Just So Stories

Allen & Unwin

July 2023

ISBN: 9781761067983

RRP: $34.99

I’ve been reading this over the past week and I have to tell you, this book will just blow you away. As you might expect, I know a bit about the dispossession, the brutal treatment, the attempted eradication of language and culture, the eugenics that were imposed, and the very real struggle our First Nations peoples have had – which is still ongoing today.

Shauna Bostock’s book has revealed so much more to me that has been buried deep by the ‘authorities’ – information both shaming and shocking. Former primary school teacher and a proud Bundjalung woman, Shauna has a pretty impressive family. Her uncles, Lester and Gerry Bostock were innovators in film and documentary making (Lousy Little Sixpence in particular) while making their stand against the system, her father, George, a playwright/actor, and her aunt Ruby Langford Ginibi, a renowned author (I read her first book Don’t Take Your Love to Town many years ago).

She had some passing familiarity through oral history of her ancestors, but it took a phone call from her Uncle Gerry telling her, ‘Guess who our white ancestors were?’] chuckled Uncle Gerry.] ‘They were slave traders! A couple of generations of slave traders!’ to spur her on from being curious about the unknown past of the family, to full-blown genealogist and historian, completing her PhD in Aboriginal History.

For the past four days I’ve been on the journey with Shauna as she delves into long hidden archives, wades through endless documents, letters and ephemera, seeks out spoken anecdotes, compares photos and unlocks dark and dirty secrets of the control and intimidation exerted upon First Nations people.

Stolen children, young girls trapped in indentured servitude and preyed upon sexually by those meant to protect them, brutal violence from the early white settlers, the harsh injustice of the missions regime, ASIO surveillance and more. Shauna also discovered happier moments as well: a cricket match against Bradman’s XI, kindness from unexpected quarters, the growth of activism and arts in Redfern, and the strength and resilience of many of her family members.

I defy any reader to put this down mid-read. Although at times, it is despairing to read of the indignities and injustices, it is also both compelling and powerful reading. This book will transform the mindset of many white Australians who still insist on glossing over the enormity of what has been done – and is still being done – to First Australians.

It should be required reading for secondary students and I would expect that there will be many History heads putting this into their new curriculum outlines alongside the works of Henry Reynolds and the like.

But further to that I believe that this is a book that should be shared with as many non-Indigenous people as possible, in order to give them a much fuller, broader and deeper insight into the apocalyptic impact that white colonisation had on our original people and their land.

I can give it no higher recommendation- if you can’t buy a copy, PLEASE get hold of it via your local library (I know our local already has it on order so yours will as well I’m sure).

My congratulations and thanks to Shauna on such a meticulously researched and balanced exposition of her five generations of multi-talented family and the struggle they, and so many others, have endured.