After all in just sixty or so years over 100,000 young people crossed the Atlantic because here in Britain we could not guarantee them a decent future.
And of these 100,000 along with all those who were sent to other parts of the former British Empire there is a story, some happy and sad, others good and bad.
But all deserve to come out of the shadows.
For many it is too late, their families never knew how a father or grandmother had ended up thousands of miles from their birth place and some of the children themselves had only a vague memory of a time before an institution and that sea journey to the other side of the world.
The more I study the policy and the more I crawl over the minutes of the Poor Law Guardians, read the pronouncements of those who took it upon themselves to organise the migrations the more it is clear that like all history this is a messy tale, made up of good intentions, dark motives and a lot of suffering mixed with some success stories.
Added to which there is more than a little official amnesia on the part of Government agencies and the charities that sent them which in the case of those sent to Australia was maintained until relatively recently.
And so I welcome Bleating of the Lambs* which seeks to bring together the experiences of some of the young people who were migrated to Canada.
They are a mix of the vivid and powerful stories from those who made the journeys along with the accounts by relatives who in some cases spent years piecing together a record of their loved one’s life from official documents and anecdotal evidence.
Ms Oschefski closes her preface with her hope "that one day, this aspect of Canadian history will be taught in schools and that the story of our British Home Children will be one that all Canadians know.”
And I might add equally for those of us over here and across that other ocean in Australia.
* Bleating of the Lambs, Lori Oschefski, 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment