I woke this morning to listen again to some of the horrors experienced by the British child migrants. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales has the first day of public hearings today and its initial focus will be the British children sent to Australia between 1945 and 1974.
I was studying for my MA in Professional Writing when I first learned about these children, some as young as four years old, who were taken from British care homes and put on ships to journey to the other side of the world. When they arrived they were placed in institutions where they were often used as slave labour. They experienced dreadful neglect, hardship and abuse of all kinds. It was only when a Nottinghamshire social worker, Margaret Humphries, started to investigate that the truth came to light. In 1987 she founded the Child Migrants Trust and she has since dedicated the rest of her life to helping children – now adults – to find out the truth about their past.
There have been several books already written about the child migrants, one of which was made into a heart-wrenching film, Oranges and Sunshine.
The more I read about the sad tales of the children who were taken from all they knew in the name of providing ‘good, sound British stock’ for our colonies, the more I felt impelled to try to raise awareness in the best way I know how.
I am currently putting the finishing touches to my novel Forgotten Children, which tells of a mother’s desperate attempts to find her son, and a young man’s search for his parents. The story is inspired by the factual accounts of some of the child migrants, who contributed to a book, entitled, Lost Children of the Empire, which is now out of print, but I managed to track it down in the British Library. It made for sad reading.
Forgotten Children will be published later this year.
