People of Peel Island – 1 – Rosemary Opala

Rosemary Opala (nee Fielding) was born in Bundaberg, Queensland in 1923. She began to study a commercial art course at the George Street Technical College (now QUT) but took up nursing at the onset of World War II because as she said: “I wanted to do something more meaningful than playing with paints, seeing as though everybody was rushing off to the war.”

After finishing her nursing training at Brisbane General Hospital, she stayed on the staff at Wattlebrae, the city’s infectious disease section.  It was here that she met a small and engaging group of Peel Island (Hansen’s Disease) patients, temporarily housed in one of the pavilion-type wards while waiting specialist consultation about eye problems. They convinced her to go to Peel as a nurse and she spent two stints there in the late 1940s and early 50s. While there and ever since, Rosemary worked tirelessly to “de-mythify” Peel Island folklore.

“It was a particularly interesting time, a time when a cure was on its way,” she said.

A young nurse Rosemary Fielding

After leaving Peel Island Lazaret, Rosemary eventually became a nursing supervisor at Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she wrote popular magazine fiction – gaining some notoriety with the publication of various short stories in women’s magazines.  The University of Queensland Fryer Library recently accepted these and a collection of what she describes as “disrespectful cartoons”.

A stint at St Anne’s Hospital at Cleveland revealed another love – that of Coochiemudlo, which she visited by rowboat, returning that same day.  She was later to live there, exchanging nursing for “a stress-free life as farm hand cum beachcomber”.  Later she and her husband Marian built their own home on the island, at a time when the ferry only ran on weekends and public holidays.

“Building was an experience considering my husband’s previous carpentry experience was to build a bookcase,” she said. 

Rosemary had a way with words.

Rosemary and Marian moved to Caloundra, in the late 1960s and despite every intention, Rosemary’s husband was never to return to Coochiemudlo. While at Caloundra, she was very involved with the Sunshine Coast Environment Council and used to send articles and drawings for the quarterly magazine Eco Echo – her pages were a regular feature. After Marian’s death, Rosemary moved down to Victoria Point where she was to continue contributing sketches and articles to local environmental groups

“These days I leave such work to the more accomplished but still like to do a bit of illustrating if the subject appeals.  Hopefully the time is coming when I can vege out without feeling guilty and do nothing but re-read old favourite books and new best sellers,” she said. “There is more to life than just existing – more than being upright and breathing.”

As well as sketching, Rosemary also wrote non-fiction articles, with an emphasis on Queensland’s environment, botany and its history. She contributed to many groups.

From her time in Caloundra, Rosie and Kathleen MacArthur were members of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland (WPSQ). Later, when she moved back to Victoria Point about 1995, Rosie continued writing articles for the WPSQ Bayside Branch newsletter. She was also involved with the Botanical Artists Society of Queensland with her friend Louise Saunders.

Rosemary loved sketching Nature, such as these mangroves on Peel Island

From her time as an early resident of Coochiemudlo Island, she had many reminiscences of her family’s early struggles to get established there. As such, she was a member of the Coochiemudlo Historical Society. However, her art was always close to her heart and she was an active member of the Coochiemudlo Art Group. Even after her admission to the Redland Hospital just prior to her death, Rosemary’s one concern was that she would not be well enough to attend an upcoming exhibition at the Redland Council’s Art Gallery, in which she was to exhibit.

Rosemary was involved in the Friends of Peel Island Association as a foundation member, was a member of U3A, a Friend of Eprapah and was an ecological writer with Eco Echo, a tri-annual Sunshine Coast publication.  

Regarding her foundation membership of the Friends of Peel Island Association (FOPI), Rosemary once said’ “It’s just an excuse to get into the place (Peel).  I don’t really contribute.  I’m sort of the elder statesman.”

Fellow FOPI committee member Debra Henry said her involvement was far more than this. “She is a very active member.  She just plays it down.” 

But this was Rosie all over.

FOPI President Simon Baltais once said, “Rosemary Opala is a kind and generous soul, a willing listener, a provider of much humour and strength through words and art, a much-admired person, a truly living treasure,” 

Peel Island’s mangroves were a constant source of inspiration for Rosemary

Working the Dredges (by Vern Dinden)

I started out as a deckboy on the dredger Morwong. It did three 8-hour working shifts per 24 hours. Then I went to the larger dredges Remora, Platypus etc. I worked on the dredges all the time. When one dredge went into dock, they’d send me down to another if it were short of a crewmember. Altogether I was 46.5 years on the dredges Stingaree, Bream, Seal, Dugong, Grouper, Nautilus, Cowrie, Trochus, and Sir Thomas Hiley, but eventually had to give it up because of ill health.

I also worked on the tug Koala. We used to go up to the Port of Brisbane and collect the stores and take them down to the dredges. We also took stores to the supply vessel Matthew Flinders when she came in from outside for the changeover. We transferred the crew down to Pinkenba. On one occasion we had one chap fall over the side accidentally. We got him out of the water, put a blanket round him, and took him back to the Matthew Flinders where they put his clothes in the washing machine, dried them and he was good as new. At that stage, I was based with Harbours and Marine when Cecil Fison was in charge.

I later worked from the Port of Brisbane at Whyte Island where the tugs were eventually moved to. We used to board the new dredge Sir Thomas Hiley from there.

‘Sir Thomas Hiley’ (photo courtesy Alex King)

The dredges used to tie up at whatever berth they could get into, sometimes it would be the grain wharf, or the coal wharf, or Patrick’s, or whatever wharf was unoccupied.

At Fisherman Islands, when they started to expand the bund wall out, I saw one truck run off into the water. They built the wall first, then filled it in behind later. I was a deckie on the Hiley that did a fair bit of the filling. They first started pumping the sand ashore up near the coal berth. They had a pipeline down near Patrick’s where they had a little pumping station. Every time they shifted the pipeline, the dozers would move the sand around. 

We had the Pearl River, a Danish dredge, working at the Spitfire Channel in Moreton Bay, and she used to bring the sand in from out there. She had a floating pipeline, drop her stern anchor, and pump the spoil ashore. She could move along, too, and her dredge hopper was twice as big as the one on the Hiley.

One skipper on the Hiley reckoned we were eating too much ice cream so he ordered a smaller scoop, but the cooks used to pile it on just as much. Then the small scoops gradually disappeared and they went back to using the big ones.

We crew used to steer the Hiley until they put in an automatic pilot. Then they started axing the crew. There were 33 on board. They were thinking of getting rid of all the older ones and keeping the younger ones. But someone in the office must have thought that we’d better hang on to the old ones because they understood what goes on better.  We had two crews A and B which they used alternately and which enabled the Hiley to work continuously. We lost six on one crew and six on another. It started off as 8 hours ON and 8 hours OFF, then one day we came back to work at 4pm and found that we were not to start until 6pm because our shifts had been changed to 12 hours.

We had two crews worked a fortnight each. When our fortnight was up, we’d come in and we’d change crews. We’d talk to the other blokes and tell them what goes on and all that, and that was it. This enabled the dredge to operate 24 hours a day. During the day, they had three day-workers who used to perform maintenance work, which could be noisy and interfere with our sleep in the forward quarters. When the A crew had finished their fortnight shift, they’d come in and be replaced by the B crew. 

I used to drive my car down to Whyte Island and leave it there. It would be there for a fortnight until my duty was over. We used to work it with the other watch so that when we knocked off, we would finish early and go up home, and the same with the other watch when they finished, so they could go off early too. The skipper knew all about it.

We also used to do the northern ports on the Hiley – Townsville, Cairns, and Weipa. We also did a job in Western Australia for a month. We flew over there and had been working for about a week when the airline pilots pulled the plug out, went on strike, and left us high and dry. We eventually got back when they got light aircraft to bring us back. One lot went off early in the morning on a Lear Jet, but we copped a Cessna. We had to land at Alice Springs to take on fuel and provisions and go to the toilet (none on board!)  Later in the flight, we had a scare when the fuel line iced up and the engine began spluttering. We had to fly lower to avoid this reoccurring.

One time we were working at Weipa. The phone rang on the bridge where I was at the wheel and the skipper was told that there was a fire on board. They had overhauled one of the engines and when they fired it up there must have been some oil, which ignited. If they hadn’t got the fire out, she might have been a burnt-out shell and everyone might have been out of a job. When they pushed the fire alarm some of the crew slept through it. They had to knock on the doors to wake them.

I was a deckhand, but I used to relieve the operator for his cup of tea etc. I was a temporary leading hand there for a while when the operator went away on long service leave. I was operating for a fortnight up in Gladstone. It’s a difficult harbour to work in especially if there is a good south-easter blowing side on to the ship. On another occasion, one of the dredges turned over in Mourilyan Harbour. She was working in the entrance and took in water as she bounced up and down on the swell. A couple of blokes got drowned. 

The Hiley also had her share of accidents. One night she knocked the outer beacon over. I had just been relieved at the wheel. It was 5 pm at teatime, and as the dredge slowed while the Captain got the pipes over the side, the wind blew us sideways and onto the beacon. We couldn’t do much to avoid it. Dredges aren’t as maneuverable as other vessels.

There was another time the Hiley ran over the Government launch Boyne on a Friday night. I was in bed and one chap came along and said we’d run over a fishing boat. Fishing boats used to go out Friday night.  However, it turned out to be the Boyne. We weren’t told about the boat being in the area – they were testing a new light at Bulwer Island to see how far out they could pick the light up. We’d just come back from the dumping ground, and the Hiley had been lit up like a Christmas tree, but as soon as they’d finished dumping and got the doors up, they switched the light’s off, so when we turned into the channel that was when we clobbered her. Sadly, one chap was drowned.

After I left on sick leave, the Hiley was replaced by the dredge Brisbane.

Dredger ‘Brisbane’ (painting courtesy of Marine Artist Don Braben)

Vern Dinden

Coolum Beach

(Extract from Peter Ludlow’s book ‘Moreton Bay People 2012’ (now out of print)

A Fisherman’s Daughter (Lyne Marshall) – Part 3

My Art

From when I was about two years of age, I can remember drawing – I used to draw on my mother’s walls. I have always drawn and painted – drawn more than anything. Once at school they announced they were going to have an art competition, so I got quite excited and went straight home and did my drawing that night. When I took it to the school next morning, they laughed at me and said that they hadn’t even made any plans yet. So, entering art competitions must have been in my blood even at that age – I must have been 6 or 7. Later, as a young mother, when I working, I went to different people for training. I used to paint under the mango tree at Bribie. This was in my mother’s yard, but I was painting the world.

When I was about 25 I was going to an artist for classes. That tutor would have liked me to go to university to study art, but I put my art career on hold until I was 44 when I had raised my kids – although I was still painting at home in the more traditional style.  When I did commence my university degree (B.A. in Visual Arts), I wanted to understand modern art concepts, and art history. I came out of university in 1994, but didn’t find my real creative direction until 2005 when I began to relate once again to the land. The work that I do now in the contemporary art world could be considered old fashioned.

The movements in modern art have been more biased towards conceptual photographic and video work than painting the spirituality of the land as I do. I feel my passion is manipulating paint and depicting the lighter side of life but having said that I feel the stirrings for change that may see me head in a new direction. I always paint in the studio for the process rather than the commercial side of it all. I feel that will always takes care of itself later. This is one reason why I am happy to have my work out into travelling shows, because I can think ‘Well it’s now serving its purpose, so now I can get back into doing what I want to do, and we’ll worry about what happens to that work afterwards.’

There’s a difference between a painter and an artist. As an artist your work is about finding your creative direction through who you really are, whereas a painter just paints. Art is a journey, and I always think you should go back to your early childhood memories. Our personalities as children and the things we did are the true ‘us’. The personality might seem like it changes but it never does, it just grows stronger with age.

There was that little child in me that loved the freedom of running down the beach, and I used to read a lot. I loved nature and the way water was always eroding the beaches and the patterns the tides formed. When I was at University studying art, it was suggested by a tutor that I draw on my nursing background, and as I was still nursing, that did seem to be who I was then. Nurses work with people so I started painting figures rather than landscapes and it took me another ten years to get this out of my painting. 

Lyne at Tallegalla 2011 (photo courtesy Peter Marshall)

In nursing I was healing through the use of my hands. Now I want my paintings to have that same effect, heal by giving a sense of contemplation and peace and have the viewer get in touch with who they are. I think I was lost for many years and my art really began to take shape when I went back to landscapes. I had been playing with different things but it wasn’t until I went to organic sources that I found myself.

Suddenly I was painting the horizons and skies that I had grown up with. And it was the skies that I had always known as a child as Bribie is a little flat island, with all horizons and sky. The Glasshouse Mountains were also an influence. I’d seen them from the Bribie Passage for so long, so, in spite of the Aboriginal legend forbidding women to venture close, I had to go and explore them. I think that suddenly when I began painting the landscapes with the water and the eroding sands, I was home again on my beloved Bribie. Here at Tallegalla I sometimes feel like I am still on an island when first thing in the morning the mist has filled the valley and we look out over it to the mountaintops sticking out like islands through the low cloud. But then Bribie has changed. It’s so contained now ­ they have concreted in the foreshore for example. But people love it. It’s a great family place. You don’t get loads of young people with their surfboards going there because Bribie doesn’t offer that kind of surf. But just getting there can be a problem with all the traffic congestion going north out of Brisbane in the holiday seasons.          

My Island Home (Lyne Marshall)

Lyne Marshall

Tallegalla

March 2011

(Extract from Peter Ludlow’s book ‘Moreton Bay People 2012’ (now out of print)

Editor: In 2020 Lyne relocated her home and art studio to Ningi, a small township adjacent to her original home on Bribie Island. Further details can be found at:

www.artclique.com.au

Studio Gallery at Ningi Qld 4511

Open by appointment

Mobile 0418 876 230

Early German Immigrants to the Moreton Bay Settlement – 01 – The Missionaries:

From Moreton Bay’s beginning as a penal settlement in 1824, the authorities   intended to use it as a base for missionary work among the aborigines. The Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Brisbane, intimated through the Attorney General, Mr. Saxe Banister, to a deputation from the London Missionary Society, a wish that something might he attempted on behalf of the aborigines.

In his book Cooksland Dr. John Dunmore Lang describes the genesis of the German Lutheran Mission he was instrumental in founding at Nundah: “My attention,” he writes, “was strongly directed to the subject of establishing a mission to the aborigines of Australia so early as the year 1831, and during that year, and in the year 1834 I made  three  successive  attempts to establish such a mission by means of Scotch missionaries, but without success.

The difficulty of securing Scottish missionaries was probably due to the fact that at the time there was an exodus of Scottish peasants to Canada, and that the Scottish clergy preferred to follow their own flocks to minister to their spiritual needs in the new home they sought beyond the seas. ¹

In 1837 Dr Lang had been in Great Britain in search of missionaries to evangelise the Aborigines in the Moreton Bay area. He had been about to return to Australia without any success when he heard of Pastor Johannes Evangelista Gossner and his lay-missionary training centre at the Bethlehem Evangelical Church in Berlin. Dr Lang travelled to Berlin and enthusiastically outlined his plans to Pastor Gossner and his students, saying he felt Moreton Bay was ideally suited to a mission station. ²

A knowledge of Australia was widespread throughout German-speaking Europe: Yde T’Jercxzoon Holman, or Holleman, was second in command of the Heemskerk on Tasman’s second voyage, and on Cook’s second voyage he was accompanied by two German scientists, Johann Reinhold Forster and his son, Johann Georg Adam. The son’s work in particular, with its account of the Great Barrier Reef, was widely read.  A German account of’ the third voyage was also published. Flinders on his voyage in the Investigator (1801-1803) had with him an Austrian, Ferdinand Bauer, whose account of the voyage was embellished with 1400 illustrations of Australian botanical specimens. ³

Doryanthes excelsa

This is an image of Doryanthes excelsa from Ferdinand Bauer’s ‘Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae’.

References:

1. Sparks, H.J.J.; Queensland’s First Free Settlement 1838–1938.

2. Nundah and Districts Historical Society Inc.

Moreton Bay Mysteries – 5 – Inebriate Inmate’s lost paintings.

M

William Simmons’ painting of The Bluff from Horseshoe Bay aspect (Photo Ray Cowie)

In 1989 while Ray Cowie was Redland Shire Council Ranger and living on The Bluff at Peel Island, he was contacted by an elderly lady by the name of Ivy Rowell. She had some information for him about her involvement with Peel Island. I think she had reached that age where she was reviewing her life before she died (much as I am now!)

Ray contacted me and I drove him out to visit Ivy at her home. Ivy was a wealth of information. It turned out that she was the daughter of George Jackson, the Chief Attendant (Superintendent) of the Inebriate Home at Peel between 1910 and 1916. One of his patients, William Simmons, presented George with five oil paintings that he had completed while in his care. Ivy still had these paintings in her possession (see attached). As you can see from the photo, the unframed painting was very dark. Ivy told us that this was from all the smoke from mangrove leaves, which they burnt in their house to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

Ivy Rowell holding one of William Simmons’ painting in 1989. (photo Ray Cowie)

Ivy provided us with the information I was to later use in my “Of Drunkards and Rock Pools” chapter in my Moreton Bay People book and for an important part of the Hilda Finger chapter. Ray invited her back to Peel to revisit the site of her former home which she was very pleased to accept. 

William Simmons’ painting of the stone jetty with Dunwich in background (Photo Ray Cowie)

Ivy died a short time later and her son, John, scattered her ashes in Platypus Bay – a spot she had always loved since playing there as a 4 year old child. I think Ray may have had a part in this ceremony.

William Simmons’ painting of Stradbroke Island from stone jetty aspect (Photo Ray Cowie)

As a token of his respect for Ray’s help to him and to his mother, John Rowell had the five Simmons’ paintings cleaned of their soot, framed, and inscribed with a dedication. I am not sure of the inscription, but I think it mentioned Ray. Anyway, Ray always maintained that John presented them to him personally and not to any organisation. This has just been reconfirmed by his widow, Nola.

William Simmons’ painting of cutting, flagpole, and superintendent’s house on The Bluff (Photo Ray Cowie)

After Ray and Nola left Peel, they rented a house at Lamb Island, and throughout our many visits to them there, my wife, Phyllis, and I saw the paintings hanging on the wall. After Nola and Ray split up, I never revisited the Lamb house again, and do not know the circumstances under which Ray left. If he did leave the paintings on the wall and the house was later sold with them still on the wall, the new owner would have inherited them. Because they were not a fixture on the wall, I don’t know if they legally became theirs.

William Simmons’ painting of Bird/Goat Island and The Bluff (Photo Ray Cowie)

So the current ownership of the paintings is uncertain, but in my opinion, if the paintings are ever recovered, I would hope that they be presented to QPWS (as joint custodians of Peel), and to nobody else.

Peter Ludlow

Between the smokey winds

Between the smokey winds (01.12.2018)

Reminders of Peoples Past – 09 – Ian Fairweather

In it’s early days – before the bridge was built – Bribie was a haven from the rat race of civilization. Its lifestyle was simple and close to Nature, where people could be themselves without undue interference. Personalities flourished and eccentrics were accepted as the norm. Bribie’s best-known eccentric was the reclusive artist, Ian Fairweather. At age 60 he went to Bribie and took up residence in a grass hut in the bush at Bongaree so that he could paint undisturbed.

Ian Fair-weather standing outside his hut at Bongaree on Bribie Island

It paid dividends and his art flourished to the point where he started winning prizes and he gained national attention from the galleries, from the newspapers, and from the general public. His grass hut became a bit of a tourist attraction and he was constantly visited by curious onlookers. Paradoxically, his success destroyed the very reason why he went to Bribie – to find a bit of peace and quiet!

Of course, when they built the bridge, that was the beginning of the end for his Eden. People visited the island in droves and neighbours began to encroach on his hut in the bush. There were complaints about rats and the Caboolture Shire Council was forced to intervene.

Eventually, Fairweather was forced to build a fibro hut on a cement base next door to his grass hut that he had occupied for so long. It was harsh and cold. He missed the sand between his toes, the smell of the thatching and the warmth of his kerosene lanterns. His art production all but stopped.

When he died, the grass hut was demolished amongst much controversy, and the fibro house was moved. Today the cement slab still remains in the pine grove where he once lived and worked. A large stone has been placed on the slab and an inscription reminding us that Ian Fairweather once lived there.

Ian Fairweather’s memorial at Bongaree

Th Plaque at the Fair-weather Memorial

Fallen Statues

Moscow’s Park of the Fallen Heroes (Photo Paul L Dineen)

With the fall of the USSR, thousands of Soviet statues were destroyed or dispersed. Some ended up in Moscow’s Fallen Heroes Park. It displays more than 700 sculptures saved and preserved from the Soviet era. Walking through the park is like visiting a cemetery, bronze and stone sculptures loom from every corner. The park has mutilated busts of Stalin, as well as those of Lenin and a statue of Dzerzhinsky, the founder of what became the KGB. There’s a massive Soviet emblem, and clusters of modern art contrasting with the very non-conceptual Communist monuments.

Further to my blog of 09.09.2017 – Centenary of a Revolution, my son Trevor informs me that Melbourne’s Heidelberg Gallery (The Heidi) has a Constructivist Display of artworks mainly from the Russian Revolution. No doubt many of the items on display would have come from Moscow’s Fallen Heroes Park.

I have never felt a great emotional attachment to statues. My first was probably the dog sitting on the tucker box five miles from Gundagai.

The Dog on the Tucker box (photo courtesy AYArktos)

For me, it always the highlight of our road trips to Melbourne.

The other  statue that has triggered my emotion was seeing Winston Churchill’s statue on a Paris footpath as our tour bus flashed past. It was so unexpected, considering the historic rivalry between the English and the French, but a touching acknowledgement of France’s gratitude for Churchill’s help during WWII.

Revisiting Hobart

Hobart’s floating bridge

It’s been 62 years since I visited the quiet backwater of Hobart, but its memories from the mind of an 11 year-old are still vivid: our gabled attic room with its sloping ceiling, the curved floating bridge, the resinous aroma of a linen bandaged Egyptian mummy in the museum, the ruins of Port Arthur (there had been no massacre then), snow in the crevices of Mount Wellington (even though it was Christmas),  an old English-style cafe in New Norfolk, the beautiful Huon Valley…

When I visit Hobart again in three weeks, I hope its air of history will still greet me. However I am prepared for change, too. Everyone says I must visit MONA – the Museum of Old and New Art – for it has almost singlehandedly propelled Hobart from a quiet backwater onto the world’s tourist stage. Who said museums are old hat?

Stories from Peel Island – 3 (Lazaret)

 LEVITICUS (regarding a person with leprosy):

‘his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering on his upper lip and shall cry unclean, unclean.  All the days wherein the plague shall be in him shall be defiled: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.’

Luke 16:1: (In the parable of the rich man and the beggar, which begins…)

‘There was once a rich man who dressed in the most expensive clothes and lived in great luxury every day.  There was also a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who used to be brought to the rich man’s door, hoping to eat the bits of food that fell from the rich man’s table.  Even the dogs would come and lick his sores… ‘

‘Lazarus and the rich man’ by Heinrich Aldegrever (German painter 1502–1555)

 C.R.Wiburd (a former Quarantine Officer at Brisbane):

‘Maritime Quarantine, as we know it, commenced in 1348 when the overseers of Public Health at Venice were authorised to spend public moneys for the purpose of isolating infected ships, persons, and goods, at an island of the lagoon.  A medical man was stationed with the sick.  As a result of these arrangements the first maritime quarantine station of which there is any record was established in 1403 at the island of Santa Maria di Nazareth at Venice.

 ‘The Venetian Authorities framed in 1348 a code of quarantine regulations which served as a model for all others to a very recent period.  All merchants and persons coming from the Levant were compelled to remain in the House of St. Lazarus for a period of forty days before admission into the city.  From this is derived the term “lazaret” which has persisted until now.’

The lazaret was established in the north-western corner of Peel Island in 1907.

Tom Welsby (early bay historian):

 ‘It (Peel) would have made an ideal township, or rather residential quarter, had mercantile buildings been erected at Cleveland and its surroundings.  Had the surface of Peel been covered with well built villas and terraces a fifteen minute or less run would have taken the businessmen and others from Cleveland to a home where in summertime the weather is always delightful, and where north‑easters and south‑easters alike cool the day and evening and night with the charm of Southern Seas … but surely so large and conspicuous an island as Peel might have been left from the charge of having its soil so sadly contaminated (by the lazaret).’

June Berthelsen (a former patient at Peel Island lazaret, on her diagnosis with Hansen’s Disease/leprosy):

 ‘I felt dazed.  I had Leprosy ‑ that dreadful disease mentioned in the Bible, where the Lepers were shunned by the people.  Lepers ‑ with loathsome sores and disfigured limbs. Would I finish up like that?  Would my family and friends disown me as something unclean and horrible?  I remembered the fate of lepers in the Bible, how they wandered in the waste places of the desert, treated more like animals than human beings.  Cast out forever by their own kind.  Would it be like that for me?’

Lloyd Rees (artist, describing his mother’s incarceration on Peel):

 ‘leprosy was diagnosed.  The world being what it was and what it still is, that, of all diseases, threw a stigma. With cancer there was a horror, but with leprosy ‑ a stigma…  There was a nasty air of secrecy about it all. From Cleveland, down south of Brisbane…a mysterious launch left to take visitors to the island.’

Reference: Peter Ludlow ‘Exiles of Peel Island – Leprosy’