David’s Story

A short story by David Thompson written by his brother Chris from transcripts found in abandoned house reliving his days of his youth whilst in government care as a ward of the state. After various stays at several government boys’ homes David at the age of 11 was sent to Kilmany park.

A farm stay for boys with social issues Kilmany park is in Sale Victoria and is now a wedding centre.

These are David’s handwritten notes after he passed that I managed to find by some coincidence. He detailed some of the events that led up to his time there and to his adventures within the system.

My name is Chris Thompson and I am David’s younger brother. I also was in the system and stayed for a short while at the Baltara home for boys in Parkville, however I was not made a ward of the state.
David was taken from the family home in Knoxfield Vic at the age of 11 and until his adulthood we had very little contact with him. David struggled with his life as a result of his incarcerations but did also have some great memories and was a great storyteller

David suffered a life of drugs, addiction, alcohol, and violence and many years were spent after he reached the 18 year mark as a young man in Pentridge prison and onto other prisons around the country. He lived his life as a bit of a loaner wandering the country, surviving however he could. David was a great guy but damaged by a system and I remember him fondly as a good brother.

Start of David Andrew Thompson’s written notes

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I thought who could this be? All I could do now was wait because no matter what, I was soon to meet this man mum called “he”.

I waited and I waited growing all the more curious, when all of a sudden I heard a car pull into our drive. This must be “him” I thought, so I turned slowly to look out the window but it was too late he was already knocking at the back door. Then Mum and Dad got up and headed off into the family room, closing the lounge door behind them. I had expected them to come straight back in, but instead they stayed in the family room discussing my future with this mysterious man.

Always listening very closely, hoping to hear the conversation, I couldn’t hear very clearly so I decided to inch my way a little closer. Just as I moved, the door swung open and Mum Dad and this mystery man. “He” turned out to be my probation officer, who I will call Alan!
Allen was an old, but kind man and I could tell by the look on his face and he was very disappointed. Everyone sat except for. I saw Mum going into my bedroom and I thought that we would all talk at least, but everybody just looked at the floor until my stepmom returned with quite a large bag which I had gathered was full of my clothes.
She passed the bag over to Alan and he looked over to me and said “okay Dave let’s go”.
“Go?” I thought to myself “Go where” I asked in this very shy voice. “Never mind now Dave, I’ll explain it to you in the car” which he did. It seemed that I was to spend Easter at his place until the children court reopened the following week and then the courts would decide my future.

This was definitely going to change the future I had planned for myself, but being a kid I thought of it as an adventure and boy what an adventure it turned out to be.
I spent that Easter with Alan’s family and after a rather pleasant weekend it was court day. I woke early being very scared but Alan’s wife told me that things would be alright and as she said it with a smile, I believed her and went about getting myself clean and tidy.

On the way Alan explained to me what the possible outcome of court could be but he also said that my views would be taken into consideration. I cannot recall all the events which occurred that morning as it was all pretty confusing for a kid of my age but I do remember that outcome.

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“David”. The Judge spoke softly, “Please stand”. I seem very unsure waiting for his next words. “I as a judge of this court have taken all views into consideration and I believe that it would be in your interest if we were to put you in the care and protection of the state government in other words a State ward”. Pretty heavy, I thought but what else could I do now but wait and take it as it comes.
I was directed out of the courtroom by a policeman and asked to wait in the waiting room adjoining the main foyer. It was a cold room and empty. Also adjoining the main foyer there’s all the other kids, and there was quite a few had either gone home with the parents or taken to a government institution. I was only waiting for about 10 minutes but it seemed like hours and then a police lady came in and told me it was time to go again. I thought where am I going this time? Once in the police car it was explained to me that I was going to a place called Baltara. The police lady also told me not to worry as it was a nice place and there were lots of kids my age.

We arrived not long after that conversation and we pulled up at what seemed to be the main office. I got out of the car so I could have a look around and by looking around I noticed that there was in fact quite a few kids running around playing, laughing etc and although I was scared I tried not to show it.
We spent quite a time in the office before a young lady about 20 asked me to follow her. She was a happy lady which made me trust her, so I followed her up the footpath into a building on the far side of the hill and noticed that there were about six of these buildings. She explained to me that four of these were where the children lived, one was the school and the other was being a gym.

With the help of the boys and staff, I said it’ll give go but I must admit I was still very confused about what was happening. I spent about eight months there trying to work out what and why but I came to the conclusion that there was nothing else I could do but wait and see.

I put up with the place, even though there were times I enjoyed myself until one day I was called to the office. I wasn’t sure why I was called and I don’t remember doing anything wrong at the time, so I went anyway because that seemed to be the only way I could find out what I was wanted for?
Once in the office I was talking to the home social work officer who’s name was Mrs Love. She incidentally was a very beautiful woman and I found it very hard to sit opposite her at her desk.
She went on to explain to me that on the following day, a man from another home, Kilmany Park was to come and see me, to see if I would be interested in going down there.

She explained a little bit about it to me but she also stated that it would be better for me to wait and have a talk to this man before making that decision. On the following day I was called back into Mrs Love’s office and sitting with her was rather large and old man. He asked me to sit next to him. He explained to me that the home was a farm with quite a lot of land with cattle, cows, chickens, ducks and about 24 boys. He also said that the boys had a choice to attend the Sale tech or high school and that they were expected to do their share of the work on the farm.
It sounded very exciting to me and I was very anxious to leave but I was told I would not be able to leave for a few days so that all the paperwork could be completed and Mr Firth the Baltara superintendent could arrange for one of the older boys to come to Melbourne to pick me up

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During the next few days I was issued with a full suitcase of new clothes shoe’s etc and I was also told a little more about this place I was going to. I was expecting to leave on the Thursday but I was Summoned again on the Wednesday and told that I would leave that afternoon I was very pleased and I couldn’t wait whilst in the office and older boy about 20 walked in and I soon found out his name was Jeff and he was sent to take me back to Kilmany Park farm. We sat in the office for some time until the boys home bus pulled up at the front door and I could see that one of the staff was putting my suitcase in the back of the bus.

The time had come and I was very happy and as soon as the bus driver came in and said “it’s time” I jumped out and I was on the bus in about half a second. Jeff was amazed how anxious I was and he told me to calm down because we still had about another three hours of traveling on the train before we reach Sale.

It was a slow Journey to the station, but we still got there about half an hour before the train was due to depart, so Jeff bought me lunch and a drink and to my surprise a pack of cigarettes.
And that was something that was definitely not allowed, but as we had a few hours traveling, he didn’t mind as long as I gave them back to him before we reached Sale.
It was a pleasant train ride and we seemed to talk all the way until all of a suddenly we pulled into the Sale train station. Jeff asked me for my smokes back so I obliged, keeping three for myself in my top pocket. He noticed me hiding these smokes, so he just warned me not to get caught and got up to get my suitcase from the overhead racks and got off the train.
We handed in our tickets and waited out front for the bus from Kilmany Park Farm.

It soon arrived and driving the bus was this older man whom I had met the week before.
He seemed pleased to see me and it was not long before we were on our way. We drove about one and a half miles out of Sale and we came to a very long dirt road which I was told was the driveway. We drove past the pool which was green due to it being winter and not long past the pool I noticed the very large building made out of Bluestone which I was told was the home.

I could only see a few boys about the place and they seemed a lot older than me so being curious, I asked who they were and where were the rest of the boys? I was told that the rest of the boys were still out at school and the older boys had already finished school and they were employed to work on the farm after school.

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The bus came to a halt in the back courtyard and Jeff grabbed my case and asked me follow him inside. Once inside, he put my suitcase against the wall and asked me to follow him around so he could show me where everything was. First of all we went into the kitchen where over a large stove stood a very large German woman (Inga Jojeck) who was introduced to me as Mrs Joe.

We stayed for a while because Mrs Joe seemed to be the type of lady who loved to talk but I could see by the look on Jeff’s face that he didn’t like this lady, he just said “come on Dave” and we walked out.
Next to the kitchen was a very small room with two sinks and heaps of cupboards so I assumed this was where all that washing up was done. Next to the washroom was a large room, the dining room with about eight large tables already set for the night’s tea. Then through to the dining room was another room of similar size with a small TV mounted halfway up the wall above the open fireplace, with various couches and chairs. We all sat continually talking for a while before leaving. Jeff mentioned that we only got to watch TV for about two hours a day. I loved TV so that didn’t impress me. Then I wondered what else I wasn’t going to be allowed to do.
Just off the TV room was a very large very old and spotless spiral staircase going up to the second story and a very long hallway going off to the left. Instead of showing me the rooms off the hallway Jeff just told me that they were just closets and storage rooms.

Next we climbed the stairs to the second floor and the whole floor was taken up by dormitories, with a couple of beds in each room. Except for the two corner rooms which had between 8 and 10 beds and a small cabinet besides each bed

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Jeff told me that the boys were expected to do quite a lot of work about the house as well as the farm, and the staircase and the hallway had to be kept spotless at all times.

What had I got myself into? I still wasn’t sure but as Jeff said “what else can you do but put up with it”.
Once I was shown inside, we headed outside where I was shown first of all the gym which was equipped very well I thought.
And then he told me what all the farm sheds were and what was in them. I could see a shed about half a mile down the road and Jeff told me it was the milking shed and we were on our way when I noticed two small houses.
I was told by Jeff that one of these houses was a hobby house used by the boys one night a week to build a model train set and the other was used by the boys building and learning about boats. The doors were locked so I asked if I could look through the windows and I was amazed at what was inside, bits and pieces of everything and everything.

I was asked to hurry because Jeff could see the boys walking down the drive which was about a mile. I looked down the drive and I could see about 20 boys running, laughing and throwing stones and just then I noticed that one of the boys was a very good friend of mine I had meet whilst at Baltara boys home named Spud .
I asked if I could see the milk shed and Jeff said not to worry about the milk shed because no matter what, I was going to spend quite a bit of my time there.
So instead we walk down to meet the other boys, As we came closer I could see that Spud knew it was me and when we met it was very pleasant. “What are you doing here Dave?” Spud says. “Same thing as you Spud, what do you reckon?”

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While watching Spud told me a little more about the boss and instantly I took a definite dislike to the man.
Then we were all summoned in for tea. We all entered very quietly and sat in our designated place. Luckily I was elected sit next to Spud.

In front of us at the table was a roast beef, roast potatoes and pumpkin. I was told by Les and another boy at our table that we were expected to eat everything on our plate and if we didn’t, it would make the boss very angry.

I happened to hate pumpkin and broad beans, so instead I grabbed my hanky out of my pocket and put all the broad beans in my hanky and stuffed it back in my pocket. I had nowhere I could put the pumpkin so I asked Spud if he wanted it, but Les agreed as long as he could have my potatoes as well, so I agreed.
But as I was about to scrape onto his plate, I was spotted by the boss. He came over to our table and he was especially mad at Les because he should have known better.

I told the boss that I hated pumpkin and he said it didn’t matter. I was going to eat it anyway. I told him no way, and things got out of hand. The boss became very angry and picked up my fork and filled it full of pumpkin then held my head back and pushed the fork in my mouth.
I knew what was going to happen, but there was nothing I could do now but spew all over the table. The whole room went silent.
The boss stood back, furious. I spat part of my tea on him when he gave me a very hard slap across their head.
I was then told to go and get a bucket and clean it up. Without hesitation I jumped to it because there is no way that I want another one of his slaps.

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The Escape

During recess and after lunch I would go around to all the staff rooms until I found one that was empty and then I’d go in whilst Spud kept watch and search for our teachers wallets or purses. We got quite a few over the period of time, which added up to quite a bit of money but instead of saving it, we would spend it on lunch, cigarettes, friends etc. But we always knew when we were serious about leaving we could get the money. So life went on until the opportunity arrived.

A man who was a travel agent to Sale and very involved with the home came out one night to have a talk to the boys as he was bringing Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, a rock group to Sale for a concert at the town hall and he wanted us boys from the home to sell the tickets at school for $12 dollars each.

Unreal we thought, so myself Les and John Spazky sat down discussing our escape.

Don’t know and still don’t know why Spud didnt come but I’m glad he didn’t because one day if we ever meet I would like to ask him what happened when they found out we were gone!

Every spare second we had we talked and planned our escape. After all, four kids on the run with very short hair (sharpie haircuts) wouldn’t be hard to detect so we had to plan every detail in detail.
The next day we all were given 10 tickets to sell and we decided that we would leave all our money in John’s Locker until we thought the time was right to leave so for the next four days we tried our hardest to stay out of trouble and to sell what tickets we had

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The money soon added up to quite a large sum and John’s locker seemed to have nothing but money in it.
So that night we decided we would pick a day to run away and lucky for us during tea the boss told us that he had to go to Melbourne in a couple of days for the day. We looked at each other full of smiles and that night we decided we would go the same day the boss was in Melbourne.

So for the next few days we’re all on our best behavior.
Then the day had come and we all sat under the King George tree discussing our escape and we all agreed. We decided to go to school the next day to get more money.

This commemorative planting dominates the western side of the historic property. The sign reads “This oak was planted by His Majesty King George V when visiting the property as HRH the Duke of York on 15 May 1901”.

So the next morning we got up very early and had breakfast, but on the way to school the boss called us out of line and told us to go into the TV room in which we all thought someone had lagged on us and we were angry.

But they didn’t it was just a routine check up for cigarettes, but this time he stripped us to our jocks and even went as far as checking our small bits

He then warned us that if we caused any trouble while he was away he would punish us until he couldn’t raise his hand anymore. We were glad we were all going and we got dressed and caught up with the other boys who were already halfway down the track, and together for the last time we caught the bus to school.

Once we were at school it was straight to John’s locker. We grabbed the money and snuck behind the woodwork room. Then we all jumped the fence very carefully, we had made it so far! We got to the outskirts of Sale on the Thompson River and we decided to sit down and think and see how much money we had.
We had something like 250 dollars, which to us was a lot of money

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After discussing our plans, we decided to follow the Thompson river as far as we could then split up and hitch hike to Morwell which was Les’s hometown.

After about five miles of walking, we came to a farm and we could see Mr Morrow and the other boys and the boss’s son Robert talking to the farmer.
We knew we would be missed but not that quickly so we dived into the Thompson river fully clothed and none of us knew how to swim. I swam to the other side of the river but I thought we all thought we could drown, but luckily we made it but at different points of the river.

As we were congregating together again, we were spotted by Mr Morrow who was at this time leaving the farmhouse and we just stood there waiting for his next move. Instead of getting out of the bus and chasing us, which we were hoping he would do so we could throw rocks and branches at him,

Mr Morrow then drove off. We couldn’t work out why, until it was suggested that he might be going to the police and that it would be in our best interest to split the money and go in pairs and try to make our own way to Morwell.

This we did, so John and Spazky took half of the money and Les and I took the other half and we decided to make it to the Morwell post office every day for two days then after that, if the others hadn’t showed up we were to find our own way to Melbourne.
We all shook hands, wished each other good luck then went our separate ways. It wasn’t long before John and Spazky were out of site so I walked for about two more miles up the river through the pig farm, house etc and thought that Mr Morrow knew we were on his side of the river so instead we swam back and got to the main road and started to hitchhike, hoping that we could get a lift all the way to Morwell.

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At this time we didn’t have a clue where John or Spazky were, we just hoped that they were safe and on their way to Morwell.
We continued to walk with our finger out but no one would stop, then we looked behind to see if there were any cars coming and about two miles behind us was a police car traveling pretty quickly so we bolted across the road to the paddocks and I just hid behind a tree and waited.

I waited and waited then as I looked out to see what was happening I could see Les being pulled down out of the tree by a policeman. I tried so hard not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it and as I was spotted by the second policeman. I bolted, then he bolted after me and I ran for about 400 yards before hiding behind a large patch of blackberry bushes and I just stayed silent and very still and I watched as the policeman passed me a couple of times.

I stayed there for about an hour and a half. I decided to make a dash back to the highway to see if I could get a quick lift to Morwell.

I got to the highway without any problems at all and to my surprise I got a lift from the very first car that went past.
I thought I was safe, so I started to relax when all of a sudden I could hear a police car in the background. Wasn’t long before the driver was asked to pull over and I was taken back to Killmany. “Fuck It!!” I thought, just hoping John and Spazky made it safe.

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I sat in the back of the police car, feeling very disappointed and on the way back up the drive of the home I noticed Les milking the cows. Then I noticed Johnno and then I noticed Spazky.
They didn’t notice me but they soon would because it didn’t take long before I too was milking.

At the care house we discussed what had happened during the day and we all agreed that no matter what we would have to try again, because we all knew the boss was going to kill us when he got home.

We finished milking duties and had a shower and while we were waiting for the boss to come home from school we planned our next attempt.

However the bosses son Robert rubbed it in that we were going to get a beating and he was very lucky himself not to cop a beating, we didn’t want to hit him in case we never got the chance to go because if we hit the boss’s son I think we would have been badly beaten and we didn’t think that mongrel was worth it.

So instead we kept to ourselves and tried our hardest not to hit the bastard. When the other boys got home from school, we were stirred heaps especially by Spud and no one believed it wasn’t over yet. Oh No! We had tea and after tea we were stripped of our clothes and all our clothes and belongings were taken out of our lockers. A deterrent I think, but it didn’t stop us. We went to bed at 8:30 that night, waiting for the bosses car to pull up in the drive.

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We were awake for hours until at about 12 o’clock that night then we heard his car pull up.
We all panicked knowing that to him it didn’t matter what time it was and we knew that it wouldn’t take him long to find out from his wife what happened.

We waited and waited and waited, then we realized that he must be waiting until morning so he could punish us in front of the other boys, but no way we were going to wait till morning. I got out of bed and grabbed Les who grabbed John and we all went into Spazky’s room and the bloody idiot was sleeping. What! We woke him up told him this was our last chance.
So we got up and we crept very softly down the back stairs towards our room when John fell ass over and landed about 10 steps from the bottom. We tried not to laugh, but this time we really had to try, because boy it looks so funny. Of course Johnno got to the bottom of the stairs before us and he turned looked at us and burst out in laughter. Les grabbed him as quick as he could and covered his mouth and told him to shut up.
Once everything was quiet, it didn’t matter if we talked because the bosses house was about a thousand yards away from the home, but still we had to be careful

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We knew that our lockers were empty, so we searched the other boy’s lockers looking for clothes we could wear. We didn’t have time to be choosy and grabbed whatever we could and took off in our pyjamas to the swimming pool.

Once out of sight of the house, we paused to get dressed and once dressed we threw our clothing (pyjamas) into the pool and headed towards Sale, because we needed money.
After about an hour’s walking, we reached the Sale Sport Centre. I looked around for an open window until we found one.
We then lifted Spazky up until we thought he was safe and let go. We then went around to the door we had told him to open.
We waited for about five minutes before we wondered where he was, so we went around to the window to investigate. There he was with his leg stuck between the window and wall just hanging there yelling for help. We all sat back for a couple of minutes just laughing until we saw that Spazky was getting a little angry.

So we helped him down and then we helped Little Johnny up who was in the place in less than a minute.
We ran around to the door and Johnny was already there with the door open and we all went inside and closed the door, but unfortunately it was only a locker room and all the other doors were locked. We searched all the lockers hoping that there was something of value, but there wasn’t, so we had to leave and try something else. Lucky for us Sale State School was just behind the sports center.

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It didn’t take us long before we found an open window and once in we split up for a search of the whole school, this time making sure that nothing was overlooked. It was decided we would meet in the principal’s office and I searched about five rooms for a grand total of about $30 dollars which was still more than we had when we got there. I went to the headmaster’s office where John, Les and Spazky were tearing the office to pieces “what are you doing I asked”, “just having fun of course”.

“Come on let’s go” Les said, so we followed him out into the yard where we worked out what we had accomplished.
Johnno had about $20 which he got in change out of the canteen, Les had about $10 dollars which he got out of one of the teachers drawers. And Spazky was the star, he had a wallet with $120 dollars in it which he got out of one of the drawers out of the staff room. Together with my $30 dollars we had $180 dollars, which was heaps.

Because we had that much money we decided to wait somewhere till morning so we could catch the first train out of Sale, which left about 8:30am and there was no way the home would think we were on the train, so we walked around Sale for a while thinking what could we could do and then John suggested that we hide in the station, so that no matter what, we wouldn’t miss that train.

We headed for the station and there we hid under the platform trying to get comfortable and those lucky ones like myself fell asleep until we heard the train pull up at about 7:30.

All we could do now was wait, so we asked Johnno to run over to the station office and buy two tickets so it would not look suspicious. I went over to the milkbar and bought us breakfast. Fish and chips with flavored milk and heaps of cigarettes.

We both met the others back at the station and then we sent Les over to buy the other two tickets.
Once Les came back all we had to do now was wait. So we waited until about one minute before the train was to take off, then we ran across the tracks, jumped to the compartment and sat there hoping we were safe.

“Melbourne train departing one minute” we heard over the loudspeaker. We’ve done it we all thought. The train departed and it wasn’t long before we could see Kilmany Park sitting silent except for the milking shed. We knew that they would not have noticed us missing.

THE END

Sadly this is all I have of David’s notes The rest were lost years ago in a derelict house around Moe/Morwell.

What was saved was by a lady who had come across these while cleaning the property and thought they were a value to somebody and wanted to try and find David to return them.

She did not know that David had passed and it wasn’t until Facebook came about that she tried again to find him. It was then I noticed that she had been looking for him again. I knew it was my brother and tried to contact her but unfortunately I had no reply and for many years, I thought that was it!!!

I knew these were out there but I had no way of contacting this lady several years later however for some reason I was searching David again, and I found the ladies contact details and did some research, it seemed that she had passed but kept these papers of David’s.

I managed to contact her husband, a lovely guy and I told him of the story and he told me that he would go through the house and see what he could find and to my excitement the husband had found the documents and was able to send them over to me and for this I thank him heaps.
It was just as though David wanted me to find them.