Please down load the attached document to read Keith’s story. Below is an excerpt
My name is Keith Raymond (Higgins) Kelly, I was born on the 15’~ oi the sixti in 1944 at approximately twenty to seven in the morning. My childhood I suppose like most was OK. I had my ups and downs but I did not … in my mother. One day I’ve come home from schooi, I was told by my mum that me, my brothers … Laurie and Daryl would be going to Kincumber for four months as mum was sick. That four months turned into four years. While I was up there my mother passed away, I took it very hard. My brothers Laurie and Daryl did not quite understand what was happening as they were still very young in age. While we were there we were fed very well to the best of the ability of the nuns. At the age of 12 1 left Kincumber to go home to live with my dad. Unknown to me my dad only had two or three years to live at the most. He kept to himself, he never told anyone. Being home by myself I got into trouble, well if I had been home by myself sometimes Dad use to go out, I would stay home. On those occasions, many a time I got into strife and ended up in another Boys Home called Mittagong. I must say at this point I have been through 24 different institutions, jails and boys homes and orphanages. Sometimes they have been good, most of them have been ratshit. When I went to court, I was sentenced to what they call a general period to Mittagong Boys Home, I arrived at Mittagong Boys Home. I was just probably about 12 years of age, knew no one, found it hard to settle in, I got strapped, when I was stapped I was brought back and I got what they call six cuts of the cane which left very large blisters on my hands, I mean large ones, as thick as what the cane was and as wide as what the cane was. I didn’t appreciate that, I thought someone should say “hey why are you running away for, let’s work this out”. Anyway, at one stage there I got sick, I was sent down to the boys shelter at the Gladesville Hospital, .. . Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, they put tubes down my throat, put this white stuff down, took photos, sent me back to the Boys Home. And from there I started to say, hey what is happening, I have to get out of here; so I behaved to the best of my ability and 1 was progressed up the ladder as they say, and I was discharged in about six and a half months