Oranges and Sunshine: Empty Cradles (43 page)

Albert was sent to Australia in 1949 under the child migration scheme. He is now under the jurisdiction of the Australian authorities and no concern of ours.

I would warn you against making any attempt to retrieve him. He has settled into a new life and is very happy. Any attempt to remove him would be detrimental to his well-being.

The last document I uncovered was full of frustration and anger. It asks the same questions that I have asked for seven years. Questions that can never fully be answered because there is no defence for what was done to these children.

12 March, 1950

Re Albert Stanhope

Thank you for your letter. It was a foul and appalling attack on my wife. You simply overlook the fact that a child still belongs with his mother, not you or anyone else, and that he has been taken out of this country illegally
.

I was shocked to read such a letter from a member of a religious order that prides itself in caring for others and preaches forgiveness. How dare you accuse my wife of deserting her child. How dare you send him overseas illegally
.

This surely is illegal and I am already seeking instruction on such matters
.

In the meantime, I advise you and your Church to employ whatever powers you possess and return Albert to this country
.

Yours faithfully
,

H. Archer
.

Albert Stanhope didn’t come home – not for another forty-three years. As his mother fought for him, he was seven years old and destined to grow up in the misery of an institution.

At some point his parents gave up, bowing to the pressures imposed on them. Patricia, however, never stopped grieving for her son. She, at least, knew he was alive, others were told their children had died.

Until last year, Albert had never even seen a photograph of himself as a child. He believed he was an orphan. Not only does he have a mother, but he now knows that she never wanted to leave him. He could have grown up in a loving, stable family in London, but instead suffered the degradation of institutionalized care.

If you wonder how it feels, here is the very first letter Albert wrote to his mother.

Dear Mum
,

I pray that I find the right words
–
there is so much I want to say to you. When I arrive in England next week, it will be a moment that I’ve dreamed about since I was a small boy
.

We know so little about each other but in a sense we were never apart. I have a beautiful family in Australia and as I watched them grow up, I wondered about my own family in England
.

Having waited so long, I can barely contain myself and hopefully, with the help of Margaret, I won’t be a bundle of nerves when I see you
.

Before I go I want to mention something which is very important. They’re just a few words, but I want you to remember them, Mum. The words are ‘No Regrets’. You must always, but always remember that
.

All my love
,

Albert

Seven years ago, as I stood on the doorstep of a strange house in a strange town facing an elderly woman I’d never met before, I had no understanding that I was about to lift the lid on one of the most appalling and shameful pieces of recent British and Australian social history.

I was a Nottingham social worker who had done nothing more remarkable, I thought, than help reunite a mother and daughter after a separation of forty-five years and 12,000 miles. Naïvely, I believed this was a one-off occurrence, or perhaps one of a mere handful.

Now, seven years wiser and sadder, I was standing on another doorstep altogether different. Government House in Canberra, the home of the Australian Governor-General Bill Hayden.

Several taxis pulled up behind me. Harold Haig stepped from one of them, his grey beard combed and his hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. Pamela Smedley was there, along with her mother Betty, who had flown from England especially for the investiture. There were other familiar faces, like Desmond McDaid and John Hennessey. There were former child migrants from all the schemes and the States concerned.

If possible I would have invited all 10,000 children who were sent to Australia. I wanted all of them to share in the day. They had arrived in Australia as enforced emigrants and many had worked hard, raised families and paid taxes in a country that had never completely welcomed them. Despite having spent fifty, sixty or even seventy years in Australia, some still do not have citizenship.

They deserved to be honoured guests at Government House in Canberra – still a potent symbol of the ties that bind Australia and Britain. The Governor-General is the Queen’s representative in Australia. He opens Parliament on her behalf and confirms legislation that has been passed by the Upper and Lower Houses.

It seemed rather ironic. I had often wondered if the Queen realized that her family had, in the past, lent their patronage to charities which were sending British children abroad.

An attendant ushered us up the marble steps to a large sitting-room flanked by french windows overlooking the rain-soaked gardens. There was a piano in one corner, decorated with photographs of the Queen in silver frames, and a Christmas tree by the windows.

The timetable of events was very formal. At 10.00 a.m., the Governor-General would appear and make the presentation. Half an hour later, he would depart and that would be our signal to leave.

When His Excellency Bill Hayden arrived, I was formally presented to him and then he invested me with the Order of Australia medal for services to the child migrants and the community at large.

The medal is a simple convex golden disc with a texture of beads and radiating lines. It was minted from Australian gold and topped by a crown which signified the position of the Queen as the head of the Order. It is very attractive.

Afterwards, as orange juice and wine were served by waiters carrying silver trays, His Excellency and his wife mingled with the child migrants and friends of the Trust. The Governor-General was genuinely interested in each of their stories and quite obviously had read about the issue.

But as the good-natured conversation flowed, I found myself preoccupied with the ironies of the scene.

I had accepted one of the highest honours that the Australian government can bestow on a non-Australian, but at that point in time my own Government in Britain still refused to acknowledge that it bore any responsibility for sending its children around the world and condemning many to lives of servitude, brutality and loneliness.

The Australian government had been more generous in providing financial support to the Trust, but it, too, had so far failed to admit publicly responsibility for the role it played in the schemes.

I didn’t set out to uncover any shameful secrets. My naïvety was such that it didn’t even enter my thoughts when I began looking for Madeleine’s mother. And since then I’ve tried to remain balanced and not apportion blame or publicly condemn any of the architects of child migration.

In a sense child migration has never been a secret. Information has always existed in obscure history books and government archives, or untouched in the records of charities and religious orders.

I simply brushed away the top layer of dust that has covered it since 1967 when the last handful of the child migrants left Britain.

As the power and influence of the Commonwealth waned, the children sent from Britain’s shores were forgotten; they faded from the county’s consciousness.

I have had MPs say to me, ‘Did this really happen? How could this be? Surely we would have heard about it.’

Perhaps that was the idea. Britain sought to rid itself if its so-called deprived children. It didn’t expect to hear from them again. Out of sight meant out of mind.

Even now I still ask myself, Why? After years of hearing the stories of child migrants, of having them sob on my shoulder, yell in anger and shake with frustration, I am no closer to understanding the logic of child migration. I know the official line and know the historical context – they chill me to the bone. Paternalism, racism, religious fanaticism and bureaucracy all formed an unholy alliance and this was the result.

Now adults, lost to their families and disbarred from their identities, many of the child migrants will never recover. It has led to enormous emotional problems. Being a child migrant was punishment enough, but some were to face even greater degradation. Some people have argued that allegations of physical and sexual abuse should be separated from the debate over child migration because not all of the children were affected.

I don’t agree.

To take children from their families and their countries was an abuse; to strip them of their identity was an abuse; to forget them and then deny their loss was an abuse. Within this context and within our culture, few tragedies can compare.

After the investiture, our party adjourned to the Statesman Hotel in Canberra for a celebratory lunch. There were many familiar faces around the table and I was struck by how they had come together as a family as if they had known each other all their lives. It was entirely different from when I first met them. There was enormous self-pride and self-respect.

Although speeches embarrass me, I was moved by their words.

Desmond made the toast: ‘Margaret, there is a timely significance that your investiture should occur on the eve of the International Year of the Family. Perhaps our collective experience, our struggles for survival and emotional growth will, in a very powerful way, remind the wider community to rediscover and revalue their families.’

An emotional John Hennessy summed up his feelings. ‘I was always told that I was born in Belfast in 1940 and my first name was John. I had never seen my birth certificate so I went through life believing these things. That was until Margaret sent me a registered letter and inside was my certificate.

‘I found out that I wasn’t born in Belfast, but in Cheltenham. My first name isn’t John, but Michael. And – I will never forgive Margaret for this – I was actually three years older than I thought.’

Pamela Smedley turning to Betty, said, ‘I have a beautiful mother, who they told me didn’t exist. And what we have to remember is that not only have we suffered, not only were we lied to, but our mothers and fathers were also deceived. They were told lies and we were told lies.

‘If it wasn’t for Margaret Humphreys my mother would not be sitting beside me today. I’m a different person now. I am whole.’

Geoffrey Gray, from Western Australia, had also been struck by the irony of the morning’s events. ‘Countless times people have asked, “Why didn’t you speak out before?” I’ll tell you why. We had nobody to turn to. Nobody wanted us. The only person we could turn to was Margaret Humphreys.

‘The Australian government has recognized that these dreadful schemes did take place. But there are still many who think this could not have happened; who think that we could not have done this to children.

‘Sadly, it did happen. Her Majesty’s Government still does not respect or accept the wrongs that were inflicted on us and our families.’

Margaret Martin, who arrived in Australia aged eleven, described the beautiful feeling of knowing that she was someone. ‘Up until the age of fifty I didn’t feel this. I wanted to know my roots but I didn’t have the courage and I didn’t have the support.

‘When I was little and very miserable, I used to imagine that my mother was the Queen and wore a tiara on her head. I had nothing else to cling on to except this dream.

‘Finally, when I met my Mum for the first time, she was four foot ten inches tall. She was still a queen to me.’

It is wrong that child migrants should feel indebted for what are basic human rights. They deserve so much more.

I have done what I can, with the help of many courageous and committed colleagues, friends and supporters.

Where there was only pain, now there is hope and optimism. But sadly, this is not the last chapter. I wish it were. Time is running out for the former child migrants to be reunited with their families. It is time for those who put so much effort into sending innocent children abroad to sit down and put the same effort into repairing the damage they have done and for the country which abandoned them to welcome them home.

If you wish to contact the Trust, find out more about its work, or send a donation, please visit our website,
www.childmigrantstrust.com