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Margaret Bradford with Hoya - Wandering Girl

from Inspirational Women by Hoya by Sonya Bradford with Hoya

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WANDERING GIRL song about Glenyse Ward (1949- ?) written by Margaret Bradford
Wandering Girl is the name of the mission where Glenyse lived for 15 years after being taken from her mother in 1949 as a baby. Glenyse suffered humiliating treatment from a white family when she was sent to work as a domestic servant in a wealthy West Australian farming district.
A survivor, her positive, irrepressible, strong
nature helped her to survive to make a life today as a recognised author
Reference..“Wandering Girl” by Glenyse Ward ..autobiography

lyrics

Wandering Girl by Margaret Bradford

Mission life was full of rules and routine long, rows of big brown eyes waiting in fear.
Glenyse knew that if she spoke at meal times From the nuns shed get a clip around the ear.

At the native camp her mum remembers her baby taken from her loving arms’
Sixteen summers later, her babe a young lady, far away a house wife for white ma’ms.

Chorus…
Hey You! My dark servant she’d call me. It seemed she was afraid to use my name.
As I cleaned and cooked and washed there in that grand white house.
She made me feel my colour was my shame.

Speak only when you’re asked the mission taught her. In silence obey orders they’d been warned.
But Glenyse with her happy disposition would toil and plod all day from early morn.

Parties meant excitement and new faces, shyly watching guests arrive in style
Her mistress shouting orders, scowling disapproval, yet to her friends she’d have a ready smile.
Chorus

Not for her a bedroom in that grand house. Like a dog box, her room behind the shed.
Her only friend was Bill the kind old gardener. “You deserve much better lassie” he once said.

Courage to defy that white boss lady grew with each humiliating tear.
Packed her few possessions, off to find a new life. No longer would she cringe and hide in fear.

Chorus
“Hey you! White lady” I called her. ”Why are you afraid to use my name.?
I won’t clean and cook and wash there in your grand white house.
No longer is my colour my shame. I now know that my colour’s not to blame.

credits

from Inspirational Women by Hoya, track released September 15, 2021
Wandering Girl composed by Margaret Bradford and recorded by the group Hoya.
HOYA is a 5 piece ensemble which includes Margaret Bradford on lead vocals, bowed psaltery and whistle, Sonya Bradford on lead vocals and harmonies, bass guitar and keyboard, Gwyn Cleeves on harmonies and guitar, Marcus Holden on violin, dobro, keyboard, cello, guitars, and Ian Knight on mandolin and harmonies.
Produced in Bloody Dog Studios Sydney.

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Margaret Bradford Sydney, Australia

Margaret's CD, inspirational women, is fittingly called HOYA- after the perennial green vine which she inherited from her grandmother. Like the Hoya plant, women’s stories grow and survive, we endure, and our struggles and responses intertwine and recur in each generation. Excellent musicians, on guitar, fiddle, mandolin & piano create a delightful river of sound under Margaret's songs ... more

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