Painting picture of Terence Kelly’s upbringing

Penny Walker, one of the most respected Aboriginal women in the Gascoyne region, took in the curly-haired boy as a two-year-old | LISTEN

Penny Walker raised Terence Kelly in Carnarvon. Picture: Nic Duncan

Terence Darrell Kelly was taken in as a toddler by one of the most respected Aboriginal women in the Gascoyne region.

An oral history archive and snippets from a parliamentary inquiry offer a little about the ­circumstances of Mr Kelly’s early life in Carnarvon, almost 1000km north of Perth. He was raised by Penny Walker, a warm and humorous woman who collected small statues of unicorns and cherished her pets.

Born in 1943, Ms Walker was 44 years old when in 1987 she agreed to raise Mr Kelly. She called him Terry.

In her oral history interview in May 2019 for the State Library of Western Australia, Ms Walker volunteered that in her youth she had been a heavy drinker, a domestic violence victim and her own six biological children had been taken from her. She considered young Mr Kelly a gift from God. She raised him in the same house as two of her biological grandsons who were of similar age.

Giving evidence to a parliamentary inquiry about the patient travel scheme for regional Western Australians in 2014, Ms Walker explained she had multiple health problems but she was also a full-time carer for one of her two biological grandsons who suffered mental distress.

She told the inquiry she took in Mr Kelly because his biological mother was a drug addict.

Ms Walker and Mr Kelly were said to be close and locals have told The Australian he grew more withdrawn after her death in early 2020.

In the archived recording of Ms Walker’s oral history interview, she is at her home near the old cemetery in Carnarvon and speaks intermittently to her dogs Bluey and Sheba as she recounts a childhood of mission homes, abuse by priests and working on a cattle station. She said she continued to give $5 a fortnight to the local Church of Christ because she sometimes needed to go to the church herself to ask for food.

With obvious pride, Ms Walker says in the recording that later in life God gave her the chance to raise three boys – her two biological grandsons and Mr Kelly.

Ms Walker says of Mr Kelly in the oral history recording: “His mum didn’t want him and she threw him away”.

“This little boy, God was giving me something back into my life, what the welfare took off me, my children,” she said.

“So I had this little boy. Beautiful boy, Terry, two-year-old jet black curly hair.”

Ms Walker said she then ­became the permanent carers of her two biological grandsons after their mother’s death.

She raised the three boys together in Carnarvon.