My wife and I will be among “the others” who’ll gather on-Country to listen as Wayne talks about the book, and the joys and trials of an Indigenous youth navigating life to become a Yorta Yorta man.
With him will be his partner, Catherine Guinness, who played a key role in shaping the book.
Wayne arrived in my life when about 16 as I worked at Echuca’s Riverine Herald when a cadet journalist with his elder brother, the late Clive Atkinson, a printer, and went to the Echuca Technical College with his younger brother, Graham.
The Atkinson boys, along with Paul Burchill, became The Shades, a successful band playing at local and district dances and achieving success in the event, known then as The Battle of the Bands.
Although my memory fails me with the regard the details, I do know Wayne, his brothers and Paul agreed to have The Shades play monthly at a coffee club organised by a church youth group, of which I was a member.
Did we pay them? I can’t remember, and was it somewhat risqué for a church group to have a rock band playing in a church hall with dimmed lights and bean bags? Most certainly.
Enough reminiscing, back to the book launch, which will be at Barmah’s Dharnya Centre for two hours from 2pm on Wednesday, October 15.
This is not the first launch of the book, but it will be on-Country, adding a significance to the event.
I loved the book, becoming increasingly embarrassed as the pages passed as it was evident I stood among the arrogant.
That, however, is not, I’m sure what Wayne intended in writing the book, rather he and Catherine were simply telling a story; a story about the joys and trials of growing up to be Yorta Yorta man.
Reading the book uncovered frightening gaps in my knowledge about how colonialism shaped the lives of our original peoples, how our sheer arrogance and hubris trampled on customs, rich, proud and immensely successful ways of sharing and living together that existed long before we, the colonialists, even understood the difference between north and south.
My education papered over all the cracks in colonialist history in that it failed to tell me about the many massacres of Indigenous people throughout the country; massacres that saw the number of Aboriginal people killed by rifle in northern Australia exceed that of Australian lives lost in all overseas wars.
The shortcomings in my education about the catastrophic injustices we freighted upon our Indigenous people would be echoed, I’m sure, throughout the wider population, and so the first step in a long journey to righting that injustice would be to honour Wayne and join him at the on-Country launch of Beyond the Meeting of the Waters: A Yorta Yorta Life Story on October 15.
Details of the launch can be found here: tinyurl.com/yb3kfj3m
– Robert McLean is a former Riv journalist and regular columnist with the Shepparton News
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