Australian Author Month: Lorraine Cobcroft
August 26, 2015
Lorraine Cobcroft
An Australian author who spent her working life penning instructional and technical books and ghost-writing informational works, Lorraine Cobcroft adopted the name ''Rainbowriter'' because her husband nicknamed her ''Rainbow'', and she has always been excited by the rainbow's pomise.
Now semi-retired and resident in a small beachside village in Northern NSW, Lorraine divides her time between reading, writing, gardening, sewing, beach walks, spoiling grandchildren and touring Australia with her husband in their campervan.
Five Fast Fun Facts about Lorraine...
1. I've worked as everything from motel cleaner, nurses' aide, canteen manager, and bookkeeper to professional writer, software entrepreneur, and CEO of a global technology company with over 500 shareholders.
2. I've lived in four countries, and though Australian-born, I have an English father, U.S. born sister, and Singaporean-born daughter.
3. I've been called a gypsy, because I love to wander and it took me a long time to put down roots. I am driven by itchy feet and an insatiable curiosity about people, life, and the world.
4. I was once sued in a foreign court for $100 million dollars, and had to fight the case, without a lawyer, in a hearing conducted by telephone.
5. I think I'm a bit of a stirrer. I like to write stories that are politically incorrect and quite confronting - exposing the seedier side of society and government crime and corruption.
Where to find Lorraine...
Website | LinkedIn
"The Pencil Case: They Stole Us White Kids too"
How many white kids were victims of ''The Stolen Generation''?
Until around the mid-1970s, government policy across Australia was to remove children they considered to be “at risk” in their home environment. The story of ‘’The Stolen Generation’’ is now well known internationally, but the whole truth hasn’t been told. Children weren’t taken solely because of their race. They stole white kids too. Welfare legislation authorizing the removal of children from poverty-stricken homes was enacted by people who were untrained, and unable or unwilling to acknowledge that lack of money did not mean a bad home life. For financial gain to welfare workers and Churches, children were removed from their family to institutions where they suffered deprivation, abuse, separation from loved ones, and withholding of affection that scarred them for life.
A minimally fictionalized biography, "The Pencil Case" is a confronting account of the life of one of the victims of this policy.
A hit on the head with a pencil case began Paul Wilson's lifelong battle against the system and the pencil-pushers who tormented him... but nothing could break his indomitable spirit. A fifth generation, native-born white Australian, Paul was a stolen child. Bureaucrats stole him twice. So-called ‘women of God’ and a misguided carer stole his identity, his heritage and his self-respect.
Join Paul as he takes his lawyer on a journey through time, from the post-war home of a poverty-stricken Australian family, to a cold, harsh Catholic Orphanage, into foster homes and an Anglican Boys’ Home, to an army training school for boys, and through an eventful adult life desperately searching for identity, acceptance, love and peace.
His is a story is that may sadden or enrage you, but it's also one that will reassure you of the beauty and strength of the human spirit and the power of family love.
Where to get your copy of "The Pencil Case: They Stole Us White Kids too"
"The Pencil Case: They Stole Us White Kids too"
How many white kids were victims of ''The Stolen Generation''? Until around the mid-1970s, government policy across Australia was to remove children they considered to be “at risk” in their home environment. The story of ‘’The Stolen Generation’’ is now well known internationally, but the whole truth hasn’t been told. Children weren’t taken solely because of their race. They stole white kids too. Welfare legislation authorizing the removal of children from poverty-stricken homes was enacted by people who were untrained, and unable or unwilling to acknowledge that lack of money did not mean a bad home life. For financial gain to welfare workers and Churches, children were removed from their family to institutions where they suffered deprivation, abuse, separation from loved ones, and withholding of affection that scarred them for life.
A minimally fictionalized biography, "The Pencil Case" is a confronting account of the life of one of the victims of this policy.
A hit on the head with a pencil case began Paul Wilson's lifelong battle against the system and the pencil-pushers who tormented him... but nothing could break his indomitable spirit. A fifth generation, native-born white Australian, Paul was a stolen child. Bureaucrats stole him twice. So-called ‘women of God’ and a misguided carer stole his identity, his heritage and his self-respect.
Join Paul as he takes his lawyer on a journey through time, from the post-war home of a poverty-stricken Australian family, to a cold, harsh Catholic Orphanage, into foster homes and an Anglican Boys’ Home, to an army training school for boys, and through an eventful adult life desperately searching for identity, acceptance, love and peace.
His is a story is that may sadden or enrage you, but it's also one that will reassure you of the beauty and strength of the human spirit and the power of family love.
0 comments