"The Sun never sets on the British Empire"

During the 20th Century, Britain had two problems:
• What to do with its millions of children in poverty?
• How to grow and support its colonies?

The problem was solved with one solution – export its poor to these far-flung countries. And so, in the mid 20th Century, the Fairbridge Farm School scheme was established.

Thousands of children were shipped from Liverpool and Southhampton to far-flung places such as Canada, South Africa,and Australia. Many children were removed from single-parent families, some coercedly, and sent to farm schools where it was promised they would receive a quality education that would help them develop skills to become farmers in the fertile colonial soils. But, alas, they were used as cheap labour, left school at the minimum age, and simply worked as farm hands, without assets to establish themselves.

By the '60's, the scheme has changed to encourage poor families to migrate. And so,the Wilson family, with images of pleasant weather, expansive beaches, and ripened fruit available to be picked from trees, this family with six children left behind the few belongings they owned to search for better prospects in the Antipodes.

Known locally as £10 migrants, we travelled by ship to arrive in Melbourne late one night. The younger children boarded a bus to travel to the Lady Northcote Children's farm outside Bacchus Marsh, while Mum and Dad and the older two moved into Brooklyn Hostel.

We stayed at Northcote for two years and, although it was tough, we prospered in this new land.

And now, 40 years later, I am reversing this daring (or desperate) move of my parents by coming back to Britain. So many childhood memories are returning; symbols of my roots and where my early years were spent.

This is a year of discovery and rediscovery for me.