THE punishment system we thought was abolished when the convict system in this country was abolished, was not. It persisted at Neerkol for almost another hundred years. A version of the cat-o'-nine-tails was used there at least until World War II.
There was, however, one concession to the march of civilisation. The cat used on the girls was unknotted.
After the war the inexorable march of civilisation changed all that. When public floggings were needed to bring the recalcitrant at Neerkol into line, the stockwhip replaced the cat.
Such floggings were to become known after the war as a "Davey Owen" - in honour of the public whipping of the lad, David Owen, who had the temerity to stand up to a nun who had flogged him. The story was reported in the December 1997edition of The Weekend Independent newspaper and is also mentioned in Allan Gill's book, Orphans of the Empire.
But there was a tradition of such floggings long before the term "Davey Owen"was coined.
The madness of the place is exemplified by the circumstances that led to the public flogging of a girl - by a priest - with a cat. It was just before the Second World War - although it wasn't "a loose lips sink ships" security breach that brought about her punishment.
Talking among the children was simply discouraged. Whoever could imagine that children might want to talk to each other or that such contact might be good for them? And anyway kids were not to collect in groups - not even of two. Apparently a group of two was likely to be subversive.
As well, boys and girls were totally separated. Talking to a boy, or as it turned out a man, was absolutely evil and totally forbidden.
Sadly for her, one of the girls was caught talking to a man. Never mind that he was riding a horse some distance away and she had only called out a greeting to him. She was in violation of one of the strict rules that had to be obeyed at Neerkol. Children who broke the rules had to be punished. And let it be a lesson to all.
The population of the place was assembled - on the open basketball court. The villian was produced - wearing just a nun's nightdress. She was stood against one of the goal posts from which the basket was suspended, and with her arms embracing the post, her wrists were tied.
A priest then dealt the punishment - with a cat.
The fierce leather straps flailed her slight frame from the top of her head to her ankles. This was convict country - 20th Century Queensland, Australia.
The flogging went on. Never mind the child's innocent crime or her cries for mercy.
Whether God was pleased is not recorded. No doubt the man of God was.
And so the Oxford dictionary definition of the term "cat-o'-nine-tails" can be amended as follows (to accu-rately record the use to which it was put):
cat-o'-nine-tails: (Hist.) rope whip with nine knotted lashes for flogging sailors, soldiers or criminals and in Queensland, Australia, orphans and aban-oned children.
This was not the only public flogging "Pam" witnessed.
She also recalls the one in which the whole orphanage was assembled on tiers of forms ("Davey Owen" style) for the public whipping of three boys clad only in sugar bags. Sugar bags were towels at Neerkol in those days.
The boys had to cling on to the "towels" to stop them falling off. The possible public humiliation of being revealed in the nude prevented them from using their arms to protect themselves.
Beating the devil out of the children appears to have been part of the mission of Neerkol. Not figuratively but literally.
According to their victims the nuns actually seemed to think that was what was required of them. That the children, or at least some of them, were evil and they could defeat the devil by beating him out of those he had possessed. And he had possessed most of them it seems. Such madness persisted in the place at least until the 1970s.
The stories of the floggings and beatings are simply too numerous to record. There are not enough pages to print them all. Those we do record are examples only. And not necessarily the worst. There will be those who will ask why did we not print the story of the one that so-and-so got. And indeed we should have.
Pam remembers the one her sister got.
One of the nuns had taken to the girl. She was beaten to the floor and was trying desperately to protect herself by holding up an arm to shield her body and face against the blows. So the nun bashed her arm from the tip of her fingers to her shoulder. Her arm swelled up like an elongated football and went black. She was taken to hospital and a doctor examined her. The arm would have to go, he pronounced. The child's mother was contacted. She had abandoned her girls into the care of the place years before - but such surgery could not be undertaken without parental consent (if there was a parent).
The mother refused permission.
The child had come into the world with two arms, she said, and if it were to be, she would go out of it with two arms.
Of course the bruising slowly healed and the swelling slowly went down. The arm was saved and the child returned to the bosom of her carers at Neerkol.
No doubt the good doctor took the matter up with the authorities. Probably not. But even if he did, nothing changed at Neerkol.The authorities knew what happened in that place. They were told - on many occasions - by the children. And what did they do? Nothing would have been preferable. Instead some acted as informants for the nuns or as participants in vile retribution.
Pam told them.
On reaching the age of 14 she had been put out to work in a church institution in town, but had complained she wasn't being paid - and was packed off back to Neerkol. The man from the department arrived and collected her in his car. She spent the trip telling him how the children there were treated.
Shortly after her return the beatings started. She was beaten by every nun in the place - including those who did not want to beat her. One told her to scream her head off. She didn't want to beat the girl, the nun said, and would try not to hurt her, but she had to do it. The others were listening. Pam screamed her head off.
But she didn't have to fake her screams when the nun in charge of the area where she worked took her turn..
In a fury she bashed Pam as if she were a punching bag.She was knocked to floor and her attacker even set on her with her heavy shoes.
Pam says they were aimed at her face. She thought she might be killed - blinded at least. There was no let up. It was as if the woman was possessed. Pam did the only thing she could to retaliate. As the shoe came in for another attack she fastened her teeth on her attacker's leg and hung on.
It was enough to cause a diversion and she managed to escape.
So much for telling the wonderful man from the department.
(Taken from a document written many years ago by a former Neerkol resident - so that her story would be known - by her family at least).
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