Great story.
I served in the Army in the 60's with Trevor Hagan. Great bloke & well respected.

Your article warmed my heart. My wife of thirty years is Warlpiri. All of my descendants, a daughter and three grandsons so far, can legitimately identify as indigenous in this country. I am the odd one out. My wife and I often publicly express controversial views. We support the original aims and intent of the NT intervention, for example, and want to see it extended and strengthened rather than rolled back. Those opposed to the Intervention attack my wife as some kind of traitor to her people, a sell out to government and white racists, a drunk and, most interestingly a woman and therefore powerless in her culture. I cop the obvious - 'what would he know, he's only a whitefella?" Of course these attacks come mainly, by far, from other whitefellas. All I claim is the right to hold and express opinions on those issues that impact directly on those I hold dearest to me - my family - and I welcome debate. There are so many who, for shallow political reasons, want to force us back into ethnic/cultural pigeon holes and insist that we can't possibly constitute a family with shared interests and destiny because I'm a whitefella and the rest are blackfellas. This attitude is never expressed by my in-laws and our Aboriginal friends and acquaintances - to them my ethnicity is not an issue, my family ties are. Stories like ours need to be more widely circulated. We need to genuinely embrace this thing we call multiculturalism. We are increasingly sharing our destinies. Let's do that with joy and pride.

Lovely article Stephen. But just think of all those third cousins you have in Ireland and in Australia descended from your Irish great , great, grandfather and great, great, grandmother.

This is a very touching story Stephen; thanks for telling it to us.

It is also extremely refreshing to come across an OLO article on Indigenous matters which doesn't have a whole swag of quibblers, single issue obsessives and amateur race theorists sending in their predictable postings and squabbles as "comments".

Can we try to keep it that way folks, just this one time?

awesome indeed!!