Kathleen Johnny

Portrait of Kathleen Johnny: Started off in Wyloo, I been born there and I worked there, from there I went to Mount Stuart, worked there. I met my husband in Kooline Station, but I sacked him in Mount Stuart. I was in the kitchen and all. Washing up, mopping up, putting the sprinkler in the lawn. Make me sick. Gotta get up at five o’clock in the morning, whether you’re getting cold or not. I done the same on all the stations Mount Stuart, Cane River, Ashburton. My father was a gardener then, Ashburton, look after the garden, my old dad. My mother and father, my two brothers, look after the chooks, I used to steal the eggs when I was a kid. And, you know what, he always used to come home then, he used to see my tracks, and he tell me, “Aya, you know what you done?” And I said, “What dad?” “You been steal the egg, ay?” “No, not me,” I tell him. “Yeah, you the one.” As soon as I said not me: Bang! Kick and all. “You gotta catch me.” I used to tell my father. “I’ll tell my mother on you.” “Go tell mum,” he tell me. We don’t steal the egg, we go steal the watermelon, who gonna catch us, down the river? I used to be an outlaw when I was a kid. Always work, and go back home, lay back, start the wireless and go to sleep. But it was always all the white-fellas talking, you know, inside the wireless. Some time I put a cassette on, Slim Dusty, Charlie Pride and all that. I always sit down, and time comes, go to work, always go to work, then the white man would tell us, “alright, knock off time, you can go back home now.”