THE REAL SAPPHIRES Macrae and He Changed His Name Cummeragunja Mission, in 1939
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REVEILLE INTERVIEW REVEILLE INTERVIEW suited to US Forces, whose large black in Melbourne, she’s chairman of an to the country. Now it’s more common contingent would be most receptive to their Aboriginal boarding school, but we all to have these things recognised. Like exciting blend of soul and jazz, which was keep in contact. Our eldest sister Naomi having the Welcome to Country. But we so much like the music of The Supremes, runs the Aboriginal Medical Service in were doing it back then, as ambassadors, The Ronettes, and The Crystals. Redfern and Beverly works there too, meeting black Americans at Pastor Doug And how right he was ... which is why we’re meeting here. Nicholls’ church. He had a church in Yet the real story is very different in so Reveille: When was the last time you sang Fitzroy in Melbourne. It was a gathering many ways. To find out how, I recently together? place for Aboriginal people. There we caught up with Laurel in her lunch break Laurel: We sing a lot together . would meet visitors to the church and make from the Aboriginal Medical Service in Lois: Yes, as family we do. But we don¹t them feel welcome. At that time we met Redfern, along with big sister Lois, on sing to entertain in public, because when Matawilda Dobbs, Winifred Atwell, Arthur holiday from her job as Director of an we split up after Vietnam I married a GI Ashe, Ray Charles . Aboriginal college in Melbourne to spend and we went to live in America. Laurel Reveille: So we’re talking about before the festive season with her sisters. married an American airman and lived you went to Vietnam. I started off by asking about the family in the United States and then in England. Lois: Yes. Meeting these people from that produced the girls who became The Beverly lived in New Zealand. We’ve all America, their music became our music, Sapphires and just who of the sisters had different lives. soul, jazz, blues . we became aware of actually went to Vietnam. Reveille: Where were you all born? all these young black men going to fight in Lois: Shepparton. Well, we say Vietnam. The scene in the movie of going Laurel, Beverly and Naomi rehearsing Reveille: Laurel, I understand the Cummeragunja, that’s our ancestral home, to sing for them in the hospital was very script was written by your son, on the border of NSW and Victoria. It was touching for us. Tony Briggs. So is the family an Aboriginal reserve. They used to give Reveille: Then you went for an audition name Briggs? concerts many, many years back on the where they were looking for people to Lois: To cut a long story short: mission just to be together as a community. entertain in Vietnam . our grandfather’s name was Then they had a walk-off from the Laurel: Beverly and I were working in THE REAL SAPPHIRES Macrae and he changed his name Cummeragunja Mission, in 1939 . Melbourne as telephonists in the PMG. when he was 14. Reveille: Long before you were born Lois was modelling – she was the first It was the pick of the movies produced was based on the real life experiences of Laurel: So my son decided to Lois: Yes; then most moved off the Aboriginal model in Australia; Naomi was in Australia last year, a hit not just here, his mother Laurel Robinson and her big use Macrae ... mission to the Victoria side, down on to nursing. We started singing at this club, just but even more so on the international sister Lois Peeler. He fictionalised the story Reveille: If your son wrote it I the river banks. But we always maintained trying out. scene, where the stars were feted at all the in certain ways to capture other aspects guess you would have approved the singing. The children would put on Reveille: So you’d actually been singing major film festivals. And now it’s taken of Indigenous life, but in the main the of the end result? How true to concerts for the family in the backyards. together for quite some time before out most of this year’s major awards at narrative was as told him by his mother. life was it? That’s how we began. Vietnam? the Australian Academy of Cinema and Now that the film has proved so popular Laurel: The movie had to be Reveille: And it seemed like there were Laurel: We did a couple of shows at Television Arts. The Sapphires tells the worldwide we’re well aware of the fictional changed quite a bit. three sisters and the younger one who Puckapunyal the army camp . Then 12 story of four Aboriginal girls who went version, but the real life story behind it Reveille: But you are two of wanted to join . and had a problem months later we were offered this chance to to Vietnam for three months in 1968 to is little known. We’re all familiar with four sisters? because she was too young? go to Vietnam. entertain the Allied troops and had the the exploits of Little Pattie, Sylvia Rae Lois: Yes, the Aboriginal way: Lois: It was her [pointing at Laurel]! Reveille: What year was that? experience of a lifetime. et al, who did such a wonderful job of we are the children of two Reveille: And in the end you had to push Lois: 1968 Reveille editor Graham Barry writes: I entertaining the boys at the height of the brothers who married two your way in . Reveille: Which was when the big build-up first saw The Sapphires as a stage play/ Vietnam War. Indeed Sylvia Rae wrote the sisters. So actually we are first Lois: She was the baby ... of American troops was happening. musical at Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre: story for us in Reveille and those ladies are cousins. We two [Laurel and Laurel: I was almost 16! Lois: Yes. But Naomi and Beverly didn’t exciting, funny, full of great songs, it still active, enthusiastic participants in RSL Lois] are actual sisters ... and Reveille: So at that time the oldest was . want to go – they were protestors, Naomi managed to capture the feeling of four girls life. the other two [Naomi and Lois: Twenty-one . At that time, the ’60s, was very much against the war, so she entertaining the troops, literally on active But the real story of The Sapphires has Beverly] are actual sisters. being Aboriginal, we were involved in a lot refused to go. Then 12 months later we got service, and subject to all the dangers been neglected, for the simple reason that Lois and Laurel today Reveille: And you all still link of politics, because of the White Australia the offer. inherent in such a situation. the promoter of their tour thought that their up? policy. It was a social movement too. We Reveille: That was changed on stage and The play was written by Tony Briggs, and appeal, and their music, would be most Laurel: Oh yes! Lois lives used to work with black people who came in the movie, to show all four going. How REVEILLE 28 REVEILLE 29 REVEILLE INTERVIEW REVEILLE INTERVIEW suited to US Forces, whose large black in Melbourne, she’s chairman of an to the country. Now it’s more common contingent would be most receptive to their Aboriginal boarding school, but we all to have these things recognised. Like exciting blend of soul and jazz, which was keep in contact. Our eldest sister Naomi having the Welcome to Country. But we so much like the music of The Supremes, runs the Aboriginal Medical Service in were doing it back then, as ambassadors, The Ronettes, and The Crystals. Redfern and Beverly works there too, meeting black Americans at Pastor Doug And how right he was ... which is why we’re meeting here. Nicholls’ church. He had a church in Yet the real story is very different in so Reveille: When was the last time you sang Fitzroy in Melbourne. It was a gathering many ways. To find out how, I recently together? place for Aboriginal people. There we caught up with Laurel in her lunch break Laurel: We sing a lot together . would meet visitors to the church and make from the Aboriginal Medical Service in Lois: Yes, as family we do. But we don¹t them feel welcome. At that time we met Redfern, along with big sister Lois, on sing to entertain in public, because when Matawilda Dobbs, Winifred Atwell, Arthur holiday from her job as Director of an we split up after Vietnam I married a GI Ashe, Ray Charles . Aboriginal college in Melbourne to spend and we went to live in America. Laurel Reveille: So we’re talking about before the festive season with her sisters. married an American airman and lived you went to Vietnam. I started off by asking about the family in the United States and then in England. Lois: Yes. Meeting these people from that produced the girls who became The Beverly lived in New Zealand. We’ve all America, their music became our music, Sapphires and just who of the sisters had different lives. soul, jazz, blues . we became aware of actually went to Vietnam. Reveille: Where were you all born? all these young black men going to fight in Lois: Shepparton. Well, we say Vietnam. The scene in the movie of going Laurel, Beverly and Naomi rehearsing Reveille: Laurel, I understand the Cummeragunja, that’s our ancestral home, to sing for them in the hospital was very script was written by your son, on the border of NSW and Victoria.