Johnny T's walls are dedicated to photos of his smiling grandchildren. Heads of blonde hair in school portraits complete with gap tooth smiles and skew-if uniforms. He pads across the living room, soft carpet underfoot, through a hallway towards the kitchen. His body is slowly failing him with scars from weekly dialysis apparent on his left arm. But he is quick with cheek and wit with a smile like a school boy.

We settle over our cups of black tea and he unfolds his hands. All of the doors are open in the house allowing a warm breeze to flow through the house.

"Do you want to do this interview now or later my girl? Because I'm alive now, I don't know about later."

Sitting across the table from this man with strong hands, I can see the colour slowly fading from his time marked face. This slight man with strong hands is dying, denial has been replaced with a steely acceptance that his race has been run.

He starts from the beginning and a seed of fear is planted in my mind that this will be the last time I hear his story. I try to listen as hard as I can, storing his gravel like voice safe in my mind.

"John Henry Tomkins, born in Collarenebri in 1931. I've got two kids, Shelly is in the Education Department as a Supervisor and Roger as a Cotton Merchant in Brisbane. I had a brother who was a spastic paralysis child and my mother couldn't look after me so I was farmed out to a family, really to anyone that would take me, at 3. I spent a lot of time at Alpha, a property on the Ridge. And when I was six I was sent to the Presbyterian Hostel in Collarenebri. I was terribly abused there, terribly bullied. Then the war broke out and the Presbyterian Hostel had to close so I was sent to Tamworth for schooling, I was there for 7 years. I was supposed to go to Scots in Sydney but they wouldn't take me because I was a Western boy.

His voice is unwavering, laced with conviction and matter of fact.

I knew nothing about Old Pokataroo because I was too young when I was sent away. I was brought home from school at the age of 16 because my father was an ANZAC and he just collapsed. They brought in a full blooded Aboriginal by the name of Danny Murphy from Alice Springs. He taught me all I know about stock, how to track, how to catch a wild horse and all that. Then another man came in by the name of Roy Streety and taught me to fence. I fenced thousands of kilometers. This place was terribly run down because my father could not handle it. He only had a handful of sheep. Everything I wanted, I had to work for. And brother did I work.

At the age of 18, I was the manager and part owner of Old Pokataroo and through experience and failure, I learnt what to do. "

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November 8th, 2017

November 8^th, 2017