WILLIAMSTOWN actor Diana Greentree recalls her worst memory from visiting the Maribyrnong detention centre as though she is reliving it.
It’s a harrowing story, and one of many, that she has fictionalised for her book titled The Camros Bird.
“One day when I was in there I met an Iranian man who was just grey and he told me that his 11-year-old daughter had just attempted suicide,” Ms Greentree said.
“She’d been in Woomera [former detention centre in South Australia] before that where she’d seen a lot of self-mutilation by people so she was damaged and she couldn’t cope with it and being restrained like that.”
The girl survived after six months in a Melbourne hospital and, soon after, her family, whose members were part of a Christian sect persecuted in Iran, were released into the community.
Known for roles in TV series Neighbours and Prisoner, Ms Greentree started visiting detainees through her involvement with Actors for Refugees. It was a visit to Woomera that changed her life.
“When some friends said to me, would you like to go with us to Woomera, there’s going to be a protest . . . I went along to that and that really was the moment that changed me and just made me feel like we are just ruining people’s lives.
“To see little children out there in the desert behind bars was terribly disturbing.
“There was a breakout when I was there … 50 people broke out, at least 50. A lot of them were captured. Some of them escaped and tried to find their way through that dreadfully barren desert to Port Augusta where some Australian people rescued them and hid them for a long time.”
The Camros Bird will be launched at Williamstown library on Monday at 6pm. On August 1 at 6pm, the book will be launched at The Sun Bookshop in Yarraville. The book will also be available at Book and Paper in Williamstown.
