Marjorie Her War Years
Page 25
Chapter 4: Exiled
1. Sexual abuse has been documented, but few former Fairbridgians are willing to speak about it. Two former Fairbridge men have told me about attempts from their duty master to sexually molest them. One said he was able get away, and that was as much as he was willing to say. Another said that he was sent to see a duty master after dinner for punishment. The duty master told the eight-year-old boy he wouldn’t punish him. He lifted the boy on his knee and then put his hand up the leg of the boy’s short pants. Shocked, the boy grabbed the duty master’s nose, dug his nails in, and squeezed, and then he ran. See also Dunae, “Waifs: The Fairbridge Society in B.C., 1931–1951,” 224–50, especially sexual misconduct charges against staff member in 1944, 244. Some of this abuse has been made public in the March 2018 Report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse with regard to British Child Migration Programmes. Also see Patricia Skidmore, Witness Statement, “IICSA Inquiry — Child Migration Programmes Case Study Public Hearing Transcript,” iicsa.org.uk/cy/key-documents/1160/view/Public%20hearing%20 transcript%209th%20March%202017.pdf.
2. Humphreys, Empty Cradles, 282. “Like all child migrants, he had left Britain with no return ticket. It was a one-way journey.”
Chapter 5: I Ain’t Gonna Be a Farmer’s Wife
1. Marjorie Skidmore: “Children who wet their beds in my cottage were treated very badly at Fairbridge. We tried to help each other, but we had to do it behind the cottage mother’s back. She encouraged us to be cruel to each other. But all we had was each other.” See also, Parr, Labouring Children. British Immigrant Apprentices to Canada, 1869–1924,” 103–04, 107; Humphreys, Empty Cradles, 94; and Hill, The Forgotten Children: Fairbridge Farm School and Its Betrayal of Australia’s Child Migrants, 157–58.
2. “Fairbridge the Founder” was written by Neil Morrison (age twelve) while he was at the Molong Fairbridge Farm School, New South Wales, Australia. Rutherford, “Follow the Founder: An Account of the Fairbridge Society at Molong,” 43. See the appendix for the complete song.
3. “Anonymous Friend Gives Funds to Provide Chapel at Duncan,” Daily Province (Vancouver), March 22, 1939.
4. Fairbridge Alumni Association, Fairbridge newspaper clippings. Correspondence of Katie O’Neill, 1936, 1941, 1960, PABC Add. MSS, 2465, box 1, file 6. A letter dated October 27, 1936, offering O’Neill the appointment as a cottage mother with the starting wage of $32.50/month. The maximum cottage mother’s wage at that time was $52.50.
5. Marjorie told of many instances of cruelty at the hands of the various cottage mothers. Other accounts of the cruelty by the cottage mothers can be found in Humphreys, Empty Cradles, 128–29; Bean and Melville, Lost Children of the Empire, 17, 119; PABC Add. MSS 2121, box 1, file 5, Fairbridge Farm School, Roll of Farm School Staff, 1935, 1950. This file contains a book that lists the name, date of appointment, occupation, and date of leaving for the Fairbridge staff members. Approximately 155 cottage mothers are listed; this includes relief and temporary cottage mothers. Dunae, “Waifs: The Fairbridge Society in B.C., 1931–1951,” 243. By comparison, principal Harry Logan’s salary was $400.00/month. Logan Fonds, UBC Archives, letter dated July 3, 1936.
Chapter 6: A Partial Eclipse
1. “Victorians See Partial Eclipse,” Victoria Daily Times, April 19, 1939, 11. “Nanaimo Sees Partial Eclipse,” Nanaimo Free Press (B.C.), April 19, 1939, 1.
2. Eric Broderick, “Tillicum Traveller Visits Fairbridge Farm,” Daily Province (Vancouver), September 16, 1939, magazine section, 6.
3. “Fairbridge Glimpses,” 53.
Chapter 7: Little Farmers
1.Marjorie recalled that the children used to sing songs like this one as they worked in the gardens and fields. Author unknown.
2. Nurse King discusses this fluffy phenomenon in her journal, PABC Add. MSS 2121, box 1, file 6; I also experienced it while driving in the Cowichan Valley area one May.
3. “They hate her with a vehemence which is heart-breaking. They feel she is not fair; she shouts at them, orders them around and has no understanding. One girl of superior intelligence was so infuriated when interviewed that the Principal was warned by me that Mrs. ___ had better be careful.” Isobel Harvey Report. Also note, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse: Child Migration Programmes, Investigation Report in March 2018, stated that in December 1949, Ms. Carberry, Fairbridge U.K.’s psychiatric social worker, provided a damning report in which she stated that generally the school “does not fit into child welfare pattern of B.C.” She again suggested that “unsatisfactory staff are largely to blame for the present state of affairs.”
4. Fairbridge Gazette 1, no. 3 (May 1939): 3.
5. Bean and Melville, Lost Children of the Empire, 20. Australian lad said, “I felt like running away, but where would I go?”
6. Fairbridge Farm School Punishment Book 1944, PABC Add. MSS, file 2/2.
7. Kenny Arnison did eventually run away, but not while he was at the farm school. He was placed on a farm in Saanich outside of Victoria, British Columbia, when he turned sixteen in 1944. He hated it and ran away within two weeks of being placed there and joined the merchant navy. He lied about his age. He didn’t have a birth certificate.
8. Sager, It’s in the Book: Notes of a Naïve Young Man, 172–74.
9. “The Fairbridge March.” Words and music by John Rowland, Victoria, British Columbia. This song was copyrighted in the name of the Fairbridge Farm School. A copy of this song was accepted by His Majesty the King. See also Skidmore, Marjorie Too Afraid to Cry, 225–26.
10. Marjorie Skidmore, 2016 interview with author. See also Broderick, “Tillicum Traveller Visits Fairbridge Farm,” Daily Province (Vancouver), September 16, 1939, magazine section, 6.
11. Gating was a form of punishment. When gated, the children were not allowed to leave the immediate vicinity of their cottage except for meals at the dining hall and to go to school and church. An imaginary line was drawn, and most children did not dare cross it.
12. Lucky tatties are still available in some candy stores in the United Kingdom.
13. “There’ll Always Be an England” is an English patriotic song, written and distributed in the summer of 1939. It was composed and written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles.
14. Fairbridge Gazette, Autumn 1946, by Leon Mendoza, a Fairbridge boy.
Chapter 8: Off to Fintry
1. Nurse King’s scrapbook, 1940–1942, Fairbridge Farm School, PABC Add. MSS 2121, box 1, file 6.
2. Broderick, “Tillicum Traveller Visits Fairbridge Farm,” Daily Province (Vancouver), September 16, 1939, magazine section, 6.
3. “What Manner of Man Is This Laird of Fintry?” Country Life in B.C., Golden Jubilee ed., 1939. “Fintry Laird Tells of Hopes in Farm School,” Nanaimo Free Press (B.C.), March 22, 1939. “Presented to Fairbridge Schools. 2,500 Acre Property To Be Used to Train Youths for Life on Canadian Farms,” Vernon News (B.C.), July 7, 1938, 1, 6.
4. Marjorie, in an interview in 2010, said that she was terrified when she started menstruating, as she had no knowledge of how her body worked. See the Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse: Child Migration Programmes. Investigation Report in March 2018: In December 1949, Ms Carberry, Fairbridge U.K.’s psychiatric social worker, provided a damning report in which she stated that the high pregnancy rate was “The actual result of life at Fairbridge with its failure to satisfy emotional needs and the repressive attitude of bad Cottage Mothers, together with an inadequate knowledge of sex or in some cases of knowledge gained in the wrong way at Fairbridge or earlier still in life.”
5. Malcolm Jackson, letter to Winifred Arnison, June 11, 1940. See also “Impressed by Island School. Malcolm H. Jackson Arrives from England with Party for Fairbridge Farm,” Daily Colonist (Victoria), May 12, 1940, 2.
Chapter 10: Fintry or Fairbridge
1. See Fairbridge Gazette, Summer 200
0, 16.
2. Fairbridge Gazette, July 1939, 4.
3. Fairbridge Gazette, August 1940; “Children Come to Fairbridge,” Daily Colonist (Victoria), May 8, 1940, 8; “Tyneside Lad Seeking Roving Buffalo on Way to Fairbridge,” Daily Province (Vancouver), May 8, 1940, 9.
Chapter 11: For Now and Evermore
1. “Britons will never be slaves,” yet for 350 years the children of Britain were shipped away to the colonies to be slaves to their new masters. “Rule, Britannia!” originates from the poem “Rule, Britannia” by James Thomson.
2. For more information, see Barker, Children of the Benares. A War Crime and Its Victims, 29 and 157–58. See also “Three-Fold British Blow Again. Children’s Terrible Sea Adventure,” Vancouver Sun, September 23, 1940, 1; “Sinking of Mercy Ship Won’t Halt Refugee Exodus. 87 Children Drowned as Sub Blasts Vessel in Midatlantic — Down in 20 Minutes,” Daily Province (Vancouver), September 23, 1940, 1; “Nazis’ Sinking of Ship with 87 Children and 206 Grown-Ups Steels Britain,” Victoria Daily Times, September 23, 1940, 3; “293 Perish, 113 Rescued in Nazi Outrage at Sea. Passenger Ship Sunk Deliberately in Heavy Storm 600 Miles Off Coast; Many Die of Exposure,” The Vancouver Sun, September 28, 1940, 1.
Chapter 12: I Think I Can … Make It …
1. Fairbridge Gazette 1, no. 6 (December 1939): 3.
2. “Governor-General Opens New Fairbridge Hospital,” Cowichan Leader (B.C.), April 3, 1941, 1. “Earl of Athlone at Fairbridge Farm,” Daily Colonist (Victoria), April 3, 1941, 10.
3. Marjorie Skidmore, 2016 interview with the author: “One of us had to walk up the stairs with the tray and say, ‘Good morning, here’s your breakfast.’ Then we waited down in the kitchen for sounds that she was dying. When she rang her bell, we knew it didn’t work. She had no kindness to anyone. She was simply a bitch, and she made our lives a living hell. She was a bitch. I am sorry, but that is what she was.”
Chapter 13: Bullies! It’s Not Fair!
1. Kevin Rudd, “Apology to Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants,” The Australian, accessed July 7, 2017, theaustralian.com.au/archive/politics/apology-by-prime-minister-kevin-rudd-to-the-forgotten-australians-and-child-migrants/news-story/7197a8b7e8026 d2d8e04abb7dfbba025. See also Gordon Brown, “Apology to Britain’s Child Migrants,” parliament.uk. The full transcript of Brown’s apology can be found in Skidmore, Marjorie Too Afraid to Cry, 244.
2. Margaret Humphreys, witness statement, Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse with regard to British Child Migration Programmes, accessed April 4, 2017, iicsa.org.uk/cy/key-documents/1160/view/Public%20hearing%20transcript%209th%20March%202017.pdf; iicsa.org.uk. Nigel Haynes said that when he was director of the Fairbridge charity from 1993 until 2008 he had been too busy with the charity’s work to research the archives, where there was ample evidence of child sex abuse “U.K. Charity Dodged Child Sex Abuse Blame,” 9 News, accessed July 24, 2017, 9news.com.au/world/2017/07/20/00/07/uk-charity-dodged-child-sex-abuse-blame#tCdg5Z7LDjTJlxID.99.
3. Marjorie Skidmore recalled that the children used to sing songs like this one as they worked in the gardens and fields. Author unknown.
4. Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse: Child Migration Programmes. Investigation Report, March 2018.
5. The song was brought to the farm school by games master Tony Branson. The original came from Australia — There’s a flivver running back down the old Pinjarra track … — and was changed to suit the Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School.
6. Ron Smith, Fairbridge Gazette, Spring 2004, 10. “As one recalled, ‘You lined up face to the ground, bent over and just prayed it wasn’t the willow stick.’”
7. Kenny’s stories were passed to his sister Marjorie during their time at the farm school and as young adults when they both lived in Vancouver. She vowed to remember them, even though she could do little to help him. Marjorie carried a lifelong burden of shame because she could not protect her brother Kenny at the farm school. See also John Jones’s account in Humphreys, Empty Cradles, 160–61.
8. Peter Conlon, Fairbridge Gazette, Summer 2000, 12. Mike Nevard (Pownall), Fairbridge Gazette, Summer 2000, 6; Joe Jessop, in Bean and Melville, Lost Children of the Empire, 17.
9. From a 2013 interview with a Fairbridge boy who wishes to remain anonymous. He wears his bitterness and a sense of loss that is heartbreaking. The stories portrayed here are not necessarily in chronological order, but they are a compilation of stories and memories told to me by various Fairbridgians who were at the farm school between 1935 and the late 1940s, including my mother, Marjorie.
10. Sager, It’s In the Book: Notes of a Naïve Young Man, 167–77.
Chapter 14: Christmas Eve
1. Survival is a common theme. Humphreys, Empty Cradles, 160. Bean and Melville, Lost Children of the Empire, 17.
2. Grace MacCollum, reproduced with permission.
3. “B.C. School Broadcast. Fairbridge Farm School,” CBC Radio, May 22, 1942, B.C. Archives, T4216:0001 – 0002 of description AAAB6101.
4. There are four Fairbridge Farm School children buried in the Mountain View Cemetery just to the north of Duncan. John Reid Taylor, died October 27, 1937, age twelve; Dorothy Meta Philips, died July 22, 1942, age fifteen; Ethel Anderson, died May 1, 1944, age sixteen; Elizabeth Lenton, died March 24, 1945, age twenty.
5. Fairbridge Gazette 2, no. 3 (July 1941).
6. Marjorie Skidmore, 2016 interview with author: “I was so lonely then. I was placed with a nice family in the new year, and I got to go back to the farm for a few days. Imagine wanting to go back to the farm school! But I didn’t know anything else, did I?”
7. Jean (née Hanson) Conlon, letter to her mother, n.d. Her letters were returned to her when her mother passed away. Printed with permission from Jean Conlon, who sadly passed away in November 2014. This is not in chronological order, as Jean Hanson did not arrive until 1948. Letters home to parents may not have been as closely vetted by 1948.
8. “Red Sails in the Sunset,” 1935, lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy.
9. “White Cliffs of Dover,” words by Nat Burton. It took until 2001 for Marjorie to return to England for the first time, and during that trip, she did see the white cliffs of Dover.
Chapter 15: Why Would I Go Back?
1. Fairbridge said, “I saw great Colleges of Agriculture (not workhouses) springing up in every man-hungry corner of the Empire.” Fairbridge, Kingsley Fairbridge. His Life and Verse, 159.
2. “Are There Really Indians Here?” “Upon arriving in Vancouver, the newcomers were told, ‘You’ll have to watch out for the Indians on Vancouver Island.’ … There was an uneasy silence. ‘Are there really Indians here then?’ asked a wide-eyed lad. ‘Sure,’ returned the man, and turning toward a boy who … claimed Irish parentage, ‘you will have to be careful, the Indians over there love Irish stew.’” September 25, 1935. Daily Province, (Vancouver) “Fairbridge Children Decide B.C. Rain Just Usual Kind. Weather Doesn’t Worry Them But Kenneth Dobbs, 6, Not So Sure About Indians.” “Dobbs climbed off the train with his toy gun cocked. ‘Why the gun laddie?’ he was asked. The boy murmured something about the Indians and the bad men.” November 10, 1937. Daily Province (Vancouver).
3. Barbara Arnison, Marjorie (Arnison) Skidmore’s cousin, letter to Marjorie Skidmore.
Afterword (Afterward)
1. See Skidmore, Marjorie Too Afraid to Cry, cover, 172, 191.
2. Canada House, memo to the Department of Immigration and Colonization, September 6, 1935, Library and Archives Canada, Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School Files, 1936–1942.
3. Fairbridge Farm School, “Fairbridge Farm Schools Twenty-Sixth Year, 1935,” Annual Report, 3.
4. Skidmore, Marjorie Too Afraid to Cry, 47.
5. Letters between the Department of Immigration and Colonization, Canada House, Trafalgar Square, London; Mr. Frederick Charles Blair, as
sistant deputy minister, Department of Immigration and Colonization, Ottawa, Ontario; the Canadian Pacific Railway Company; and the Fairbridge Farm School, 1935, Library and Archives Canada, Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School Files, 1936–1942.
6. “Skipper Wins Fight Over Age Rule,” unidentified and undated newspaper article, Global Case Law, accessed July 7, 2017, canlii.org/en/ca/fca/doc/1980/1980canlii2563/1980canlii2563.html?autocompleteStr=arnison-v-pacific-pilotage-authority-1980&autocompletePos=1.
Bibliography
Archives
Birmingham Archives and Heritage, England
Sir John Middlemore Charitable Trust, Middlemore Fonds, MS 517/25.
British Columbia Archives
Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School Records, PABC Add. MSS 2121, box 1, file 5–6, file 2/2; Add. MSS 2465, box 1, file 6; PABC GR496, vol. 58, file 1.
Library and Archives Canada
Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School Files, 1936–1942, Immigration Branch Central Registry Files (RG 76, vol. 375, file 510340, pt. 2–4), microfilm reel C-10273.
Middlemore Homes Records (MG 28, I 492), Papers of the Middlemore Children’s Emigration Home, Birmingham Archives Service, Birmingham, England, 1914–1937, vol. 248 A-2079, Reference MS 517/248, Application Book No. 4.
University of British Columbia Library/Archives
Logan Family Fonds, Fairbridge Farm School series, 1910–1971.
University of Liverpool, Special Collections Branch, Archives
Fairbridge Society (now under The Prince’s Trust) Archives: D.296.E1, Children’s Records, Case Files; D.296.F1, 1912–1982, Publicity and Fundraising—Appeal Leaflets, 1914–c1975; D296.F4, Publicity and Fundraising Photographs, 1912–1982. D715 contains committee minute books, 1873–1933; Annual Reports, 1873–1907; and letters.