It’s taken Helen Laidlaw nearly ten years to research and write her book about the Wadi Wadi people, the First Nations who once lived in the area on the South Coast now boarded by Kiama and Gerringong. On Wadi Wadi country – From the mountains to the sea, explores a little known part of Kiama history. But it’s a story well-worth telling.

Putting a face, and a history, to the name

“I come from a line of old ladies who like to make cakes,” remarks 85-year-old Laidlaw as she rummages around in her kitchen and brings out a lemon and blueberry. 

With the cake at hand, she sips her coffee and begins talking about the book, which traces the lives of several local First Nations people. Their destinies, still mostly unknown – both to indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, are deeply intertwined with that of Kiama and the surrounding areas. 

“It’s about stitching pieces together, and I’ve managed to stitch these families together,” she says.

Just the other day Laidlaw spoke to a descendant of the Longbottom family, who had read the book. There’s a whole chapter on them as well as the Dixon, the Weston/Johnston and the Pike families.

“It was hidden from them. You see, people didn’t know,” she says, referring to a time not too distant when one’s Indigenous heritage was never openly discussed. 

For the relatives, and there are quite a few around, Laidlaw wanted to make the people real as opposed to just being a name. “So many were valued by the rest of the clan,” she emphasises. 

With a keen interest in indigenous history and the Pacific, Laidlaw, a former university librarian and teacher who’s also worked in Tonga, set out to capture these stories before they are lost.

“Aboriginal people have been treated quite badly. That’s why they’re all so excited about this book. Because it details their stories,” she says.

Laidlaw included the line, From the mountains to the sea, three years ago when she named the book. It comes from the Wadi Wadi/Dharawal language place name for Illawarra (or Elourera, Allowrie), which means “where the mountains meet the sea.”

“We’re all equal”

When asked what she hopes readers will take away from the book, Laidlaw goes quiet. Then she says softly, “Surprise.”

“Because I think Australia is a racist country, still. Anyone who has grown up with Aboriginal people knows that it is.” 

Her father, the headmaster of Bomaderry Public School, immediately desegregated the school when he began in 1947.

“He was respected for it,” Laidlaw says. “Because he was a strong Christian, he just quoted Saint Paul in the Bible, we’re all equal.” 

Laidlaw says that she thinks the town of Kiama has wanted to acknowledge its Aboriginal heritage for some time.

The younger generation, such as her grandchildren, embraces it while she finds that outdated views about Indigenous people still exist among some of the older generation.

“But surely they realise, well I make that point in the book, that in 1917 these guys went off and got shot for being Australians,” she states. “They didn’t get recognised and they didn’t get a vote for fifty years.”

One Jimmy Carlson

The book, which spans from the first settlers to WWII to the Kiama tornadoes in 2013, came about through six degrees of separation.

“I have lived in Kiama for over 40 years and thought I knew most of the important things about town and yet, page after page, left me gasping as I found new and fascinating things about the town and the surrounding area. It is a book that everyone who lives in, and cares about, this area should devour.” - Bruce Elder

Julie Farquhar Nicol, a teacher at the Noogaleek Children’s Centre, an Aboriginal preschool at Berkley – and also Laidlaw’s good friend – enjoyed talking to Jimmy Carlson, an Aboriginal Elder, who drove the bus for the children’s centre. 

One day, while chatting about Carlson growing up in Kiama, they realised that the small farm cottage where he used to live in the 1930s was close to Laidlaw’s house in Willow Gully.

Tucked away in a beautiful corner of Kiama, featuring native vegetation and still frequented by echidnas, wallabies and ringtail possums, Willow Gully holds a rare area of original sub-tropical rainforest, unique for this area.

Laidlaw invited Carlson over, who then in his seventies, began sharing memories of his parents and grandparents along with photos and newspaper clippings. 

Carlson’s grandmother was a Dixon from Crooked River, and before too long, Laidlaw found herself trying to find out everything she could about the family.

“I discovered one of his grandmother’s brothers came and lived here. There’s a whole chapter on that crazy guy,” she says. 

In the process of researching, she discovered several other local Indigenous families and their ties to Kiama’s past and present.

The “queen of research”

Laidlaw became intrigued by some of the descriptions, such as that of Captain Brooks (Muhhag), a local poet and singer. 

“Someone described him, very impressed, he didn’t look like a lot of others. He was so dark with aquiline features. Suddenly, you got a picture of somebody that you wouldn’t have otherwise. That’s why it’s all been included in the book” she says.

As far as stories go, she found the most amazing ones to be about King Mickey and Queen Rosie. “She was such a character,” Laidlaw notes.

Queen Rosie, the last surviving member of the Illawarra tribe, also features on the front cover of the book. The Sydney Morning Herald took the black-and-white portrait of Rosie, smoking a pipe, in 1927.

Laidlaw is upset that her English publisher chose to cut some of the images out because they weren’t clear enough.

“I tried to explain to them, these were people who didn’t have anywhere to store photos. And the ones I got, of Aboriginal people, were miraculous,” she says.

Because the photos depict Indigenous people who have passed away, Laidlaw received permission from their relatives to use them.

“Jimmy is now in his 80’s, and the photo is of his mother as a child. It’s remarkable that they were still available,” adds Laidlaw. 

It’s raining hard now, streaming down the windows, on her house in Willow Gully – a special space where this truly remarkable story began.

Book launch

Date: Sunday, 28 July

Time: 3pm

Place: Kiama Uniting Church Hall, Manning Street

To be launched by Julie Farquhar-Nicol (former teacher at Noogaleek Aboriginal Preschool). Followed by a glass of wine, nibbles and book sales & signing.

Date: Saturday, 17 August

Time: 2pm

Place: The Kiama Library, hosted by the Kiama Historical Society.

To be launched by Bruce Elder (author of Blood on the Wattle). Followed by a glass of wine, nibbles and book sales & signing.