National Sorry Day: Stolen generation survivor Aunty Lindy Lawler

The memory might be 60 years old, but it's so vivid that all it takes is a single flame to make Barrack Heights grandmother Aunty Lindy Lawler fearful and cringe.

The Illawarra elder and Yuin Nation woman is a member of the Stolen Generation and this National Sorry Day she wants the community to know she survived.

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Every year on May 26, National Sorry Day remembers and acknowledges the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were forcibly removed from their families and communities. They are now known as The Stolen Generations.

Aunty Lindy and her twin sister Mandy were taken from their parents when they were six years old and placed in nine foster homes or institutions during the first six years of their life.

They were given 'welfare names' to make it tougher for the birth parents to find their stolen children.

Aunty Lindy's real name is Elsie Rose Cooper, her sister's real name is Jean, and they only found out their real names when they turned 18.

In that sunny Narrabeen home on Sydney's affluent northern beaches, the twin sisters suffered horrific physical and mental abuse.

They were put into "the hands of a monster", a woman they knew only as Mrs Jones, and the horrifying moments inside the house still live on as a scar.

One day the twins took food from the cupboard without asking and the punishment was swift and painful.

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"She lit the gas stove, put my twin sister first in front of it, grabbed her hand and flicked it across the gas stove that many times and the same for me," Aunty Lindy said.

"We ran to the windows, they had a wooden bench across the window, and we would bite into that wood to stop the screaming, the pain."

It was the first of many times the twins were punished this way.

"Because of being tortured that way, we thought that was part of living and growing up. We didn't know it was a bad thing," Aunty Lindy said.

"It hurts so deeply inside that sometimes I want to cry. I don't want to hate the woman, I don't want to give her the benefit of knowing I'm hurting inside."

Eventually, when they were about six years old, they were sent to live in Hunters Hill and that's where they met their beloved foster mum Betty.

"She was the most caring person I've ever met," Aunty Lindy said.

"We were very, very lucky to end up with a foster mother."

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While they found happiness, the trauma from their youth has lived on, but Aunty Lindy said she doesn't condemn that "monster" who burnt their hands.

"If I condemn people for the rest of my life then I will be ill for the rest of my life. I need to be positive for my twin and carry her memories.

Her beloved twin died in 2009.

"It's a life that you don't want to live," she said of the loss of her sister.

"She had a nervous breakdown, she couldn't carry that for the rest of her life."

While Aunty Lindy survived she still carries the pain of the traumas.

"If I don't think positively in what I give out to the universe, then what can happen? I believe what you give out to the universe comes back to you," she said.

"This woman, if she was ill, if something wasn't right with her, then I've been brought up by my foster mother never to condemn anybody."

Aunty Lindy went on to have two children - a boy and a girl. Her son is now a police officer and her daughter works in a school. She also has six grandchildren.

This National Sorry Day, and every other day since she became an elder, she is determined to change lives around her.

She assists Lake Illawarra Police District officers and is often called in when Aboriginal youths find themselves in trouble with the law.

"I want to keep them away from the cells, keep them out of trouble," she said. "Young people are a top priority for me."

She's also on the Shellharbour City Council Aboriginal Advisory Committee, the Warrigal Care Board and volunteers at the HARS Aviation Museum.

Her stories also feature on a podcast released by the Illawarra Aboriginal Medical Service on Friday to mark National Sorry Day.

Aunty Lindy's instinct is to vote no in the upcoming referendum about the Indigenous Voice To Parliament.

"I've got a horrible feeling that something's not right about it," she said.

"It's like signing legal papers, but have you read the fine print? Do you really know what the yes is going to mean? Is it really what they say?"

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