Dhu-Brothers

Charlie Dhu: I'm Charlie Dhu, born and bred on Mulga Downs Station, in 1935.
Edward Dhu: I'm the younger brother, Edward Dhu, born in Port Hedland in 1947 at the Lock Hospital which used to be the Aboriginal Hospital, we were never allowed to go the white people’s hospital. I spent the first six years of my life on Mulga Downs, at Cowra Outcamp before my father passed away and we had to move off there into Marble Bar.
Charlie Dhu: We grew up at Mulga Downs, we didn’t have any schooling. When we were school age we were doing men’s work, working like men, mustering, and fencing. Cutting Mulga posts with axes, and next day we’d go out with a truck and load them on the truck and then space them out on the fence line, then dig all the holes with a crowbar, clean the dirt out with a meat tin.
Edward Dhu: Drill the holes with a brace and bit.
Charlie Dhu: used the old brace and bit, boring holes in the fence post, running the wire through, the girls had to do that as well, our sisters too had to work like men. And well, we used to just work for tucker until we were old enough to claim wages, and then we were only getting a dollar a week for working from eight till dark.
Edward Dhu: Ten bob, there was no dollars then!
Charlie Dhu: We were out working, seven days a week, from daylight to dark, we’d leave the house at dark and come home dark, whatever we were doing. Chasing horses round the horse paddocks three o’clock in the morning, in the dark. The mustering and shearing time was in the cool weather, in the hot weather we did fixing windmills, fencing, mixing cement with a shovel.