 'sort out' the recorded material and this
book is the result.
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Lalor's
story is enthralling and deeply moving. Laughter animates
his memories, but there are tears too and anger, although
this is not a litany of hard times and injustice. Despite
the racism and discrimination Lalor undoubtedly suffered,
he quite early took charge of his life (just as he took
control of his life story) and found ways to confront,
circumvent and triumph over the hostility and bigotry
which often surrounded him. His is also a story of love
and sex and mateship, of affairs and breakups and of families
and friends dispersed over seemingly impossible distances,
but in many cases eventually finding their way back to
each other and their country. And it is a story of work;
hard, backbreaking labour in rough country and blistering
heat, and the pleasure of food and drink in company (and
a wash) after it is done.
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