Inside story
In the lead-up to the official inquiry into the treatment of children in state care, David Cohen gives a first-hand account of life at Epuni Boys’ Home.
In the lead-up to the official inquiry into the treatment of children in state care, David Cohen gives a first-hand account of life at Epuni Boys’ Home.
The faded yellow structure looks so uninteresting, so uninviting and so forgotten that for a moment you think you’ve arrived at the wrong place. Turning into the driveway, however, you realise that impression was misleading.
Though the cold, overcast day is only just breaking, this curious little residence already buzzes with activity as dozens of boys rouse themselves under the watch of various supervisors, one of whom carefully unlocks the front door and waves you in with a grunt. Far from being the neglected institution it appeared from the road, the interior of the building resembles nothing so much as a venue busying itself for an important event.
Welcome to 441 Riverside Drive, Lower Hutt, known to a generation of boys and teenagers as Epuni Boys’ Home, a 1.6ha Ministry of Works-designed institution for “short-term training”. The residence is charged with assessing and classifying the estimated 350 children aged between seven and 16 who are pushed through its doors each year. It is not faring terribly well.
The year is 1975, but the ultimate event that these kids will play a part in takes place in New Zealand this year, as the Government convenes what will be the most far-reaching
inquiry of this parliamentary term.
A royal commission of inquiry will reconstruct what did and didn’t happen here and in the 25 other similar institutions that were dotted around the country from the 1950s until the late 1980s. It will be chaired by former Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand.
The system that will be looked at dates back to 1954, when the Government opened its first “family home”, the name of choice for the large residential houses owned, furnished and maintained by the state and run by a couple of foster parents who received a special board rate for the children in care. Things did not go to plan. Soon, the residences were processing thousands of state wards.
“Any abuse of children is a tragedy, and for those most vulnerable children in state care, it is unconscionable,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said when she announced the inquiry’s establishment. It will be completed within her first parliamentary term.
“This is a chance to confront our history and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again. It is a significant step towards acknowledging and learning from the experiences of those who have been abused in state care.”
The Satyanand inquiry, which has an initial budget of $12 million, will need to find some way of recreating how life was for the thousands of youngsters who were processed through Epuni and the other homes. One thing it won’t be discovering in a hurry is what these now-defunct places actually looked and felt like.
I know a bit about this because I spent two years researching a book about Epuni. The broad stories of those who worked and lived there were relatively easy to come by – especially in relation to the more lurid episodes of sexual and physical abuse. But the deeper sense of what these places were like becomes increasingly elusive, and harder still to recapture as each year passes and memories fade.
I also know about this because I was one of the kids who lived at Epuni.
A DAY IN THE LIFE
Among the more striking things that a visitor to 441 Riverside Drive would have noticed is the silence of the 40 or so youngsters typically housed here. It’s all the more notable because their oddly monastic morning routine is set against the jaunty sounds of a radio system whose wiring runs throughout the buildings’ three wings and the various passageways.
In deference to the chill, perhaps, or more likely out of security concerns, all the doors and windows will be locked, as the radiator pipes along the main hallways gurgle and the first of the silent human traffic begins to move. A visitor would also notice the warmth, and the odours: the reek of overripe vegetables, salty male adolescence and chemical cleaners.