Arthur
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
Arthur was born in the early 1960s. He has dyslexia, which was only diagnosed recently.
Arthur described his childhood to the Royal Commission as being about ‘survival’. After his mother left with his little sister, he and his brother were separated. Arthur was sent to a boys’ home where he experienced constant bullying, abuse and sexual assault.
The boys’ home had a school on site, and this failed Arthur too. He said the teachers didn’t care if he could learn or not. If Arthur asked questions they would send him on jobs. If he sat there and did not talk they mostly ignored him. He could not understand letters or words. Looking at a page of writing was like ‘looking at a moving picture’.
When he turned 11, Arthur was fostered out to a rural family. He was overjoyed to escape the boys’ home, but he quickly learnt he wasn’t joining the family. He was there as unpaid child labour.
Arthur was sent to school with the local children but found it impossible to learn. The words ‘kept moving’ and he could not figure out how to read. Arthur recalls trying to ask for help from the teacher but he was dismissed. It seemed no-one cared if he learnt. The farmer’s sons teased him every day about being ‘dumb’.
After four years of hard work and abuse Arthur had had enough, one day knocking down one of the boys and threatening the other. He was sent away from the farm back into institutional care, this time at a ‘halfway house’. He did not stay long. At age 15 he ‘walked out of there and never looked back’.
Arthur was on the road alone for a decade, finding it easy to get jobs on farms and stations. In his mid-20s a station owner helped him enrol to vote. It was then his long-lost sister found him. She had been searching for him for years.
Arthur’s told us his traumatic childhood has had a profound effect on him. He has struggled with relationships all his adult life. His marriage ended, and he found it difficult to parent his own son, to show him love.
The dyslexia diagnosis is a recent revelation. Arthur says it is good to know but he is bewildered that teachers never listened to him when he explained that he didn’t understand how they were teaching.
Arthur feels robbed of an education and all the opportunities this would have provided.
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.