Stolen Generation survivor had a long journey to love and care

Archie Charles portrait by Rod McNicol entitled The Innocent Trickster.

Archie Charles
Stolen Generation survivor
7-11-52 — 8-7-14

Arthur Charles, widely known as Archie, has died at age 61 at James Barker House, a Salvation Army aged-care facility. In his adult years the Salvation Army provided housing for Archie at a number of facilities and they always welcomed him.

Archie was a member of the Stolen Generation. He was removed from his mother and siblings at the age of four. His mother did not get to cuddle her little boy again, nor did Archie receive the love and warmth of his mother again. He did not get to play with his brother and sisters as children or experience the variety and strengths of his kinship group and culture as a child. His case file history, with a few exceptions, is harrowing reading. Archie was made a ward of the state and placed in a succession of institutions.

He received his first penal sentence at 13, a first offence for “larceny” earning six months in Turana youth prison. His disciplinary career continued; Archie endured the horrors of HM Pentridge prison and spent time in notorious and brutal divisions, including H Division and J Ward, Ararat. There are many stories by reliable witnesses of the beatings Archie received at the hands of the agents of HM. He received six months jail in Gippsland on one occasion for the theft of ”food and blankets”.

His devoted older brother Uncle Jack, the internationally honoured actor and activist, wrote and advocated for his brother throughout their time in institutions and prisons. Uncle Jack continued to advocate for and offer unconditional love to his brother throughout his life. Archie’s mother Aunty Blanche tried to have her son returned but was dismissed by the department responsible.

A retired schoolteacher, Mrs Tywford, became interested in Archie’s plight as a child and she became an eloquent advocate and foster mother, offering Archie love and care. Uncle Jack says that when Mrs Tywford died, “Archie really went downhill”.

Archie’s movement disorder was caused by side-effects of the older antipsychotic drugs he was treated with and was also magnified by the injuries his brain suffered in prison and police beatings. A police handgun fired next to his head allegedly destroyed his left eardrum.

Archie overcame alcoholism at the old Galiamble halfway house but was caught by the poisoned flour of heroin in the late 1970s. He was a noted figure on the streets of Melbourne and was the most accomplished “cold biter” in recent history.

The amount of fares Archie received from well-meaning people on the street to “get him to Albury to see my family” would have taken him around the world many times. Instead, it went up his arm.

Archie shared what he had – money, food, and cigarettes. He shared blankets in lanes when he slept out. And he shared laughter. His dear younger sister Aunty Chrissie Charles, a now retired Victorian Aboriginal health service worker, says the time she spent with Archie taught her to, “smile and laugh again… he freed part of me”.

In the three last years of his life Archie received more appropriate support after determined advocacy. He gained an indigenous care team and an aged care package and appropriate supported housing at the Salvation Army. His workers, Chris Arnott, Lisa Zammitt, Debbie Kerr, Kerry James Fox and myself, understood his levels of post-traumatic anxiety and the harrowing journey he had survived. His gentle and wise Irish GP, Dr Niall Quiery of of the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service, managed complex health issues with love and skill.

Many people offered support and love to Archie and many indigenous families gave him a bed, a meal, and friendship across Australia during his wide-ranging travels.

The state and its institutions sent a four-year-old boy on a journey to hell alone. His undefeatable spirit led him on the road home. It was a long walk. Yet in spite of the horrors he experienced, Archie described himself as “a happy person”. His sister Aunty Chrissie described him as “the face of innocence”. His brother Uncle Jack said that “he is under Bunjil’s wing everywhere with us forever”.

My friend Archie taught complex, challenging lessons – that is the role the trickster spirit is sent to do – about how we should support the healing of the Stolen Generation, the lost, the outcast and all those trying to find their way home.

Archie Charles, innocent trickster, Koori legend, Melbourne identity, passed away drug-free, surrounded by care and love. Archie will lie next to his older sisters Aunty Esme and Aunty Eva-Jo in the family plot at Weeroona, the indigenous burial ground in Greenvale.

Martin Hoare works in the support services program of Connecting Home Ltd.