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Teacher’s notes

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The clip shows Aunty Connie recalling her childhood at the Forrest River Mission in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Archival footage of the mission hospital and children playing outside is intercut with footage of Aunty Connie speaking about the way her childhood activities were limited by 'osteogenesis imperfecta’, a medical condition that also caused her physical pain. Deborah Mailman reads from Aunty Connie’s book When You Grow Up, including the painful moment when Mummy Nora reveals that she is not Connie’s real mother.

Educational value points

• Aunty Connie was born Connie Nungulla McDonald in 1933 near Wyndham in the Kimberley region, and was raised on the Forrest River Mission knowing little about her family background. She overcame many hardships to become a teacher, a missionary in the Church Army and a welfare worker, working with urban Indigenous Australians. Aunty Connie was later to work with the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs. Her life story is told in her book When You Grow Up.

• Aunty Connie’s story reflects in part the legislative controls exercised by the WA Government over Indigenous people in the early to mid-1900s. The Aborigines Act 1905 (WA) empowered the chief protector to carry out measures for the 'relief, protection and control’ of Indigenous people. Under the Native Administration Act 1936 (WA), the chief protector became the commissioner for native affairs, and every 'native child’ was made his legal ward. The minister for Aboriginal affairs was empowered to remove any Indigenous person from a reserve, district or hospital and as a result many families were separated.

• The clip explains and describes the effects of osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), which literally means 'imperfectly formed bones’ and is an inherited disorder characterised by bones that break easily. Known also as 'chalky bones’ or 'brittle bone’, OI is found across all groups of people. It affects the body’s production of collagen, the major protein found in all the body’s connective tissues. Some of the varieties of OI are difficult to diagnose, and mild cases may go undetected. There is no known cure.

• When Aunty Connie was a child, children suffering from OI were kept still and not allowed to undertake physical activities. It is now known that this was detrimental to their wellbeing as it caused muscle and skeletal shrinkage. Today, physical activity is understood to be an important part of managing OI, as bone growth depends on muscle pull as well as weight-bearing through standing, walking and lifting.

• The clip illustrates the strength of Indigenous Australian kinship systems, which ensured that after Connie’s mother died and her father had rejected her, she still had a primary caregiver in Mummy Nora. According to the traditional rights and obligations invested in the extended Indigenous family, a woman’s sisters are seen as mothers to her children and a woman’s female cousins are seen as her sisters.

• The importance of the Royal Flying Doctor Service to geographically remote and isolated Australian communities is disclosed in the clip. The Royal Flying Doctor Service was established in 1928 by Reverend John Flynn of the Australian Inland Mission, whose portrait appears on the Australian $20 note. It was the first service of its type in the world, and it remains unique because its pilots and medical personnel operate within a vast geographical area.

• Aunty Connie was written, directed and produced by Ivan Sen, a Gamilaroi man, whose other films include the feature film Beneath Clouds (2002), which won the Premiere First Movie Award at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival and the 2002 Best Director Award at the Australian Film Institute Awards. Raised in Inverell, New South Wales, Sen studied filmmaking at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.

This clip starts approximately 2 minutes into the documentary.

A voice-over reading from Connie’s life story, 'When You Grow Up’, is heard while we see images of the book as well as archival footage of a hospital ward.
Voice-over of young Connie I can remember the day I took my first step. I only remember because I broke both legs. Apparently they just crumbled under my weight. I was lucky the Flying Doctors’ plane had just landed at the mission. According to Mummy Nora, as soon as he saw me, he realised that I was suffering from osteogenesis imperfecta, commonly known as ‘chalky bones’ and sometimes confused with rickets.

Connie is shown in close-up being interviewed inside a house and we see archival footage of Aboriginal children playing in a yard as well as very young children sitting on the floor of a porch at a mission.
Current-day Connie As I got older, I understood then, that I was not able to do what those other little kids were doing – running around and chasing themselves and, this – that one. And here I am sitting on the floor with the pillows and things just to help me sit up. And I got frustrated. I wanted to go and join the game. I never went to sleep at night. Iven – as soon as the sun went down, that was when the bones gave me merry hell. That’s when they ached. You know what I mean?

We see pages from the book the narrator is reading in close-up.
Voice-over of young Connie Mama Nora cared for me on and off from the day my mother died, and I always believed that she was my real mother. I was proud of what I thought was my family. However, when I was seven, Mama Nora was told that the Native Welfare Department had instructed the superintendent of the mission that I was to be taken to the matron’s house. On the way she said, ‘Numbala’ – ‘child’ – ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’ Imagine my confusion when she said, ‘I am not your mother. You can’t call me Mummy anymore. I just grew you up.’