Upper Yarra
13 Tuesday, 14 October, 2014
Sunny Shedfest
23
Mail Covering the Upper Yarra Region of the Yarra Ranges Shire
The Bloke is back
A Mail Newspaper Group publication
30-31
Sports of all sorts
Phone: 5957 3700 Trades and Classifieds: 1300 666 808
A 50-pound baby By KATH GANNAWAY
William Hammersley is determined that no child will live a lie. 128410
GAS HEAT & COOL
Ph: 5966 9999
warning bells that will again favour the need of the adoptors over parents and the child. Mr Hammersley argues that ownership is an outdated practice. “No-one is against caring for a child where that need is there; what we object to is ownership and the denial of that person’s heritage; the secrets, the lies and the false reality,” he said.
MASSIVE CARPET WAREHOUSE CLEARANCE OnAllRoomLots•AllUnderCost
1036219-SH24-12
SPECIALISTS IN • Split Systems • Ducted Heating and Cooling •Gas Appliance Sales and Installation
Mr Hammersley says his story as a ‘black market’ baby can be linked to today’s political thinking around adoption which he says is about finding new ways to demonise people and take their babies. He says the media around recent cases of overseas surrogacy and proposals for new legislation around drugaddicted mothers and adoption, sound
MUST CLEAR!! All Stock Must Go FROM $8 SQM INCLUDING GST *Prices for carpet only
Upper Yarra Carpets SHOP 3/4 THE ARCADE YARRA JUNCTION
1096512-PB43-13
YARRA RANGES
Picture: KATH GANNAWAY
SALE NOW ON!!! SAVE$$$ DEAL DIRECT WITH THE MANUFACTURER
Wattyl Decking Oil 4Ltr $58 10Ltr $120 Can be Tinted
Computer Colour Matching OPEN: MON-FRI 6.30am-5.30pm•SAT 8.00am-12.00noon
Tel: 5967 2155
“If a child is cared for by a loving couple who want to care for a child, then that can be done with guardianship, without changing names, birth certificates and creating a false reality,” he said. Mr Hammersley’s story can be found at forcedadoptions.naa.giv.au// experiences.
9737 6833
24d John St., LILYDALE
CUSTOM MADE PVC BLINDS, SUNSCREEN, AWNINGS, UMBRELLAS & OUTDOOR HEATING
CALL NOW
1300 880 228
www.outdoorblinds.com.au
1147100-MB31-14
society that demanded a manageable, commercially productive population” where compassion didn’t suit the imperatives. While the guidelines which dictated how he told his story allowed the exposure of historic events, comment on the current political take on adoption, both homegrown and overseas, was off limits.
1127458-DJ14-14
WILLIAM Hammersley’s story is on the record. Chapter by chapter, the Warburton man adopted out as a baby in an era when forced adoptions were commonplace, has had his story included in the Forced Adoptions History Project in the National Archives of Australia. It’s a significant step forward for increasing awareness and understanding of the heartbreaking events and policies that saw mothers forced to relinquish their babies, and children who grew up living a lie. Under the title ‘Daddy Who ... The untold story of baby trafficking in Victoria during the 1940s/’50s’, Mr Hammersley tells his own story, and highlights another aspect of adoption practices he says has yet to be fully exposed - the selling of babies. Mr Hammersley never met his mother, but recently visited her grave. His story talks of the circumstances around which his mother relinquished him describing it as “a swelling tide of circumstance (that) had snatched another babe from its mother’s arms.” He says for 50 years he couldn’t forgive her for placing him for adoption with an abusive, ignorant family - until he found the truth. “Australian governments have yet to acknowledge the plight of many infants and their vulnerable mothers during the 1940s and ’50s who were sold to couples for 50 pounds. “These children’s stories remain a hidden part of our social and political history,” he said. Mr Hammersley believes he was a ‘50 pound baby’. His research reveals an era where unwed young women and women escaping domestic violence looking to terminate a pregnancy or have an infant adopted were “fodder for unscrupulous adoption agents and abortionists”. He draws on newspaper articles and public and private documents to present a case which is unapologetically condemning of church organisations for the role they played, of governments and bureaucracies, and of a “1950s capitalistic conservative