Auntie May Hinch

My early years of growing up started in Moree where I was born in 1946 on the 18th April.

My Grandmother brought me up and her name was Nora Hinch. I still remember those days. My Grandmother often told me how we used to travel around by horse and sulky from station to station to look for work.

After some time my Grandmother became ill and passed away. I was only ten years old. Life didn't mean much after that.

I went back to live with my mum. We lived in a tin humpy on the riverbank. After some time living there we moved to Toomelah and that is where I went to school. I didn't have much schooling and only went to sixth grade because we were not allowed in town.

Those were the days when the managers controlled the missions.

When I turned fourteen I was sent to work on the properties but there was no pay.

I have been blest with four beautiful children and nine grandchildren and one great grand daughter who I love very much.

Life hasn't been easy and throughout has been a struggle. But we must keep pushing on because we have to lead the way for our young people of today because they are our future.

In 1987 I started my first TAFE course. This really tested me because I didn't have much education and didn't mix well with other people because we were always told if a white person came to the door to run and hide because we thought we would be taken away and would never see our families again. But we can thank God that we had some wonderful teachers that cared about us and saw something good in us.

And after completing a fine Arts course in 1999 we had the privilege of making handmade paper. It all started by getting bulrush from the river, boiling it in a four gallon drum to make the paper in a baby's bath tub.

Today we work at Euraba Paper Company. It has seventeen workers plus a Manager and a Production Manager. Euraba have many retail outlets that sell our handmade paper and our products. Our Artworks are exhibited and sold in many galleries. We have a Bagaay artwork that has toured every Art Gallery in Australia.

It took a lot of encouragement from our TAFE teacher, Paul West, to get me into art. I was happy making the paper. Now I can't stop making artworks and the staff say I 'get into my zone' and the work just keeps coming and coming. I am very proud that my artworks have been sold around Australia and recently one was selected for New York.

Euraba is a special place. Euraba means 'place of healing'.

My dream and vision is to see our young people come to work at Euraba so we can be mentors for them to help them build up their self esteem and just feel good about themselves.

Auntie Joy and myself are the only two founding members of Euraba that are still working there.