Gently weaving a new narrative

Aunty Patsy Cameron at home in Tomahawk with some of her projects.

May 14, 2025

Gently weaving a new narrative

By Rachel Williams

Aunty Patsy Cameron has been described as a national treasure.
Spending just a few moments with her on the calm shores of Tomahawk’s beach, with the commanding vista of her island home in the background, it is easy to understand why.

Welcoming, engaging, insightful; just a few adjectives to describe this remarkable Officer of the Order of Australia, who is on a mission to bridge the divide and ensure a more positive and connected future for all.

Aunty Patsy’s life, lessons learned and hopes for the next generations are featured in a new book that was released earlier this year.

Written by renowned Tasmanian author Martin Flanagan, Trouwerner highlights Aunty Patsy’s dedication to truth telling.

“That Truganini was the last Tasmanian Aboriginie is the sort of perception that we work hard to change,” Aunty Patsy says.

“I want to debunk the ideas that the Aboriginal women were slaves and concubines and just there for sex.

“My arguments were to answer questions like ‘why did my grannies survive when others were taken to Wybalena and they died’ and ‘why did my grannies have lots of children and the Straitsmen allowed them to continue their culture’. 

“Those women were strong and tenacious. 

“The people that made those judgements forgot to look at what was happening on the wharves of Hobart – they were very cruel times.”

With the encouragement of former Governor Kate Warner and her husband, Richard Warner, Flanagan agreed to write the book.

For research, Aunty Patsy, age 78,  took him to Flinders Island to immerse him in her history and showed him the spots that shaped her growing up at Lady Barron.

Aunty Patsy’s mum Dulcie Mansell grew up on the island with her mum Kate and dad Silas.

Dulcie married fisherman Joe Greeno who had immigrated to Australia when he was 15 in search of work to financially assist his family in Italy, following the death of his father in the Navy during World War I.

“Mum worked in the fish factory splitting abalone and filleting shark. She said the worst thing she had to do was process the eels,’ Aunty Patsy says.

“Dad moved from Victoria as a foreman at the fish factory and because Italy was not an ally during WWII dad had to report to the local constable once a week because he was an alien and considered an enemy.

“They were married and quickly had five children and we were all born with an Italian name Guarino, which dad Anglicised to Greeno.”

But it was her Aboriginal heritage that flowed most prominently through her veins.

 “We lived very close together. Aunties and uncles all around. It was a very close-knit Aboriginal community,” she recalls.

“It was really difficult in those days and I talk a little bit about it in Trouwerner – it was them and us. We called ourselves islanders and they were outsiders and it was really hard.

“We were subjected to a lot of racism, which still exists, and you only have to talk to my kids to find out what they went through in school.”

Patsy is a mother to four children. Her first child Melissa was born when she was just 17 and was adopted out. They reconnected after 29 years.  

“I left Flinders Island when I was 18 to work in Launceston. I worked in the Toy and Trick shop in York St – the whole family were magicians and practised magic,” she laughs.

“I went on to be the first check out chick employed by Jimmy Tsinoglou at the Charles St Jimmy’s Supermarket.

“He was building the supermarket and I started in the little veggie shop next door. I was the first girl employed and we would go over and fill up the shelves and then we became the checkout chicks and it was wonderful.”

Her life changed when she met Graham Cameron when he was temporarily stationed as a policeman at Whitemark.

After marrying they had three children, Nick, Matt and Jo.

“We established a life together in Launceston and were married on Flinders and moved to Queensland for two years – but it didn’t work out. 

“I was pregnant for the whole time I think and Graham was working two jobs to survive and it was just hard, so my dad supported us to come back. 

“Graham went fishing with my dad for five or six years and we eventually bought a little boat of our own – St Patrick she was called.  Crayfishing was part of our life.

“It was wonderful for the kids. They loved their freedom, but it was hard in many ways too. 

“There were things that happened that were quite challenging, and we needed to leave. I wanted my kids to have a future and expand their horizons.”

She also had that dream for herself and became the first person in her family to go to university.

Having only completed year nine at school, she launched into a Bachelor of Arts studying 

Geography, Geology and Aboriginal Studies in 1988 through the Tasmanian State Institute of Technology.

She completed a second major through the University of New England doing archaeology and palaeoanthropology and graduated in 1990 in her forties.

“To learn about that wonderful, ancient history of the globe was beautiful,” she reveals.

“I couldn’t get enough. I was a sponge and I needed to get my first High Distinction. I’d be working at the kitchen table with a pencil and a rubber and paper because I couldn’t use the computer and (daughter) Jo would be studying in the bedroom with the music going – I don’t know how she did it. 

“It was lovely to share the experience, but I think she got the first HD!”

Patsy went on to work at UTAS as Deputy Head and Aboriginal Student Services Coordinator and was involved in establishing what became Riawunna. 

She was then appointed as Aboriginal Employment Strategy Coordinator and did some guest lecturing and cultural sensitivity training.

“I was trying to get people to understand about our culture and that it was healthy and strong,” she says.

But education and writing had become her passion and she enrolled in a Masters of Arts.

Her thesis was edited into her first published book, Grease and Ochre - the blending of two cultures at the colonial sea frontier.

She wrote most of it from the tiny hamlet of Tomahawk, a place that was once a weekend shack.

“We’d come down every weekend and walk the beach and on a Sunday night we wouldn’t want to go home,” she recalls.

Now every morning she wakes to the view of the Furneaux Islands and the home of her ancestral grandfather Mannalargenna, on Tebrakunna Country at Cape Portland.

“It’s beautiful and rewarding and good for the grand children to know their heritage and where they come from and that they belong here,” she says.

Sharing that heritage with others is a passion for Aunty Patsy, who has played a key role in the establishment of Melaythenner Teeackana Warrana Aboriginal Corporation, which organises the annual Mannalargenna Day. 

“There are a lot of wonderful people who are so supportive of MTWAC and understand and don’t judge negatively but want to know more, just like Dick Warner wanted Marty to write something because he wanted to know more,” she says.

“It makes such a difference to a degree, however I have to say that with The Voice, it was so gut wrenching when I found that only 27 per cent of our North East community supported it. That just cut me. It actually impacted on my family so deeply.

“We had a week’s silence and stayed home and tried to come to terms with that and I remember going in to do my shop in the supermarket in Scottsdale and I just started crying because I looked around and thought ‘these people all voted no’ so there is a lot more to do.”

Cancer won’t deter her on that mission.

Aunty Patsy discovered a lump on her breast while recuperating on the couch from a 15cm calf muscle tear she sustained in the aftermath of last year’s Waterhouse fire, when she tripped over bags she had packed to evacuate the looming firefront.

It had metastasized to her spine and surgeons cannot operate.

“It’s been a journey. It is such an insidious disease. The chemo that I am on and will be on forever to manage it is cruel and does take away a lot of energy, she explains.

“But I have got too much to do. I have three books on the go – I haven’t got time to be sick.”

Aunty Patsy finds also comfort in continuing her cultural practice to collect shells and create her beautiful jewellery and weaving baskets and water carriers.

“It makes my heart sing,” she says, smiling.

Aunty Patsy’s replica of the shell necklace as depicted in a French painting.

Some of Aunty Patsy Cameron’s jewellery and weaving work.