Bev Davis
I miss my friends and community

I’ve lived in Minto for around nineand- a-half years. When I moved here I noticed that it was multicultural. The first person I met was a Samoan lady who lived two doors down. She had quite a few kids and she was happy, smiling and pleasant, and she showed me the ropes a bit. Claymore was just Anglo Saxon people. Minto was really interesting.

During my first summer, I wondered why the Islanders were outside having a shower. It was the father, and every night he was out there. Every night he had a shower and he had a sarong on and was cheerful and happy and didn’t care. So if you walked past it was, “Hello”. It was really good because there was no embarrassment.

Being isolated was the biggest difficulty. Where I was before, I knew a lot of people. Moving to Minto, I didn’t know many people. When I moved I just felt like I had to keep my children locked inside because I was a very over protective mother.

I had five children who moved with me, plus a granddaughter. The two youngest ones adjusted very quickly. The other three were in their teenage years, so that was very hard because they lost their friends and it was very hard for them to find new ones. Especially when I kept them inside. My granddaughter was only a baby.

My baby’s 20 now and he’s working. One thing about Minto with him is that we know a lot of people. When he was 16 we knew someone who told him to come and apply for a job. He was a person who really just wanted to hang out with his mates with the Play Station, it wasn’t like he’d go out and look for work. He’s at the same job four years later.

My 21-year-old, she’s really mature for her age and I think that growing up in Minto has taught her that: the rough, the good and bad. She takes everything in her stride. She doesn’t think people are better than her, (but) that she’s equal.

My 26-year-old, he doesn’t live far from me in his own Department of Housing, so he’s adjusting very well, especially with being gay. He had that problem in Minto, that’s one thing. It was hard for him to come out and say he was gay. There were a lot of people in the area that accepted him before he was gay and once he came out they didn’t accept him. That was a bit of a challenge for me because your kids are your kids.

The 28-year-old, I’ve still got him living with me. And my eldest one, I had her living in Minto a couple of streets away. I had all my children and my grandchildren all around me so I could see them everyday if I wanted to.

My biggest goal has been trying to get a park for the kids in Minto. A group of us got together to look for somewhere because our yards are small. I’m still involved with Kids Community Park and BEST (Bringing Every Street Together). We set that up in 2000 to bring the streets together and see what we wanted for Minto. We came up with the park.

I miss my friends and community. Now I’m living in the private sector with only a few Department of Housing houses. I feel isolated, like I’ve gone back 20 years. I’m a suburb away but it’s like, you just can’t go knocking on your neighbour’s door because they don’t want to know you. Whereas in Minto nobody was better than you and you were all treated the same. So that’s what I miss, not having people accepting me and my family for who we are.