Sentenced
at Birth
Brenda
Hodge, Walk On: The Remarkable True Story of the Last Person Sentenced to Death
in Australia. Rowville: The Five
Mile Press, 2005.
Reviewed
by Megan Yarrow
In 1984, Brenda Hodge was the last
person to be sentenced to death in Australia.
She was found guilty of shooting dead her partner, Kalgoorlie policeman,
Peter Rafferty. The sentence was
commuted to life imprisonment, and Hodge released in 1996. Walk
On is Hodge's account of her life so far - a bewildering, and almost
inconceivable chronology of abuse, violence, scattered siblings and the search
for freedom.
Hodge begins her story
at the point of discovery and reconciliation with siblings Janette and Carole,
following the death of their mother.
She precedes the backtrack into her life story with a hint of what to
expect:
They were now grieving for the “real” mother they never
knew. Grieving for the mother-daughter
bond said to be an intrinsic part of our sense of self. Grieving for a lost childhood without siblings. They didn't miss out on much. I was the sister who had that “real” mother,
had the siblings, had the family life.
It was far from normal. Far from
happy. (18)
By the age of eight, Hodge was
world weary, having endured ritual floggings from her alcoholic mother 'Nan',
and an existence under constant threat of violence and psychological
abuse. Amongst other torments, Hodge
had no less than four father figures, was regularly locked in the outhouse,
called a ‘dirty little bitch’ when she wet the bed and molested by a teenage
babysitter.
One day, Nan packed her off to
school although she had not recovered from the flu:
I walked through wet grassy paddocks the next
morning. There was a bitter frost, I
was sweating under my jumper and my head was spinning. Halfway up the hill I stopped, looked back
at the roof of our house and thought to myself: 'I will never get married, and I will never have children. I am only eight years old, but I never want
a child to hate me as much as I hate my mother! (30)
An eerie emotional detachment
pervades Hodge's retelling of certain events, and it is not surprising that she
retreated into a world of daydreams, and often resorted to running away. Despite the overarching misery of her
childhood, there were plenty of opportunities to escape, either through her
imagination or wandering about the bush at Wonga Park or the park at Clifton
Hill. Hodge's strong sense of self
preservation emerges early as a result of her desperate circumstances. She derives enjoyment from nature and
developed a poignant affection for her horse Chiquita. ‘I was in my first year at Templestowe High
and the horse was my anchor. Otherwise
I was adrift.’ When Chiquita was
injured and had to be put down, Hodge's grief was palpable:
I didn't care about anything or anyone, and I was starting
to 'float' mentally. This is a strange
sensation I get that I now recognise as being a symptom of dissociation, a
state in which time does not exist. I
think it is a defence-mechanism I developed early in life - one that came back
to me many years later when I was sentenced to death; not grieving for myself,
but for the man I had killed. (40)
Hodge's reminiscences do contain
rare moments of wry humour, such as her recollection of the period spent living
with Uncle John and Auntie Thel (who decides to change her name from Dorothy to
Brenda):
When Uncle John came home we had spaghetti bolognaise –
the first of hundreds I was to have at Fawkner. Uncle John was a Chinese chef and he hated spaghetti bolognaise,
but that was the only meal Auntie Thel could cook. Why he let her cook I'll never know. Apart from the occasional fish and chips from the shop we always
had banana sandwiches for lunch and spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. (27)
After being raped by a man who had
given Nan drinking money, Hodge is sent to a reformatory. She embarks on a cycle of
institutionalisation and an associated barrage of invasive psychological
cruelty, massive doses of stupefying drugs and suicide attempts. Referring to one of these places, 'Mont
Park', she says:
It was a loony bin, a nut-house, the end of the road. The place of cages. People caged during the day, paced around
inside like animals in a zoo. Those
lucky enough to have a tree in their cage walked around and around the tree, so
that a trench was left around the base of the tree – a moat between the living
dead and their keepers.( 81)
At Goodna Mental Hospital, Hodge
was strapped in a straightjacket for crying, and underwent a bizarre array of
treatments including enemas and internal examinations.
I lived in terror of ECT.
I watched the women before and after treatment, and knew I did not want
to share their experience. They came
out of it greatly subdued and confused.
Some of them could not remember their name for two or three days after
and it was as though each one's self had been sucked out and only the shell of
a person remained. (98)
Forever escaping, Hodge revelled
in fleeting periods of blissful freedom before being readmitted. She felt safe as a transient - detached from
the norms of family and the social complexities of life. Simple pleasures and random acts of kindness
from strangers kept her going. Hope
came in the form of saviours such as Rita Malone and Eileen, who ran a women's
boarding house, and Verna, whose shack on Stradbroke Island off Brisbane was a
temporary refuge for Hodge.
Hodge takes us all around
Australia, from Melbourne to Goondiwindi, Townsville, the Northern Territory,
Alice Springs and Western Australia.
She's worked in pubs, and roadhouses, and met an assortment of
characters along the way. The peculiar
sociological dynamic of the Australian outback is exposed, as Hodge discusses
her marriage to David Hodge, her relationship with Peter Rafferty, and her time
spent incarcerated. Included throughout
the text are details of her 1990 appeal to his Excellency, the Hon. Sir Francis
Bur, AC, KCMG, QC., correspondence between herself and Bruce Dawe, a family
tree, photos and newspaper cutouts. The
addition of Hodge's own poetry enlivens the reading experience, and gives an
insight into her feelings. When discussing
her trial, she says:
I don't remember a lot about my trial, only disconnected
images: the grey stone walls on the
outside of the Kalgoorlie Supreme Court; a large courtroom with wooden
banisters, steps going somewhere, the microphone. I remember the face of one juror, who was a young man with dark
hair, a goatee beard I think, and cold staring eyes. (160)
But a poem written by Hodge,
expressing how she felt when she was sentenced to death is more revelatory:
The Question
When I was given the
death sentence
the judge wanted to
know if I
had anything to say
I should have tried to
think
of something
maybe even looked
guilty
for the sake of
justifying jurors
and taxpayers' money
but my mind was not
giving or receiving
it was as it had been
on that day
so I stood detached
blindly staring at a
wig
until it coughed into
the silence
dismissing the court.
(Bandyup Women's
Prison, 1985).
Today, Hodge is at peace, living
in Geraldton:
Right now, I'm going back outside to sit under my
peppercorn trees and read the paper, maybe do a crossword, or just doze off in
the sun. Yes, the sun is still shining
in Geraldton, even in the middle of winter.
That's why I like living here.
Close to the sea, close to friends.
I think I am very lucky too. (204)
Walk On is indeed a remarkable
journey. It remains to be seen,
however, whether Hodge is yet to make another 'first' as part of the first
legal action under Western Australia's proceeds of crime legislation
(introduced four years ago). An article
in The Australian on 5 August, 2005
reported Hodge had been visited by two detectives at her Geraldton home and
questioned in relation to details about her book's sales. Peter Rafferty's four children had objected
to the book and called for the confiscation of any profits. It is astonishing that, as a free
individual, Hodge still endures the intimidation and humiliation she thought
she had finally escaped.