REMEMBER PAYNE STREET
The article below has been written for publication in WQ Magazine, Queensland Writers Centre, July 2009, Issue 186. : http://www.qwc.asn.au/Resources/Publications/WQMagazine.aspx
Roberta Johnson, an Elder of the Gooreng Gooreng community in Bundaberg, first said the magic words ‘remember Payne Street’ at a public consultation process in 2008. The effect on the thirty participants was electric. Memories flowed and laughter with them. Payne Street, in the period from 1930-1950 held a wealth of stories locked in the memories and the photo albums of Aboriginal [1] families that lived and visited there.
These families lived through hard times, but they were times accompanied with the music of the piano accordion and the bones, dancing in the street and the unstinting support of extended families. Theirs was a journey, described in the words of Mervyn Jonson, ‘from being fringe dwellers to living in the centre’.
As a community theatre practitioner I also heard the script and saw the potential in a unique performance statement about a resilient family that would resonate Australia wide. I communicated this experience to the other directors our company, Creative Regions, a not-for-profit cultural service provider and producer. They immediately saw the potential for community engagement. We met with the Elders of the Johnson family at the heart of the story and the Payne Street Project was born.
This project needed to belong to the community from the start. Johnson family member Norelle Watson was appointed as project manager. ‘I grew up listening to stories about Payne Street and the stories are very much in my heart’ she said. Norelle saw the project as set ‘in a time when Aboriginal people had few rights, but were rich in culture, respect, generosity and hospitality, elements which are at the very core of Aboriginal law and custom…A time when many of my people were under the Aboriginal Protection Act’.
The first stage was designed to support the telling and recording of stories. It was decided to arrange a bus trip for the Elders back to Payne Street in November 2008 to provoke their memories. Indigenous film maker Luke Barrowcliffe of Goorie Vision on the Sunshine Coast was invited to partner in the project. As a resident artist at the Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery, he mentored two young people, Luke Watson and Jeremy Johnson, so that all the active agents in collecting the oral histories were from the Aboriginal community.
Fifteen Elders from a number of families who had lived along Payne Street joined the bus. The bus stopped at the entry to the Street where the earliest stories were told; then at the site of the Baptist Church where later stories unfolded.
On the trip back on the bus, an impromptu singalong started with Mervyn Johnson’s rendition of: ‘Just a Little Street Where Old Friends Meet’. A community singalong was planned for Paddy’s Island in January 2009 to take the project further. Paddy’s Island is a massacre site and still a place of contention within the Aboriginal community itself.
The Paddy’s Island Picnic event turned into a family reunion, with people coming from Woorabinda, Rockhampton, Gladstone and Brisbane to be a part of it. Over sixty Aboriginal people attended. In opening the day, Elder of the Taribelang, Tom Brown, spoke strongly to the community about their need to care for each other. The day held a kind of joy in reconnection both with that place and with each family that is hard to describe. The community took it over completely.
The publicity around these two events, made possible through a grant from the Bundaberg Regional Council Community Grants Program, created a ripple through the community. It became clear that there was a demand for more family stories to be told and for community members to learn about oral history recording and collection. The community cultural development approach taken by Creative Regions built a strong sense of trust. More community members came forward seeking assistance to plan events and there is commitment to take the work that has been done forward into other creative projects.
Five community members have been offered the opportunity to work with Feral Arts in Brisbane on Placestories to learn more about the digital recording of oral histories. Another project is being brokered with Gidarjil Development Corporation Limited which has a Language Centre Program. Application is currently with the Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF). Linguist Lois Blackman will lead this collection of Elders’ oral history with an ear for capturing fragments of language still in the community. The creative team are planning a process for script writing and a theatre production based on Payne Street which will be taken to the Community Partnerships Program in the Australia Council later this year. You see, this is just the beginning.
Judith I. Pippen PhD Director Creative Regions
[1] I use the word ‘Aboriginal’ rather than ‘Indigenous’ as that is how this community prefers to be named.