When I was a reared up, old granny she didn't like living in the mission, we'd all just build a tin hut and live on the bend of the river. And so then in Wilcannia, you had the Darling Barker and then on this side of the river, you had the mission, right? And then you had the bend mob living along here off the mission. And then on this side of the river on the town side, you had people living with they lived in the Mallee, so there was 'mission mob', 'bend mob' and 'mallee mob'.
But why I didn't put the bridge in mission mob, bend mob and I just put the house in the tin huts, is because when I was small, like I said, dad was white, mum was black, I was a target for the welfare to take me away. They was after me, so I wasn't allowed to cross that bridge until I was 15, 14 or 15.
If I went across I did it to be with my grandmother and come back on this side. But another thing I wouldn't cross the bridge on my own, because the gaps in the big boards going across, that's about this wide, and when granny took me, I could remember, she took me across one then, I looked down and I froze, because I thought I was going to fall down through the cracks in the bridge. So what I do, the older, we were supposed to walk this way, I'd step here, step there like that, then step there, and step there like that, and I just kept holding her up. So she just took me across and said 'You ain't going to fall down there, come on'. But I would not cross that bridge on my own, because I thought I'd fall down through.