STOLEN GENERATION SEEK STOLEN WAGES

Cecil Bowden, 68, from Redfern, who took part in Monday's Sorry Day March in the city, was taken from his family in Cowra at just 18 months of age, along with two other siblings.

Compensation and the recovery of stolen wages is integral to moving on, he said.

"The apology's nothing if Rudd and the state governments don't do anything else - for a start I've got stolen wages that I earned while I was in a home," Mr Bowden said.

"My father was overseas fighting during the Second World War when my mother died.

"The three youngest [children], myself included, the State Government just stormed in and they just lifted us."

Mr Bowden said he was taken to a boys' home run by the NSW Government on the South Coast where abuse was rampant.

He and his other siblings were told both their parents were dead.

"My father tried to collect us after he returned from the war fighting for this country but the home staff told him no, so he went back to Cowra," Mr Bowden said.

When he was 10 years old Mr Bowden was transferred to the infamous Kinchela Boys Home in Kempsey, which he described as a "hell hole".

"We were made to work and we were flogged and we weren't just beaten with a cane - we were flogged. I was there till I was 18."

Mr Bowden moved to Sydney after he left Kinchela but found transition to a normal life difficult.

"I came to Sydney to start an apprenticeship in plumbing but I just could not concentrate, I'd keep running into people who were brothers and sisters of mine i never knew existed," he said.

"I was told in the home I was one of three children but in truth I was one of 11.

"They lied about everything.

"I still want to take them [NSW Government] to court - how would they like their kids to be taken from them and beaten and abused?"