AustLit

Laurie Clarke was born near Lake Condah, Victoria. He was removed from relatives when he was six months old along with five of his siblings. The children were being cared for by relatives while their parents were away looking for work. Clarke spent nine years at St Joseph's Home, Sebastopol, before being fostered by a non-Indigenous family. Clarke has worked as a police liaison officer and as a men's health worker with the Ballarat Health Collective. He has made contact with his birth family.

Clarke's story was recorded by the National Library of Australia for the Bringing Them Home oral history project and appeared in the associated publication Many Voices: Reflections on experiences of Indigenous child separation, edited by Doreen Mellor and Anna Haebich (2002).