Ms Barlow was the guest speaker at Protecting Aboriginal Children’s (PACT) Block Party 2400 commemorating National Sorry Day and the 20^th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home Report.

She told a story about her mother, aunty and uncle who were taken from their home shortly after their mother passed away.

“My mother was two, my aunty was five and uncle Darcy was a young baby,” Ms Barlow said. 

“Their mother passed away at a young age and my aunty remembers a big black car pulling up at their house in Walcha at the reserve, and they were taken.”

Ms Barlow said it wasn’t until about 10 years ago, after her mother had passed away due to problems with her heart resulting from being a heavy drinker, did she find out why her mother had drank.

“The grief must have been so heavy in her life,” she said.

“She suffered sexual abuse and as a result she must have been thinking she was dirty and rejected. She drank out of rejection and loneliness.”

Ms Barlow broke down in tears as she told of how her aunty, who’d had a privileged life with a white family in Vaucluse Sydney, was finally reunited with her sister who was living in a mission in Guyra.

“About a month or so into her time of working [in Guyra] my aunty was walking down the street one day and this older lady came to her,” Ms Barlow said.

“The lady said, ‘oh hello Vera, have you got a sister named Hazel?’

“And she said, ‘yes, I have but I haven’t seen her for years so I’m looking for her’.

“This lady said, ‘your sister lives here, she’s out there at the one-mile’.

“And she said with that she just ran all the way out to this one-mile and she said there’s my sister coming up from the river bank with a pail of water.”

Ms Barlow’s story is one of just many from the stolen generation.

Friday marked 20 years since the landmark Bringing Them Home report was handed down which detailed the trauma that thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people suffered as a result of forced removal from their families.

Moree commemorated the occasion with a morning tea at Pius X Aboriginal Corporation, which included speeches by Moree Secondary College student Shanika Hippi and local elder Denise Webb.

Shanika and Denise then raised the Aboriginal flag at Pius before everyone enjoyed a morning tea.

The day’s commemorations then moved to Boughton Oval for Block Party 2400 where hundreds of Aboriginal and non-indigenous people gathered to remember the stolen generation and celebrate how far we’ve come since then.

The family fun day featured information stalls, entertainment and a free barbecue.

A traditional smoking ceremony was performed, followed by a number of dances from Moree’s Aboriginal Dance Group.

Ms Barlow’s address was followed by a talk from Moree councillor Kerry Cassells, who broke down in tears as she read a transcript of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s sorry speech, which he gave in 2008.

The event concluded with a women’s memorial league tag game.

The following was transcribed from Emily Barlow’s Sorry Day speech.

“My mum and her sister Vera Lovelock and her brother Darcy Baker, they were taken,” Ms Barlow said.

“My mother was two, my aunty was five and uncle Darcy was a young baby. Their mother passed away at a young age and my aunty remembers a big black car pulling up at their house in Walcha at the reserve, and they were taken.

“I grew up on Mehi Crescent in Moree and every now and again, I’d always wonder why my mother would drink. Over the years she passed away – she went to have an operation on her heart and it wasn’t a success so she passed away.

“Over the years I started to wonder, because my mother was such a beautiful person, she had such a lovely personality and she really cared for us as children growing up in a hard time on the mission.

“I had a visit to my aunty in Armidale, and she had a totally different background. She told me about the time she remembers as a five-year-old, and the big black car that pulled up in front of their home and took them.

“They grew up in the homes. The story goes that they were seperated and she never knew where my mother was and she never knew where my uncle was.

“She said every month on the Sunday they’d bring the white people into the homes and they’d dress the girls up in little white dresses and socks and sandals and do their hair and the boys would have little black pants and white shirts and sandals and she said they’d come along and they’d walk past and look at the kids and go, ‘are they worthy to take?’ or ‘I’ll take this one’.

“As she got about 10 she remembered these people that came in and she got chosen by this husband and wife that came in and she had such a privileged life at Vaucluse in Sydney.

“These people were missionaries and she said as she went through school they put her through to nursing school to become a nurse because at that time towns and missions, they had outposts where they’d have Aboriginal nurses.

“Anyway, she had a chance to go to the Singleton Bible College and that’s where she spent the last year’s of her course when she was 19 or 20. 

“Then the opportunity came along when her family released her to come home and look for her family.

“So on her journey she made it to Armidale and ended up finding her dad. He must have just stayed alive, he willed himself to live to see one of his children.

“So she got to Armidale and found her dad and at that time she took him to the barber shop and had him cleaned up and shaved, and then the opportunity came along for her to move to Guyra to the outpost to do the nursing there.

“Anyway, she said about a month or so into her time of working there she was walking down the street one day and this older lady came to her.

“The lady said, ‘oh hello Vera, have you got a sister named Hazel?’

“And she said, ‘yes, I have but I haven’t seen her for years so I’m looking for her’.

“At Guyra they used to have what they called the one-mile, where the Aboriginals used to live in tin homes along the river bank.

“And as she was walking down the street, this lady said ‘your sister lives here, she’s out there at the one-mile’.

“And she said with that she just ran all the way out to this one-mile and she said there’s my sister coming up from the river bank with a pail of water.

“This is how they got reconnected, by some other person meeting them in the street. And you know what, I want to encourage anybody today, if you’re having hard times in your family, please, please find solutions, find the right one to tap into to help our children, this generation.

“I never knew this story about my mother until I got older, because I wondered why.

“She met my dad, he was up there working on the tobacco and potato picking and he brought her to Moree and my family just fell in love with her, they accepted her. This is how my mother came to live in Moree and we became a part of Moree.

“That’s one story but there’s many stories of our old people that through time had terrible atrocities happen to them.

“My aunty showed me her back where a lot of the flesh was taken out of her back from the straps that were used in these homes.

“Those homes are not for our people.

“I just want to take this opportunity today here to acknowledge the Grandmothers Against Removal. They’ve played a big impact in my life in getting my neice from out of care. She’s thriving today.

“Events like this are opportunities for us to share stories and to wonder why did our old people drink, why did they do these things?

“My mum, they taught her to do ballet and all this sort of stuff, and memories that lodge in my mind is that she used to wash up and she’d be ballerina-ing around the house. She taught us girls housework and cleaning and she really loved us as a family.

“There’s a lot of stories out there but I just wanted to share this one about the stolen generation where they didn’t have a voice.

“But today, we as a people, we have a voice. We have a voice to say ‘no, this is an injustice that has been done against us’, we can stand up and say ‘no, this is not right, this is wrong’, or ‘that is wrong and we should do it the right way’.

“I just want to thank Blossom for this opportunity to share this story of my mum’s journey and her sister and her brother. Thank you.”