Can You read and write? Are you literate? I know I take my ability do so for granted. In the character of Mary James, told in Her Story she, like many of the convict women, was illiterate. Not so much has changed as Margaret Burns told me after Her Story today when we have come out of character and are getting to know our audience. Margaret used to work in Corrective Services in NSW prisons teaching inmates to read and write (sadly the funding was cut, what’s new?). She described teaching a big, tattooed man in his mid-thirties to read and the tears that rolled down his cheek as he read his first words.
Nothing much has changed since the Cascades Female Factory was operational.
Pictured are Margaret Burns and her friend Judy Hiscock who were moved by Her Story today.
Margaret and Judy After Her Story .
