My grandmother always carried her identity documents in her handbag. She was born on country, on an Aboriginal mission “behind barbed wire like a prison camp”, she used to say. She had no birth certificate, or none that we could find; the old mission records were destroyed in a fire in the 1930s. Later in life, a version of her birth record was created, and it was among what she called her “papers”.
The need to produce ID was one reality of the draconian protection era that she and her brothers and sisters grew up in. Every aspect of their young lives was controlled by the government: where they could travel, live and work. Their wages were paid as “pocket money” or withheld by the “board”. They had to seek permission to buy a dress, book a train ticket, attend a funeral. If your “papers” weren’t in order, you’d be picked up by police. My grandmother never stopped having hers ready.
