Aunty Ella Pitt

Aunty Ella was born on Darnley Island in the Torres Strait. In a village called Same Village. Darnley Island was the name given to the island by white missionaries but the traditional name of the island is Erub Island.

Darnley Island is the eastern islands closer to Papua New Guinea than the other islands. The island is known for the deepest water and there was a lot pearl shell diving done here.

Aunty Ella recalls Darnley Island as being clean and the missionaries taught them to clean and the people worked hard to make the island clean. Life on the island was a lot of hard work by the women who used to clean the roads making sure no bushes did not over grow onto the road. The women often carried heavy stones and put them on each side of the road to make it look neat and tidy. A lot of women had miscarriages working this hard. Aunty’s father spoke up to the missionaries about this and was told to stop making trouble and to leave the island and take your family elsewhere. The family then left to live on Thursday Island. Aunty Ella was around 6 years old at this time.

The family moved to Thursday Island where all the houses looked like barracks and looked very old and they leaked when it rained. They lived close to the town.

Every morning her mother would take a spear and get octopus in the ocean and they loved this. There were a lot half caste children at the school on the island where they started going to school. Her mum would send them to school with a can opener to open the tin of sardines and bully beef and damper that she had given them for lunch. At first they were shame about the lunch they had but the rest of the kids came around and started to all join in with lunch together which made it easier for Aunty and her siblings to settle into school.

Aunty recalls that this was also the first time that she saw a cow as they crossed a paddock to get the school one day. The cow mooed and it frightened her and her sister so much they ran off crying back to their mum to tell her about it. There was a dairy farm on the island and her uncle worked there she found out later.

They moved to the back of the island –the other side of the island to the town. There was a theatre they sat at the back of the theatre and white people sat at the front of the theatre. When it rained the white people had to sit with the blackfellas.

In 1942 when the war started and the government sent letters to people to go to an office in town to talk about his land for the army tents. Her dad said he is not selling it he will be coming back. The man said they do not know who will win the war and they should sell it to have money for when they come back. Her mother and father talked about it and decided to sell the land to the government. Mr Farquhar gave the lugger boats to Cairns. He can sell the lugger boats in Cairns.

Her dad’s brothers and relations could take the other boats – around 8 of them, it was a terrible trip – the women and kids were seasick – the men were alright.

Her dad took the biggest lugger boat – they all got sea sick her sister Mary was very sick – the dad would stop along the coast line get off the boat and head off again. Her aunty was too big to fit in the cabin – there was a big storm out at sea. The boys had to get the dinghy’s to pull the lugger boats from crashing into the land rocks. Her dad was Douglas. They could see the storm coming across the sea. Dad tied the aunty to the deck of the boat. The wind came and took the sail the boat took off fast and the waves were big. The boat went up the wave and crashed back down. It was a miracle that the boat did not break in two. They were crying for aunty out on the deck. She was crying out after coming back out of the wave. They all got to Cairns safely. When they arrived in Cairns it was so good to see the lights of the car.