Ten years ago I was involved with an organisation caring for the aged and disabled. We had a small bus and went on many trips for BBQs and if we were lucky, sometimes boat trips.

This day we left for a morning tea and lunch beside the sea. When the bus was unloaded, I saw an old man sitting by himself. He was a black man with the most beautiful, white, fuzzy hair.

I sat down and we started to talk about his past. John was a South Sea Islander from the Soloman Islands. In those days he was called a Kanaka or cane-cutter.

I was entranced by his story of slavery back in the nineteen hundreds. White men needed cane cutters for the massive cane farms in Queensland. John and his son were taken from their home in the Soloman Islands to Bundaberg where the cane grew on huge farms in our state of Queensland.

From 1863 to 1904, 62,000 islanders were working the white man farms. John came with his nine-year-old son. The food was poor and many died. Bundaberg has twenty-nine Heritage-listed graves on the Sunnyside Farms.

John's eyes were far away, looking at the past. His island home and wife he left behind. The whites were not interested in taking women into the cane fields.

The present drifted away as I became part of his life story. The men began cane cutting at sunrise until sunset. A bowl of rice was their food.
At night the Kanakas were locked in wooden huts. The heat in Bundaberg is dreadful. I have visited the City; it is very hot and the humidity stifling. No wonder so many of the Kanakas died especially children.

Tears filled his eyes as he related his life away from his island and wife. His son was just nine and expected to heft the cane-cutting implement. In those days there were no fancy machines to cut, stack, and carry.

My emotions were very strong, I am an empath. I told him I would go and get him some food as the BBQ was ready. That day with John changed my life. The cruelty, starvation, and stolen generation. When the laws were changed, many islanders returned home. John chose to stay in Queensland. He was financially compensated and married a Queensland woman who was only interested in his money.

Twenty-five years his junior he became boring to her. She treated him badly. Of course, she was getting the Government Carer's Pension because John was suffering from his previous life. Continued use of the machete-like cane-cutting knife tore the skin from his hands. He was bent over, his back damaged from the lifting.

We resumed our conversation as we enjoyed the sausages and salad with other folks.

As John told his story my photographic mind was gathering living history. At age 90 his memories were still clear. After lunch there was a presentation to John; it was his birthday.

The cake was divided up and songs were sung. John grabbed my hand and kissed it. Blacks were not allowed to kiss anyone in those past, dark days. He held tight with both hands and said, "Don't leave me." The love I felt for this poor man was immense. Not once did he feel sorry for himself or was angry or hateful towards his previous masters.

This was the last time I saw him, he went to the hospital and died peacefully. I like to think he had someone care for him that special birthday and the love for me shone in his old crinkled eyes.