Empty Cradles (Oranges and Sunshine)

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Not least is finding out whether my son’s father was indeed a child migrant as I now have such a strong inkling that he was. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. The work Margaret Humphreys has done is amazing, the sacrifices she has made to try and make things a little bit better for these (now grown) child migrants are incredible. to face life in dire conditions, slave labor, subservient positions, all under the guise of Charity and furthering the United Kingdom in it's colonies!

Between the 1920s and the 1960s various British charities, most with religious affiliation, took about 130,000 children between the ages of three and 14 from children’s homes in the UK, put them on boats, in shipments of varying sizes, and sent them without any family members or guardians firstly to Canada, then in the 40s and 50s to Australia and in a minority of cases to Rhodesia and New Zealand. At great cost to herself, both financial and emotional, Margaret Humphries made it her mission to try and reunite some of these child migrants with their families. At times a book that made hurtful reading when learning what these children suffered by the people that were supposed to love and care for them. They were promised sunshine all day and riding on kangaroos to school while picking oranges of the trees. The author of this shocking non-fiction tale, Margaret Humphries, was originally a Nottingham social worker who, in 1986, began investigating the claim of a woman who stated she’d been transported to Australia on a boat, unaccompanied, at the age of four years old.

When she was a social worker she was asked to find family for a woman who at age 4 was placed on a boat to Australia by the British Government. The justification was to ‘populate or perish’ and ensure British colonies retained a population of ‘desirables’, fair-skinned Europeans. My heartfelt sympathy goes to each and every one of those of my peer group who suffered this outrage, wherever they are.

Of course, it did take me a bit longer than normal to get through it because there were quite a few times that I had to walk away from it and get a breather. Part of me wishes that I had such strength to bring to light the stories I have heard and would wish to correct, but part of me is also glad that I have not pushed to the extent she has when I consider I have not had a partner to help share such a burden with me, nor the clarity of a simple story told by many. I met her shortly before the British government formally apologised for the part it played in child migration. Margaret Humpreys stumbled on the cover up by accident, unable to believe that children were sent thousands of miles away without parental permission. At first incredulous, Margaret Humphreys soon discovered that this woman's story was just the tip of an enormous iceberg.Margaret and her team reunited thousands of families before it was too late, brought authorities to account, and worldwide attention to an outrageous miscarriage of justice.

Margaret Humphreys (born 1944) is a British Social Worker who exposed the scandal of Britain's child migration schemes.I was shocked and appalled to discover during the time of my own childhood, children were still being shipped off, out of England to other places in the world without their consent or the consent of parents and family! The secrets of the lost children of Britain may never have been revealed if it had not been for [the actions of] Margaret Humphreys. What she discovered was that actually 150,000 children has been deported through the children migration scheme.

Now a major film, the book that exposed the scandal of Britain's forgotten and abused child migrants. Up to 150000 children some as young as three years old had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire right up until as recently as 1970. Margaret Humphreys, a British Social worker literally fell into a hornets nest when she discovered the Child Migration Scheme. we never did follow him because my mother always warned us about priests, nuns, and policemen and to never ever go to a public washroom by ourselves, and to always hold hands no matter where we go. Others suffered deep wounds from the mental and physical abuse they faced from the hands of their caregivers.

A remarkable book about unspeakable pain inflicted on generations of British children by government policies and volunteer or charitable organisations entrusted with their care. Rather like watching Schindler's List or Hotel Rwanda, it's dark and brutal, touching and emotional, and I loved it for that, but it's a heavy, difficult story to get through.