During the formal February 2010 “Apology to All British Child Migrants,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown made provisions for a Family Restoration Fund, which was to be administered by the Child Migrants Trust (CMT) to allow former child migrants sent to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to return to England to be reunited with their families. The CMT has helped many former migrants access their files from their sending agencies in order to locate their families, as so many had lost touch. Marjorie and her brother Richard accessed the fund, and a representative of the CMT met with Richard beforehand to answer his questions and to prepare him to meet his sister for the first time. Richard flew in from Cyprus, and Marjorie flew from Vancouver, and they met at Richard’s daughter Jackie’s home in Ashford, east of London. Richard made a trip to Canada the following summer. Sadly, he passed away in 2013, but getting to know him, even for a brief time, enriched all our lives.
A number of things came together to enable the Arnison family on either side of the Atlantic to feel a sense of family again. Even though the visit from Marjorie’s mother was strained, it started a web that continued to be woven next by Marjorie’s father in his attempt to find a way to right the wrongs of the past, and then by Marjorie’s siblings, who needed to know how it came about that two sisters and a brother were sent to Canada as children. Their visits continued, and letters, exchanges of photographs, and sharing of family events on both sides served to strengthen the bond.
Marjorie maintained that she had no desire to go back to England, saying they did not want her, so why should she want them? (With this comment she meant both family and country.) But her siblings’ persistence won her over, and her four adventures (2001, 2007, 2010, and 2011) to see her family and her country of birth were tremendously healing.
Attending the February 2010 apology was an important milestone, as she finally heard what she had been waiting to hear for so long — a formal recognition that it had been wrong to take her from her family and deport her, sending her thousands of miles away. With Britain’s formal public apology, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s hand in hers, and hearing him say directly to her, “I am truly sorry,” Marjorie could finally shed the shame so firmly placed on her by her caregivers at the farm school when they called her a British guttersnipe and a worthless orphan and told her she was undeserving of their kindness and caring. Marjorie carried this dishonour with her for over seventy-three years. Finally, she could hold her head high with the knowledge that she was strong, she was a survivor, she was special, and she was right.
I had such a difficult time loving her throughout my younger years. She would not let me in, not let me be close, and would not share her stories, so I pushed her away, like I thought she was pushing me away. And that is precisely what she thought her mother, family, and country had done to her. We broke this cycle by finally talking and then writing about her life. It was better late than never.
The Final Word
Marjorie passed away on January 18, 2017. She had celebrated her ninetieth birthday the previous September. Her birthday was a grand affair, with many little celebrations over several days leading up to the actual day. She fared well and loved all the attention from her family and friends. However, in the few months leading up to her death, her family felt helpless as we watched her health decline at a rapid pace. She lived in her own home until she was eighty-eight, and then she moved into a basement suite in her daughter Joan’s home and lived there relatively independently. During the last few months it was obvious that she needed more care than any one person could give her. A couple of options were discussed — getting in-home care to give Joan a break and putting her in a seniors’ assisted-living residence.
Marjorie became agitated whenever a seniors’ home was discussed, so the subject was usually dropped, but it was brought up again during those moments when respiratory distress took her breath away, indicating that professional care would be a better option.
At times Marjorie would reply, “I looked after you, now it is your turn to look after me.” She was unable to see the strain that her failing health was putting on her daughter. At one point, when the subject of a home was brought up again, Marjorie cried out, the desperation clear in her voice, “If you put me in a home, I will jump off a bridge.”
Her beloved Cliff had jumped off a bridge, and the devastation of his loss reverberates to this day. I believe that my mother wanted to ensure that her children knew what going into a home would do to her. “Don’t,” she pleaded, the fear in her eyes as clear as her mind. “It will be like going back to Fairbridge. I cannot end my days in Canada like I started them.”
Marjorie did not go into assisted living. Once we fully understood that her fear stemmed from finding herself back in an institution, we vowed to keep her at home. We did not want to bring back the stressful memories of her incarceration in the farm school, which had turned her life into an unacceptable mess.
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the following for their support, kind words, and contributions to this book.
My mother, Marjorie (née Arnison) Skidmore, whose steadfastness and quiet strength should have been bottled and passed around. She had enough for an entire community.
To my uncle Kenny, whose stories were carried by his sister for nearly a lifetime before she shared them, and to my aunt Bunny (a.k.a. Audrey) and her husband, Eric Lewis, for sharing their stories.
To my sister, Joan, and my brothers Frederic and Rick, whom I corner to share my growing knowledge of child migration, especially as it pertains to our family, whether they want to hear it or not. And to my brother Lloyd, who was lost in Okanagan Lake in 2007 and never found. When I see the photograph of my thirteen-year-old mother fishing off the Fintry packinghouse pier in Okanagan Lake in 1940, I feel they are connected somehow, which indeed they are now as some of Marjorie’s ashes were scattered on the lake on August 2, 2017, the ten-year anniversary of the loss of my brother.
To Gordon Brown, former prime minister of Britain, for taking the time out of his busy schedule to provide a foreword for my book. It is so very greatly appreciated. Witnessing his 2010 “Apology to All British Child Migrants” allowed not for closure but for a new beginning and, with his backing, a platform to speak from; our voices are no longer silenced.
To Margaret Humphreys, Ian Thwaite, and the Child Migrants Trust; their work has changed my family’s world in so many ways.
To Rex Weyler for his ongoing support and important words for the back of this book.
To Sally Campbell for her support and encouragement.
To Judith Rassenti for her support and wise words.
To the members of the former Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School. They are too numerous for me to acknowledge them all, but I would like to thank the many who shared their experiences and their friendship and contributed to my knowledge and understanding of this unique place and period in Canadian and British history.
To Sheila, Barbara, and Susan for the use of their dining-room table to work on my manuscript.
To the libraries and archives that are such a rich source of information. Most especially to the University of Liverpool Library and Special Collections, where the Fairbridge Archive is located. The support from the staff there has enabled me to unravel many important points of my mother’s story. I thank them for their assistance and patience.
To the best professor ever, Christine St. Peter; among many other things, she introduced me to the magic of the archives and, in doing so, unlocked doors that I never dreamed even existed.
To Gil Woods, a contact person for the former Fairbridge Society, and John Anderson, head of legal, The Prince’s Trust; both have helped to keep the doors open to family members looking for information stored in the Fairbridge Archive at the University of Liverpool. Seeking information that is stored six thousand miles away is an arduous task, and having their support ha
s helped in so many ways.
And to Morag Horseman, a Whitley Bay, England, resident who granted the request of a total stranger. With the addresses I located from the Whitley Bay School records and from my mother and her siblings’ birth certificates, she went out and photographed the various houses that my family lived in, bringing Whitley Bay alive and allowing me to see that the past was waiting to be discovered. It also spurred me on to take my mother back to her place of birth in 2007.
And last but not least, to my son Joshua Havelaar and his wife, Jenny; my grandsons, Jaden and Rylan; my son Fletcher Havelaar and his wife, Aleksa; and my son Jack Weyler. It is through you, my sons, that I was able to see my family moving forward, and it helped me to realize the importance of finding my past so that I could give you the gift of our family history to carry with you into the future.
Appendix:
“Fairbridge the Founder”
Fairbridge the Founder
We are Fairbridge folk, all as good as e’er
English, Welsh, and Scottish, we have come from everywhere;
Boys to be farmers and girls for farmers’ wives,
We follow Fairbridge the Founder.
Chorus
Hurrah, hurrah, we’re Fairbridge through and through;
Hurrah, hurrah, we try to show we’re true.
Do as Kingsley Fairbridge did, before him evil flew —
“Follow Fairbridge, the Founder.”
We have a resolution, and we’ll never let it down,
With honour we’ll be faithful to our God, our Queen, and Crown,
We keep away from evil, thus we try to stamp it down.
And “Follow Fairbridge, the Founder.”
Chorus
We try to learn the bushcraft, so keep open eye and ear;
We try to show our courage and so restrain our fear.
We have a splendid motto, to which we all adhere;
“Follow Fairbridge, the Founder.”
Chorus
— Written by Neil Morrison (age twelve). Sung to the tune of “Marching Through Georgia.”
Notes
Author’s Note
1. In 1956, a fact-finding mission was sent to Australia to evaluate the institutions housing the child migrants. The resulting Ross Report placed both Fairbridge schools on a blacklist. The Fairbridge Society’s president, the Duke of Gloucester, was the Queen’s uncle and the former governor general of Australia. The blacklist was quickly lifted and the British government allowed children to be sent to the Fairbridge farms in NSW and WA. See abc.net.au/news/2017-02-27/british-government-knew-fairbridge-farms-were-unfit-for-children/8306144.
Introduction
1. Harry Morris Cassidy to George Weir, February 14, 1935. PABC, GR 496, vol. 58, file 1. See Dunae, “Waifs: The Fairbridge Society in B.C., 1931–1951,” 240.
2. The Guardian, U.K., July 12, 2015.
3. “Transportation and Sale of the Children of the Poor. Defence of the Children’s Friend Society,” The Operative (London), May 5, 1839, 1.
4. Andrew Doyle Report.
5. For an in-depth look at British child migration to Canada, see Kohli, The Golden Bridge: Young Immigrants to Canada, 1833–1938.
6. “Our Gutter Children,” published in 1869. Cruikshank opposed child migration: “If such a transportation of innocent children … should take place, it will not only be a degradation and a disgrace to this nation, but also a disgrace to the Christian world, for I consider such a proceeding would be contrary to the laws of nature, and also Christian civilization.” © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
7. Minister of immigration and colonization, Ottawa, Canada, letter regarding Premier Pattullo’s support for a farm school in British Columbia, to L.R. Lumley, Esq., MP, chairman, Executive Committee, The Child Emigration Society, Inc. (later renamed the Fairbridge Society), March 12, 1934, Savoy House, Strand, London, University of Liverpool Archives, Special Collections Branch, Fairbridge Fonds, D296/K/1/1/1, 89.
8. Harry T. Logan Fonds, UBC Library Archives, Vancouver, British Columbia, box 10, file 10-3. A-Z 1940–48. 1946/47 memo, 5. See also “Train Them Young Is Fairbridge Plan. Age Surprises Even Matrons. School Is Thousand-Acre Farm; Children Paddle in Koksilah River,” Victoria Daily Times (B.C.), October 5, 1935.
9. “House of Commons Apology, Feb. 16/2017,” British Home Child Group International, accessed March 19, 2017, britishhomechild.com/apology-petition.
10.Fairbridge U.K. said in February 1943 that Mr. Rogers’ reappointment was unwise, but that it could not be involved because Duties Master appointments were a matter for the Principal and local Committee. This is another example of the inherent difficulties in an organisation in one country obtaining reassurance that the children in another country were being properly cared for, when the sending institution did not have authority to change the practice of the receiving institution. (Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse: Child Migration Programmes. Investigation Report March 2018, 80.)
11. “Farm Schools for the Empire,” The Times (London), June 21, 1934.
Chapter 1: Winifred’s Children
1.See Skidmore, Marjorie Too Afraid to Cry, 47, for a copy of this letter.
2. Brown, “Apology to Britain’s Child Migrants.” See Skidmore, Marjorie Too Afraid to Cry, 243–54.
3. The Évian Conference was convened by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in July 1938 to respond to the increasing numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. It was believed that Roosevelt desired to deflect attention and criticism from his country’s national policy that limited the quota of Jewish refugees admitted to the United States. Wells, Tropical Zion: General Trujillo, FDR, and the Jews of Sosua, 6–8. “Évian Conference,” Wikipedia, accessed July 7, 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89vian_Conference.
4. W. R. Little, director of Department of Immigration and Colonization, Canada House, Trafalgar Square, London, letter to Mr. Frederick Charles Blair, assistant deputy minister, Department of Immigration and Colonization, Ottawa, Ontario, Library and Archives Canada, Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School Files, 1936–1942.
5. In spring 2018, research found that two former Fairbridge men had siblings living. One had been told as a child that he was an orphan, and the other vaguely knew of a long lost sister, but not his other three siblings. These men lived a lifetime separated from their families because of a bureaucratic decision that claimed their family was not important to them. It is likely that many former child migrants had siblings they were separated from and lived their lives without any knowledge of them. When told at a very early age that you have no family and that you are alone, there is little reason to disbelieve.
6. The names of the school staff, with the exception of the school principal, Harry Logan, have been changed in order to avoid potential conflicts with any still living.
7. Stated by Marjorie’s cottage mother, in a school report dated March 1940. See image (bottom) on page 44.
Chapter 2: A Difficult Year
1. Images of Marjorie carrying the little box of cake can be seen in Skidmore, Marjorie Too Afraid to Cry, front cover, top image; on page 160 (morning in Vancouver); and on page 172 (afternoon at the Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School).
2. The official name was the Kenilworth Dining Hall, but in this book, it will simply be called the dining hall.
3. Many former Fairbridgians have stated that the quality of life there depended heavily on the cottage mother that you were assigned. Joe Jessop: “If you were not liked by your cottage mother your life was hell,” in Bean and Melville, Lost Children of the Empire, 17.
4. Herb Moore (son of a home child sent to Canada in 1888 at the age of eight), interview with the author, 2007. His father was called a “spawn of the Devil” by the local community and was not counted in the census because, as a home child, he was
not considered to be a “person.”
5. Harry T. Logan, letter regarding the request for a Fairbridge girl to be returned to her mother in England, September 28, 1944. Ellen Preece, (girl’s mother), letter requesting her daughter be sent back, undated. Fairbridge Society, letter denying request, November 8, 1944. University of Liverpool Archives, Special Collections Branch, Fairbridge Fonds, Mollie Preece files.
6. The old Stone Butter Church was the mission church for the Cowichan First Nations. It was built in 1870 but abandoned in 1880 in favour of nearby Saint Ann’s Church. It has remained a haunted structure on the hill, abandoned and deconsecrated. For a more detailed history, see “Old Stone Butter Church — Duncan, B.C. — This Old Church on Waymarking.com,” Waymarking, accessed July 7, 2017, waymarking.com/waymarks/WM699H_Old_Stone_Butter_Church__Duncan_BC.
Chapter 3: Bunny’s Birthday
1. Marjorie and Bunny’s school reports show they were housed in Attwood Cottage on March 31, 1939. They were placed in Pennant Cottage in 1940.
2. Marjorie Skidmore: “My letters from my mother were already opened, and large sections were often blacked out or cut out completely. They were impossible to read.” It was common practice among the sending agencies to black out sections of the children’s letters, and they often kept letters and did not pass them on to the children. See Bean and Melville, Lost Children of the Empire, 47.
Marjorie Her War Years Page 24
