A Boy From Cummeragunja
When I was studying to be a minister of the Gospel, my student churches were two adjacent wooden churches in the inner slum areas of Melbourne. For seven years during the 1950’s and 1960’s the people of those inner slum areas were my parish.
We very rarely saw Aboriginal people in the community during those days but our church was very interested in the support of Aboriginal Christian endeavours. Our ladies group undertook the support of several Aboriginal children in church missions in Western Australia. They had great delight in buying the clothes to outfit the Aboriginal children and everything was new and beautifully presented. The men of the church supported a young Aboriginal boy, and the young people used to go to the Northcote Church and the Gore Street Fitzroy Church, which was the centre of Melbourne’s Aboriginal ministry.
It was under the leadership of Pastor Doug Nicholls. Doug was the fifth child of Herbert and Florence Nicholls, born on a New South Wales Aboriginal Station by the Murray River just opposite Echuca called Cummeragunja. In the 1920’s and 1930’s it was a motley collection of humpies and shanties along the banks of the Murray. Most of the Aboriginal people from that community have never progressed throughout their life from the way they began. But Doug did.
He emerged as a sportsman in boxing, running, football and cricket. As a boxer he toured around with Jimmy Sharman’s famous boxing troupe. As a professional runner he won a number of important professional foot races including the Warrnambool Gift. But it was as a Victorian League footballer that Doug made his name. He had played with the Northcote team and then the champion Fitzroy team. He was a winger, who played not only in successful teams but for Victoria, and was selected in the All Australian team. As a cricketer he had a keen eye and was a sound bat.
Years later, whilst studying for the ministry, he still played professional football for Fitzroy and on one occasion led his team to a memorable victory in front of 60,000 screaming fans. His team mates on that occasion marked the great victory by presenting him, from the team, an inscribed Bible. They had accepted the black man, and accepted his faith.
Apart from his natural gifts as an outstanding sportsman, the second most significant feature which liberated Doug from the humpies of Cummeragunja was his commitment to Jesus Christ. It happened in July 1932 when he attended the Northcote Church of Christ at his mother’s request. While in the service he heard the Church of Christ Minister, W.W. Saunders, preach the gospel and at the end he dedicated his life to Christ and was baptised on July 31st, 1932. Dick Saunders made a special effort to disciple and encourage the young man.
Doug had not received any education beyond the third grade of primary school but as the church was running a training class for young men Doug readily joined in. His whole attitude to life changed. He now wanted to learn and improve himself to be useful for Christ and the church.
Attending classes once a week at the church were not enough, so four times a week he attended the manse while the minister gave him private tuition. His writing, reading, learning and speaking skills rapidly improved. One of his favourite verses was: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation”.
Doug was not ashamed to proclaim his faith. He became a speaker at many youth rallies, church sporting parades and church services. He was Christian in his behaviour and in his speech even in the most difficult of circumstances. The whole Fitzroy Football team became so impressed with Doug’s sincerity and consistency of life that they supported their captain wholeheartedly. Doug organised team church parades and every single player would attend. He had a natural speaking gift. This was honed later on, in training for the ministry in the Churches of Christ College of the Bible at Glen Iris where I was later to attend. He became a very popular speaker and became one of the most articulate spokesman for the Aboriginal people ever.
Doug Nicholls now had another goal. He wanted to improve the lot of the Aborigine by becoming a missionary from the Aborigines to the white Australian.
He once said to me, “The white people have accepted me as a black man. Now I want them to accept other black men. I used to be bitter against the white man, but now I know we have to love one another.” Doug Nicholls became a powerful advocate for the improvement of the tragic plight of the Australian Aborigines.
His work among Aboriginal groups centred round his organising skills and abilities. He established the Aborigines Advancement League, the Aborigines Progressive Association in New South Wales, the Australian Aborigines League, and the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement.
Upon graduating as a Minister of Churches of Christ he founded the Aboriginal Church in Gore Street Fitzroy and served there for the next 30 years. He built a hostel for Aboriginal girls coming to work in the city, visited Aboriginal stations, reserves and settlements to fight for much needed improvement and justice. He was an advisor on Aboriginal matters to State and Federal Governments and was appointed to the Aboriginal Welfare Board and as Director of the Aboriginal Affairs Advisory Council.
Over the years he became a Justice of the Peace and a local court magistrate. He was awarded the M.B.E. and later the O.B.E. He went to Buckingham Palace to receive from the hands of the Queen the Order of the British Empire.
In 1962 Pastor Doug was named Victorian Father of the Year and his wife and five children shared that delight.
I had invited Pastor Doug to speak on the desperate conditions among the Aborigines of the Warburton Ranges who were dying of starvation and thirst because of some action by powerful Australian mining companies in the late 1950’s.
Before the service began he was sitting in the lounge room of the manse where my new bride and I had established ourselves.
He was sitting in an arm chair and I was sitting on the carpet at his feet listening to a man who had more insights into what was happening in Australian politics, especially the politics of the Aborigine, than any other. I asked Doug what had happened to him when he had recently been to the Warburton Ranges, at the request of the Federal Government, to try to bring peace between the Aboriginal tribes and the mining companies.
As he started to tell me the story a lyrical quality came into his voice. I have often wished that I had possessed a tape recorder in those days to have recorded the next 15 minutes. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life as I sat there on the carpet hearing this great Aboriginal leader.
In brief the story went like this: “We had been hearing that the people up there in the Warburtons were dying both from thirst and hunger. The mining companies had been driving the people off their tribal lands. Many were mysteriously shot and some had been poisoned. Poison had been dumped in some water holes and all the kangaroos and animals died. This meant my people were not able to go hunting, not able to go hunting after the wallaby and kangaroo. At night time the goannas came out to drink and the poisoned water left them dead. The birds at dawn break came to drink and they died in the thousands. My people had nothing to drink and no animal to hunt. The children at the camps were crying, crying for food and there was no water for the adults and no mothers’ milk for the babies.
And then the big fellas in the Government at Canberra asked me if I could make the peace between the people and the mining companies. The mining companies sent a big plane down to Melbourne to pick me up to fly me to the Warburtons, a big DC3 to fly me to the Warburtons, a big DC3 to fly the boy from Cummeragunja to the Warburtons.
When we arrived at the mining camp a big hall had been set out in my honour. The mining companies had made a big banquet and tables were covered with food, plenty of food, every kind of food, while my people were out in the Warburtons with nothing to eat or drink. The mining companies tried to make me drink beer and gave me whisky but I would have none of their liquor. They tried to wine and dine me in order that I might agree to get the people to shift from the mining sites. But there were no Aborigines there. The white fellas had their food and drink but my people were outside on the mining sites starving and thirsty.
I realised I could not drink a drop or eat a mouthful until I had sat down with my people and they had something to eat and drink. So while the white fellas were making a speech of welcome to me and saying how they looked forward to me settling the dispute and how they needed me to get the land for the mines which would bring great wealth to Australia, I walked out into the night.
I walked out from their speeches and away from their tables and their drinks. I walked out into the night and I walked across under the stars to where I knew there would be a water hole. I came to a camp of my people. They were hungry and thirsty and I asked them to come with me to the water hole. I found that the mining company had placed a big steel chain fence around the water hole. No animal could get to the water – no kangaroo, or wallaby, no man or woman or child could get to the water. So I took my people to the chain fence and I sat down with my back to the water hole and I sat with my people.”
As I looked at Doug sitting in the arm chair his eyes were gazing up into nothingness but in his mind he was reliving the events of a few weeks before. I knew I was in the midst of a very precious moment in the history of confrontation between white and black. I said: “Doug, what happened when you went out and sat down against the chain fence and left all the white men back at the banquet?”
Doug went on talking as if he hadn’t heard my question: “I sat down at the water hole with my back against the chain fence, I sat down with my people who were hungry and thirsty. I sat down where the kangaroo and the wallaby could not drink. Then the trucks began to come, big trucks with their eyes of light blazing in the darkness. Big trucks and four wheel drives and land rovers and utilities carrying all the people from the construction camp and the mining offices, bringing all the people – the big fellas of the mining company out to the water hole.
“I sat with my people with my back against the chain fence and all the white fellas came around saying ‘Come on Doug, come back to the banquet. There is plenty to eat and drink. We want you to come in and eat and drink and then we will talk business about the water hole.’” Doug sat at the water hole with his back against the chain fence with his people.
He paused and I could see him remembering the exact details of the scene. Doug told me that he slowly got up and with all the authority of the Federal Government behind him he knew that he had power in his hands. “I looked the white fellas in the face and I said to them, ‘Doug will not come and sit down with you and eat and drink with you until the chain fences are taken down from every water hole and until no more poison is put in the water to kill the kangaroo and the wallaby and to kill the children of my people. Doug will not talk with you until you invite my people to come into the banquet hall with you and eat the food from your table and to drink your drink. When the children have had some mothers’ milk and the men and the women of this tribe have eaten, then Doug will talk with you. But pull down the chain fences first, and invite my people in to eat. Then I will talk.’”
He told me how the mining bosses ordered workman with their trucks and four wheel drives to hook up chains around the steel posts imbedded in concrete which had been placed around all the water holes nearby and to have them systematically yanked out. In the middle of the night the chain fences with their posts in concrete were dragged away into heaps so the water which was not poisoned was made available for the wallaby and the kangaroo, and the people of the Warburtons.
Then, as the purple light of dawn began to break, Doug led his people into the banquet hall. After everybody had eaten and had their food, Doug negotiated a settlement in which the Aboriginal people of the Warburtons gained perpetual land and water rights, and in which mining companies were given permission to mine in certain areas.
On that Sunday evening as he was telling me the story the sun had gone down and the time for the commencement of church service had come, but I dared not stop this quiet man as he told in the most beautiful, lyrical fashion of a classic case of black and white confrontation and exploitation.
Later Doug was invited to go to Buckingham Palace once more and receive a knighthood as the first Australia Aboriginal ever to be knighted. It was a personal honour, but when Her Majesty placed the sword of knighthood on his shoulder it was an honour for every Aborigine.
Sir Douglas and Lady Nicholls then moved from Melbourne to Adelaide where in December 1976 Sir Douglas gained a new title “His Excellency the Governor of South Australia”. He told the newspapers: “Jesus took me to Buckingham Palace. And now he has brought me to this Government House”.
In one of his first and most celebrated interviews on television since becoming Governor, Sir Douglas Nicholls did something which made many of us very proud. A rather cheeky television reporter asked him on camera how he could expect society ladies in South Australia to sit at the table with the Governor’s wife who was an Aborigine. Doug drew himself up to his short height and with a nobleness of character controlled himself marvellously. His years of experience as a professional boxer in Jimmy Sharman’s boxing troupe could have very quickly demolished the cheeky reporter. Instead, with nobility and character, and for the first time ever on television, someone who was being interviewed replied with courtesy that the interview was now terminated and he walked out leaving the interviewer stunned.
Sir Douglas was a man of character and compassion. He retired as Governor of South Australia following a stroke in 1977. He recovered eventually and went on to lead an active retirement, passing away earlier this year among some of his own people at Maroopna. A State funeral was held and all the politicians, leaders of the mining companies, the church leaders, sportsmen, and community dignitaries were present. But I think Doug valued most the people of his own tribe who laid him to rest among the gum trees of Maroopna not far from the Mission settlement of Cummeragunja on the banks of the Murray.
I will never forget that night early in our marriage when I sat at the feet of an Aboriginal leader and heard him, with lyrical quality, tell the story of a confrontation with the mining companies and of his people who had been blocked from the water holes and of the poison which had killed the kangaroo and the wallaby, the bush birds and the babies of the Warburtons.
Little did I realise when I was a college student that I was following in that college in the steps of a great Aboriginal leader like Sir Douglas Nicholls. Nor did I realise in those early days of preaching how he would thrill the congregations, the church sports parades and the community groups of Ascot Vale and Newmarket when he came as our guest.
I had a great deal to learn about Aborigines when I was a student minister, when I would finish an evening service and walk out into the heavy air blowing from the abattoirs and start my motor bike and head back to the College of The Bible to continue training for the ministry, thinking of my meeting with some of God’s children in the slums of Newmarket.
GORDON MOYES
