2011 - Theses - Flinders University

White Lives in a Black Community: The lives of Jim Page and Rebecca Forbes in the Adnyamathanha communityTracy SpencerVolume One Creative Writing Component: Excerpted Chapters from Volume Three Appendix OnePort Augusta, 2002Pauline McKenzie and I went to visit Auntie Norah Wilton. She was a faithful Christian, andI wondered if she might remember the hymns that Mrs Forbes used to sing at Nepbunna. AsAuntie Norah moved about her kitchen, fixing us a cup of tea and tutting as her nephewhelped himself to her cupboards, she told us how Mrs Forbes and another lady would sing upthe front of the church, ‘Calvary’s stream is flowing so free’. 240Calv’ry’s stream is flowing,Calv’ry’s stream is flowing;Flowing so free for you and for me. 241‘Calvary’s stream’ is the gush of blood and water from Jesus’ pierced side, as he hungcrucified. I tried to imagine what that ever decreasing congregation of yuras made of thesong, as they sang in that dusty church. The gush of blood when boys became men; thesteady trickle of water they prayed for in well shaft after well shaft? The blood of theirmissionary staining the floor of the spare white hut; the cleansing flood of water carryingdebris from the hills along the creeks after rains until the waterholes were clear and freshagain and the banks blushed green with the new shoots that would bloom and wither and begone again in a week. Calvary’s stream of sacrifice and redemption had flowed so freely forthese faithful bands.Nepabunna, June 1957Mrs Forbes attends perhaps her first ever ‘white wedding’ in the Fred Eaton MemorialChurch.166