I watched as she fiddled with the remote control device for her hearing aid. She winced. “There — are you satisfied? It’s on loud and clear.”
What had it been like for my mother as a child? She was sent away permanently from her family, from her country, at such a young age and expected to be grateful for such an injustice. The numerous sending agencies responsible for migrating children gave little thought to the fact that they were taking those children away from their families, not just their mothers and fathers, but all of their relatives. Dr. Alfred Torrie, a British psychiatrist, argued that “a bad home is better than a good institution.”[2] He thought that the evacuation of many thousands of children during the war years had shown some of the dangers of breaking up a family. The children he studied likely came from the wealthier families whose children were returned to them after the war. Nevertheless, it reinforces my belief of the importance of family for all classes. “Family” is not just a phenomenon set aside for the wealthy to enjoy.
I clung to my manuscript. I felt hesitant, shy even, to show my mother what I had written. I had carefully gathered the bits and pieces from her childhood in Whitley Bay and then little snippets from her six months at the Middlemore Emigration Home in Birmingham. I had reconstructed her journey from this home south to London, then up to Liverpool and over to Canada in September 1937. I gathered as much information as I could from her, from her brothers and sisters, from other former Fairbridgians, from school and government records, and from newspaper articles, in order to reconstruct what her journey to the Fairbridge farm school might have been like.
It was difficult to pull any memories out of her at first. It was as if her childhood was a black hole. When I was growing up, my frustrations stemmed from this blank area of our lives and that helped keep barrier between us. It took me ages to understand that my mother wasn’t simply keeping things from me, but that she had effectively blocked out so much of her childhood that she couldn’t find her way back there. It was as if our little family was starting from scratch. We had no past. Nothing to anchor us. This journey has helped me to deal with that. It is a coming to terms with things. It is an acceptance of my mother, and of me, instead of always wishing that it could be different. As a child, I longed to believe in a “switched at birth” story. As I grew older, my life and family did not seem to “fit” me. I wanted to wipe the slate clean and imagine any past but my own. Now I feel different, especially with a greater understanding of what my mother went through, what her childhood was like, and why she blocked so much of it out.
I wanted to tell her that I was proud to be her daughter, but the words were difficult to say. It has been a long journey, the countless hours in the bowels of the archives, the prying, digging, and uncovering information, piece-by-piece, transcribing interviews, writing numerous letters, searching on the internet, and emailing and writing to obscure places in England — always hoping for some response, some little piece of the puzzle. I often wonder what was driving me to figure it all out. And I know my mother has wondered that herself. I was aware of treading on territory that she had buried for a reason. However, I knew my mother was pleased about the newfound memories because, for the most part, they were good ones. Even the bad memories that I stirred up were easier to look at now, from this distance.
The turning point happened when I finally visited the Fairbridge farm school grounds near Cowichan Station in 1986. I had driven up and down Vancouver Island dozens of times, but it never occurred to me to take the road in to see where the school was located. I didn’t realize that I had a picture in my mind of the place, an image leftover from my childhood, and when I stood on the former Fairbridge farm school property, I was speechless. The vision of the farm school that I had in my mind was simply that of a gravel pit. I carried that image for years. I never questioned it. I was surprised to see such a beautiful valley before me. I suddenly realized that it was not where my mother grew up that left this image with me, but it was how she grew up. Her loveless childhood, her lost family, her state of mind, and her feelings about being taken away and having to grow up in this institution.
Whenever she would talk about the Fairbridge School, all I took away was a stark image of a desolate and lonely place. It was still not easy for me to explain to her how scary the stories of her childhood were for me. One of the most valuable things about my research is that, by finding out about my mother’s childhood, I have been allowed a parallel journey into my own. As I started to figure out who my mother was, what her childhood was like, what her mother was like and her brothers and sisters, I finally acquired a sense of family. I had found a place where I belonged. Suddenly, I had to have all the details about her. I needed to know exactly where she lived, what schools she went to, what streets she walked on, where she played. I needed to find out about the gate she recalled swinging on while she yelled out for a half penny on her tenth birthday. For me, all the magic of England is wrapped up in that one half penny.
“Are you telling me you wrote my story around a half penny?” My mother laughed when I told her.
“A half penny started it all, yes.” I admitted.
“And I would have settled for a farthing, but I didn’t even get that.” The sparkle in her eyes told me it was okay to keep going.
I began to see who I was. I was no longer the daughter of a child migrant; I was a daughter of a child migrant with a family history. I saw what she had been through, and my shame of being her daughter turned to feeling a tremendous pride. She survived her ordeal. She came away from it intact. They did not break her. They didn’t give her much education or feelings of self worth and they had deeply instilled in her that she was a British guttersnipe, but she kept going. And she kept her children going and she kept us together.
I was going to ask my mother to read my manuscript, her story, but I realized that I wanted to read it to her, with her. A sudden shyness almost overwhelmed me. I held my manuscript, hesitant to open it — to share it, even with this newfound friend of mine.
“I call this chapter ‘Winifred’s Children’ and it starts while you were still living with your mother in Whitley Bay. I wished I got the chance to know my grandmother. I think she must have been a strong woman to pick up the pieces and carry on the way she did.”
“I forgive her, you know, now that I realize that she didn’t just throw us away. I still blame my dad, though, and the government and the Fairbridge Society. How could they send us away?” Mom asked, obviously not expecting a satisfactory answer.
“This is the story I am going to tell to your great-grandchildren. I want them to know what it was like for you. You are an important part of Canadian history. Your experience and the experiences of the child migrants should be in the school history books.” I cleared my throat and prepared to present my findings.
A British half penny dated 1937, the year Marjorie left Whitley Bay and was sent to Canada.
Photo by Patricia Skidmore.
Two
Winifred’s Children
Winifred’s children
Screaming — they came
Into this world
One after the other
She loved them all
September 21, 1936
“Mum, Mum, can I have a half penny? I want a half penny! I won’t go to school until I get one!” Marjorie put one foot down and gave herself a push. The screeching worsened with every swing of the gate. The back door to their brownstone house remained closed. Her mum peeked through the hole in the curtain. Marjorie persisted, her voice becoming hoarse.
It was no use. She would not get a half penny, not even today. What to do? Her school friends