His mother is a Noongar from Katanning and his father an English migrant orphan who grew up at Fairbridge Farm.
He is a member of the Stolen Generation; he was taken from his family at the age of three and spent several years at Sister Kate's.
Between the ages of ten and fourteen years he lived in a Salvation Army boys' home.
[4] Holocaust Revisited : Killing Time Crawley : School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia, 2003.
[5] Contributed to Echoes of the Past: Sister Kate’s Home Revisited, University of Western Australia, 2002.