byronchild - logo

manhood
Greg’s Story
As told to Susanna Freymark by Greg Telford
I
have Aboriginal blood, I have
Islander blood and I have white
blood so I have a mixed nationality
really. I belong to the Midjuanbal
clan up at Tweed.
We were the first black family to live
in Kingscliff. I watched a lot of relationships
between fathers and sons. At times
I was envious of white kids because
they were doing things with their dads I
suppose that I would have liked to have
done with my dad. You know, going
fishing and that sort of thing, whereas
my dad — he was doing the more commercial
type fishing with nets and all of
that, but that was about making money
to keep our house. I was envious of
watching fathers and sons going in their
own little boat — going out to sea or
going in the river, playing football. I felt
encouraged watching dads supporting
their kids to do the best they could on
the field whereas my relationship with
my dad was like, ‘You get out there and
f----in’ hurt somebody and if you don’t
f----in’ hurt somebody I’ll hurt you’.
That sort of thing.
I suppose I’m really grateful that,
looking at my dad and my mother,
is their work ethic — a really strong
work ethic. That would come out in us
even though there was lots of violence
and abuse in our family. They said, ‘If
you want anything out of your life you
know, get off your arse and get it ‘cause
nobody’s going to give it to you.’ To me
it’s a healthy thing, you know, it’s been
able to sustain me and keep me going
through my life.
I left home at fourteen because of the
violence that was occurring and sadly,
you know, I couldn’t handle it and if
I stayed I’d have had to do something
about stopping it and that may have
been detrimental to everybody. I had
people trying to help me along the way,
different aunties and uncles who tried
to influence my life a bit. I was on a path
of self-destruction for a while and then
slowly over time I became more aware
that I needed to change my lifestyle.
I got into lots of relationships with
people who had similar backgrounds to
myself. Eventually I got into a relationship
with this woman who didn’t have a
background like mine, a non-Aboriginal,
byronchild 36
non-Koori. She’s actually a Kiwi girl, a
blue-eyed blonde girl. I could tell the
qualities of how she was brought up
were different to the way I was brought
up and wanted some of what she had,
but just didn’t know how to get it.
Over time I’ve learnt a lot from her
and made changes. I’ve been lucky that
I’ve had people put in my path that have
been, I suppose, guides for what I needed
to do to learn to make the change so
that I didn’t pass these same behaviours
on to my children.
I’ve watched people like Stuey
Anderson, watched him with his boys. I
went around one day to see them while
they were at camp. Stuart was sitting
on the fence, it was a copper log fence
and his three boys were sitting with
him. He had his arms stretched right
out either side and his boys were tucked
into them and one of them had his arm
across his dad’s leg, they were all sort
of entwined with each other. A lot of
people could walk past and that would
have no impact on them whereas for me
it was just bang — it just hit me in the
face. Like, shit, look at this father with
his boys. That’s what I want.
We can blame
colonisation, we can
blame growing up in
negative lifestyles,
but while we
continue to blame,
we don’t have to
look at ourselves
and our behaviour.
Anyway when we left there I said
to a friend, ‘Didn’t you notice the way
that guy was sitting on the fence with
his sons?’ She said, ‘I didn’t think much
of it.’
The difference was because she was
brought up in a family where there was
lots of love and that sort of thing shown.
I just see white families grow up different
to black families. Maybe
white fellows are better
at expressing their love
for one another more so
than we are.
If I see some kids,
regardless of what colour
the kids are, if they’re
doing something that I
know is wrong that could get them into
trouble or cause problems for somebody
else more often than not I’d stop if I was
driving past. If they’re Koori, I make them
aware that if you’re doing something you
shouldn’t, you need to be aware it affects
your mum, your dad, your uncles, your
aunties, your grandparents, because it’s
whether we like it or not we get tarred
with the one brush. We need to be aware
that regardless of whether we’re related
to one another or not we still have a connection
by the colour of our skin. And
even that has repercussions on me as a
father because one of my little boys is
blonde with blue eyes.
He came home from school when he
was six and said,‘Dad, the kids at school
have been teasing me.’ I said, ‘What
about, son?’ I knew it’d come sooner or
later. I’m in the bath with him. He said,
‘The kids at school they’re teasing me
because I don’t look like you.’ I wanted
him to say black but he wouldn’t say
it. I said, ‘What do you mean you don’t
look like me?’ He said, ‘You know, I
don’t look like you. When I get older
and grow up will I look like you?’ And
I said, ‘No, son, in the summer you’ll go
goldie but in the winter time you will
fade. Your dad does too, but no, you’re
not going to look like dad. You just be
proud of who you are.’ I had tears in
my eyes when he was speaking because
I was thinking, ‘Shit, here he is at this
age feeling this already.’ And then he
turned around and he said, ‘Dad.’ And
I said ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘I’m black inside.’
The tears ran down my face. It just blew
me away.
He’s thirteen now. I talked at the
NAIDOC celebration at his school last
year. He came home and said to his
mother, ‘I’ve had the afternoon of a
celebrity! Half the kids in my class
didn’t know I was Koori and the other
half just had no idea what I was, really.
They just thought I was one of them but
they see dad there today and they see
me carry the Koori flag. You know, they
just treated me really different.’
My Pop [grandfather] died last year.
Because of Dad’s relationship [to him]
you know, we never got close. My Pop
actually apologised to me because of