With a group of colleagues from the High Commission I attended the Canberra opening of a new film “Oranges and Sunshine”. It’s about the 7,000 child migrants who were sent to Australia between 1945 and 1967, and the heroic role of Nottingham social worker, Margaret Humphreys (tautly played by Emily Watson) in helping many of them reunite with their families.
It’s a deeply moving film and it brought a tear to the eye of many of us. Viewed from today’s perspective it’s hard to believe that governments, and a range of voluntary organisations, were prepared to ship young children in care off to the other side of the world, often misleading them about the existence of their families at home.
Veteran Australian actors Hugo Weaving and David Wenham poignantly captured the distress felt both by those who found themselves in institutions where they suffered terrible abuse, and by the wider group who felt a grieving sense of emptiness at not knowing where they came from or who their parents were. They were representing people from my generation. I remember as a child in England in the 1960s feeling somewhat envious when kids I knew, including my cousin and his parents, emigrated to Australia for the sunshine and good life. Australia has been a fantastic home for so many migrants from Britain over the years. But this film was an important reminder that for some, deprived of the family love that most of us take for granted, it was a very different experience. As a parent it made you want to hug your own children to you.
I know that my predecessor, Valerie Amos, met a number of former child migrants at events around Australia last year, when then Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a formal apology on behalf of the British government in London. It was very good that the British government put in place a fund to support former child migrants wishing to visit the UK to be reunited with their families.
A film, even one as good as this, can never do justice to the experience of those who suffered as child migrants. Nothing can take away the lost years. But the story of Margaret Humphreys reminds us that a determined, selfless individual can make a real difference to the lives of others.