PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Sarah George grew up in Sydney, Australia in the bushland suburb of Lane Cove where she enjoyed water sports on the Lane Cove River. She attended an alternative school in Lane Cove until she was seven years old then went to Glenaeon Steiner School for the remainder of her primary school years. In 1978, Sarah was an exchange student at Trinity Valley School, living with family friends in Fort Worth, Texas for her first semester of grade 7. After returning to Sydney, she completed highschool at Queenwood School for Girls at Balmoral Beach. Sarah completed two courses in photography at the Australian Centre for Photography at Paddington, Sydney. After graduating with a Bachelor of Business in Marketing, Sarah opened a store retailing solar and wind power products in Bathurst, NSW, where she married and had a son. She started a course in Steiner education near Bathurst. After the breakdown of her marriage, Sarah moved to Bellingen on the NSW Mid North Coast, where she bought a small property and built a shed where she lived with her son while completeing a two year course in Steiner education. In 1995, while her son was four years old, Sarah travelled with him in a four wheel drive along the East Coast of Queensland to Cape York, up to Bamaga, the northern most point of Australia. During this trip she met up with some friends from Bellingen who had been to Mt. Borradaile in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. They told her that the manager was looking for a mechanic and had given him her name. Sarah then travelled around the Gulf of Carpentaria and made her way to Mt. Borradaile. After working as a bush mechanic for six weeks, Sarah then went to Black Point at Garig Gunak Barlu National Park on the north-west peninsula of Arnhem Land. Her son spent a few weeks at Thunder Rock Primary School, attended by the children of the rangers there, and local Aboriginal children. Sarah then went to Kakadu National Park. She stayed with a childhood friend for a few days where she briefly met Big Bill Neidjie. Sarah was packed up ready to head to the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Before leaving, she visited Big Bill to say goodbye. They got talking and she told him where she had been in the region. Mt. Borradaile was Big Bill's mother's country. Big Bill had worked at Black Point and had familial connections with the Garig people. Sarah told Big Bill that she was a teacher and would like to teach in the area but she didn't know the stories. Big Bill's immediate response was to ask Sarah to get a tape recorder and he would tell her the stories. After five weeks, the Wet Season was quickly approaching. It was time to leave before the floodwater inundated the campground and all the roads became impassable. Big Bill asked to keep the tape recorder so he could post tapes to her. Sarah returned home via Uluru and Kata Tjuta (Ayres Rock and the Olgas) and the Strzelecki Desert. Back in Bellingen, Sarah enrolled in a Bachelor of Education at the University of New England. Big Bill sent her several more tapes and invited her back to continue recording his stories. She returned in May 1996 at the beginning of the following Dry Season and remained for fifteen months. Sarah completed her second degree via correspondence and majored in Aboriginal Education. Sarah returned home via the Kimberley and West Coast of Western Australia. After returning home at the end of 1997, Sarah built a timber home, then began transcribing Big Bill's tapes. In 2000, Sarah was offered a job to cook for Marrugeku Theatre Company's production of Crying Baby in Gunbalanya (Oenpelli), in Arnhem Land close to Kakadu. Sarah took this opportunity to meet up with Big Bill again to correct the language which she had transcribed. Together, they compiled a dictionary of words in Amurdak, Gagudju, Iewadja and Kunwinjku languages, that Big Bill had used in the tapes. Back in Bellingen, Sarah then began compiliing the stories and flew back to Kakadu to check the accuracy of those compilations. During this visit she spoke with other Aboriginal elders with whom she had become acquainted, to request their permission to publish some of the stories which also belonged to their tribes. By 2001, Big Bill had become increasingly frail, so Sarah decided to drive back to Kakadu with her son to spend some time with Big Bill before he passed away in May of 2002. Between 1999 and 2011, Sarah taught in the Aboriginal Sites Conservation course and the Diploma of Aboriginal Studies at Coffs Harbour TAFE College and taught Woodwork and Indonesian language at Chrysalis Steiner School in Bellingen and Casuarina Steiner School in Coffs Harbour. In 2007, Sarah produced a the photo documentary, Iddid Djura, featuring the life and stories of Big Bill Neidjie and the people and culture of Western Arnhem Land. Iddid Djura means rock-art book, in Amurdak, Big Bill's mother's language. This highly acclaimed photo documentray debuted in NSW Parliament House and toured nationally including to the National Library of Australia's Vivid Photography Festival in Canberra and The Dreaming Festival at Woodford, Queensland. Sarah later completed a Diploma in Indonesian Language and Culture through Deakin University and Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim in Malang, East Java, Indonesia. Sarah was invited to teach English at this university the following year which she did while completing a Graduate Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. She completed both courses with high distinctions in all units of study. In 2012, Sarah returned to Bellingen and taught English at TAFE to migrants and refugees who had settled in Coffs Harbour, before taking time off to complete Big Bill's book, Gamu: the Dreamtime Stories, Life and Feelings of Big Bill Neidjie. Gamu means mother in Amurdak. Sarah is enormously proud of this book, the most comprehensive book of Big Bill's life and stories ever published.
