Remembering the Forgotten Children

Yesterday the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, delivered a public apology to British children.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7307854/Prime-Minister-apologises-to-child-migrants-for-scheme-that-robbed-them-of-childhood.html

In his House of Commons speech, Gordon Brown acknowledged a similar apology given by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Canberra last year to these 'Forgotten Children'.

During the 20th Century, about 130,000 children of British working class were taken from their families and sent to the colonies of Australia, South Africa and Canada. Their parents (often single parents) signed over the rights to access their children, and steps were taken to prevent them contacting the children. Some children were told their parents were dead and heartfelt letters were never delivered. These children were kept in rural community institutions and worked on the farms intended to teach them skills to work in agriculture.

In reality, most left school at the minimum age of 14, and, without capital, very few ever became farmers. When my own family arrived in Australia, on 14 May, 1966, we were met at Melbourne's Station Pier by representatives of the Lady Northcote Children's Farm. We boarded a bus and were transported to the Parwan Valley, 11 miles south-west of Bacchus Marsh. About 140 UK migrant children and Australian 'Wards of the State' lived at Northcote, many for their entire childhood.

The next morning I awoke to the warble sound of magpies on the gum trees outside the dormitory in Gungelo house, which was to be my home for the next 2 years. Some nights I would go to sleep listening on a crystal radio, with wire attached to the metal fittings on the window above my bed.

A few years back, I was invited to attend a reunion of Old Northcotians. These people have had it tough in life, and in many ways they were reuniting as a large family - a poor substitute for the family they never had. For me, however, I felt like an imposter, with no right to be there. Northcote was an important chapter in my life, but not the painful one that many others suffered. I was but a temporary visitor to this institution, which was to be my introduction to life in Australia.

This public apology may go some way to healing the long pain felt by many, whose lives were traumatised by this injustice.