‘I STILL HEAR GUNSHOTS’
A waitress at the historic site on the day of the killings, Anita is still dealing with the trauma
It was an icy cold autumn morning on April 28, 1996 when Tasmanian-born teenager Anita Bingham asked her dad Steve to drop her off at the Port Arthur Historic Site.
The 17-year-old had recently begun working as a waitress at one of the two cafes at the former convict settlement. It was a day that would define the rest of her life – Anita could not have imagined the horror about to unfold.
“I was in the [Frances Langford] Tearooms, and sometime after 1.30pm
I heard a loud bang, and then another,” Anita, now 41, tells Woman’s Day.
“I raced outside to see people running from The Broad Arrow Cafe. Initially I thought it was a convict re-enactment show, but I knew something wasn’t right.
“People were ducking behind walls. Instinctively
I ran back inside and locked the doors.”
Anita holds back tears as she remembers that terrible day 25 years ago. At the time she was unaware that a few hundred metres away a man named Martin Bryant, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, was carrying out the worst massacre in modern Australian history, brutally killing 35 people, including two children, and injuring another 23.
“A senior staffer came in and told us an armed man was on the loose and we were not to move. I was just a kid working a casual job with my whole life ahead of me. I’ve never been more scared,” she remembers.
Anita, who is the younger sister of former Big Brother winner Reggie Sorensen, was concerned about her parents, in case they got wind something was wrong.
STAYING CALM
“I called Reggie at her fish and chip shop and she told me there were lots of sirens. I said something bad was happening at Port Arthur, and to tell Mum and Dad I loved them.” Anita did her best to keep everyone calm, especially the elderly. “I made endless cups of tea – Mum always taught us a good cuppa makes the bad stuff go away! I kept talking, hoping it would distract them from what we now know was the sounds of an evil killing spree.
‘I was just a kid working a casual job with my life ahead of me’
“Each time we heard a shot, I prayed he wasn’t coming for us. Then came this eerie silence. We found out later that was the moment the gunman left Port Arthur for another location. Police stormed the site soon after and escorted us to safety,” she says.
Bryant fled the scene and wasn’t apprehended by police until the next day, following an 18-hour stand-off.
“I watched the news that night and that’s when it hit me,” Anita explains. “When I heard the death toll, that was the final blow, and the tears came fast.”
After receiving a bravery award, Anita went back to work at Port Arthur just a month after the shooting.
“I took a dishwasher job at the Broad Arrow, which had been set up in a temporary portable,” she says.
“I couldn’t shake the feeling that it could’ve been me. The nightmares got worse and I’d wake up in a pool of sweat, unable to breathe. I’d close my eyes and imagine the bloodshed.”
Bryant, now 53, was given 35 life sentences without the possibility of parole.
BATTLING ON
Meanwhile, Anita became determined not to let him ruin her life and set off on a working holiday around Australia.
“I wasn’t going to let this scar me forever – I’ve had years of professional help for the PTSD,” she says. “It still hovers, but I’m better than I was.”
Incredibly, Anita went back to work at Port Arthur last October, this time as a ticketing officer. “I didn’t last two months,” she admits.
“It’s hard to shake the demons, no matter how strong you are. It’s sad because I love the place. I’m a very proud Tasmanian.
“All these years on, I feel mostly for my co-workers who were in the Broad Arrow that day – they’re the ones who witnessed the carnage. How do you ever unsee all those dead bodies?”
Anita, who spoke to Woman’s Day from her home in White Beach on the picturesque Tasman Peninsula, will mark the 25th anniversary with sister Reggie and her children Mia and Lucas on Queensland’s Gold Coast, where she hopes to move permanently in the next few months.
“We’ll commemorate the day with a picnic on the beach, remembering those who lost their lives,” she says.
“There’ll always be a special place in my heart for the victims whose lives were senselessly taken, and for the families who have suffered enough. They will never be forgotten.”