Dennis Foley recalls the town camp on Narrabeen Lagoon

“You could be who you were….[O]ut there [in the rest of Sydney]…you had to be someone else to survive.” Standing on the present day oval, Uncle Dennis Foley gives a history of the Narrabeen camp, its wetlands and sacred sites : from his early memories through the day it was bulldozed in 1959 and the people taken away in a truck, to the now filled-in marshes and modern sports centre.

Keywords: Identity; moving; childhood; racism; change, city; change, attitudes

PLEASE NOTE

All the video recordings on this website were made at least a decade ago. Some are fifteen years old.

What the speakers say on camera was based on their own knowledge and researches at the time each video was made. Since then a great deal of information has come to hand which may make some of the information first recorded now outdated. Therefore please regard this website as a period piece presenting knowledge held and believed at the time of recording.