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The natural way of things book7/3/2023 breaking concrete, digging paths and gardens, scrubbing concrete floors and walls, sewing leather, and ‘practices’ which were carried out with regularity at predetermined intervals during the day. The daily routine dehumanised the girls through the use of hard labour (e.g. Disciplinary practices and routines were modelled on a similar institution for boys operating since 1945 in Tamworth, NSW. It was a place of inhumane and extreme discipline for girls between the ages of 14 and 18 and was established by the NSW Department of Child and Social Welfare as an annex to the Parramatta Girls Home. Hay Institution for Girls was a prison that had been closed down for years but was re-opened in 1961 as a place of punishment for girls who would not comply with the strict regime of the Parramatta girls home. Wikipedia gives this horrifying description of it: I was struck when I heard about it by the seed of a story it was based on: the Hay Institution for Girls, established in 1961, not closed until 1974. Charlotte Wood’s fifth novel, The Natural Way of Things, won the Stella Prize and Indie Book of the Year and Indie Novel of the Year in 2016.
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