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'I've been fighting since the day I was born. No, I've been fighting from the time I was curled up inside my mother's belly. The day my father shot himself in the head, that's when my fight started. Wally Carr
'The life story of Australian and Commonwealth champion boxer Wally Carr. A powerful biographical story about the journey of a young Wiradjuri boy, Wally Carr, escaping the dreaded Aboriginal Welfare Board - a journey from the heartbreak and crushing loneliness of childhood to the mean streets of Sydney's Redfern. From hunting goannas, Jimmy Sharman's boxing tents, rugby league, professional boxing and the first Aboriginal Tent Embassy, to present-day struggles and lifestyles, My Longest Round offers a vital snapshot of Aboriginal and Australian history.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
The Value of a Chance : Generational Trauma in Indigenous Comunities
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 413 2019; (p. 16-17)
— Review of A Stolen Life : The Bruce Trevorrow Case 2019 single work biography ; My Longest Round : The Life Story of Wally Carr 2010 single work biography'Philip Larkin famously suggested that ‘they fuck you up, your mum and dad’, but the alternative is usually worse. Twenty years before Larkin wrote ‘This Be the Verse’, his compatriot John Bowlby published Maternal Care and Mental Health (1951), which described profound mental health consequences when infants are denied parental intimacy. Bowlby delineated the centrality of this ‘lasting psychological connectedness’ to well-being in later life, something cruelly withheld from many members of Australia’s Stolen Generations.
'Bruce Trevorrow and Wally Carr were born in the mid-1950s into Aboriginal families that were incredibly poor, living in makeshift huts, foraging for bush food to supplement supplies, and terrified of visits from welfare officers. When Trevorrow was one, he was removed from his Ngarrindjeri family to live with a non-Indigenous family. Carr remained with his own Wiradjuri family. They were very different men with some crucial factors in common. Both achieved national prominence for different reasons. Both died prematurely.' (Introduction)
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My Longest Round
2010
single work
column
— Appears in: National Indigenous Times , 28 October vol. 9 no. 213 2010; (p. 55)
-
The Value of a Chance : Generational Trauma in Indigenous Comunities
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 413 2019; (p. 16-17)
— Review of A Stolen Life : The Bruce Trevorrow Case 2019 single work biography ; My Longest Round : The Life Story of Wally Carr 2010 single work biography'Philip Larkin famously suggested that ‘they fuck you up, your mum and dad’, but the alternative is usually worse. Twenty years before Larkin wrote ‘This Be the Verse’, his compatriot John Bowlby published Maternal Care and Mental Health (1951), which described profound mental health consequences when infants are denied parental intimacy. Bowlby delineated the centrality of this ‘lasting psychological connectedness’ to well-being in later life, something cruelly withheld from many members of Australia’s Stolen Generations.
'Bruce Trevorrow and Wally Carr were born in the mid-1950s into Aboriginal families that were incredibly poor, living in makeshift huts, foraging for bush food to supplement supplies, and terrified of visits from welfare officers. When Trevorrow was one, he was removed from his Ngarrindjeri family to live with a non-Indigenous family. Carr remained with his own Wiradjuri family. They were very different men with some crucial factors in common. Both achieved national prominence for different reasons. Both died prematurely.' (Introduction)
-
My Longest Round
2010
single work
column
— Appears in: National Indigenous Times , 28 October vol. 9 no. 213 2010; (p. 55)
