Oranges and Sunshine: Empty Cradles by Margaret Humphreys Page B
Authors: Margaret Humphreys
Ads: Link
charities that might have known about his past. In particular, I went looking for the man called Colonel Hale, whose name we had seen in the admissions book at St John’s in Melbourne. I had hoped he would be a relative or godparent, but I soon discovered he was the head of the children’s committee of a local authority.
This is what amazed me about Harold’s story. He wasn’t sent abroad by a charity, he was sent by East Sussex County Council. He was in local authority care and ultimately the responsibility of the British government – so much so that the Home Secretary had personally to give his consent before Harold could be sent overseas. This bureaucratic chain of command meant that something had to have been written down. It was policy not accident. So where were the files? Where was the Home Secretary’s report?
I contacted an archivist at Sussex County Council and asked him if he could find out if they held a file on Harold Haig, a child who had been in their care many years ago.
He was very co-operative, although I doubt that he appreciated the importance of my questions. At the same time I began putting pressure on the Department of Health to reveal what the Government knew about sending Harold abroad. I needed to know why he was taken into care and who placed him there.
Harold had every right to know these things. He wasn’t adopted so parental rights hadn’t been severed by law and there was no legislation preventing him finding out about himself.
East Sussex County Council had no details of Harold or his parents, and the Department of Health continued to maintain that it had no records.
What could I tell Harold? It had been almost a year since we started the search and he was living so near to the edge that only blind hope was keeping him from falling. And then, one night, I suddenly remembered the Salvation Army, who had arranged Marie’s adoption in 1947. How had it managed, back in 1963, to find Harold when Marie had asked after him?
I rang Harold, waking him at some ungodly hour.
‘Listen! How did the Salvation Army find you? How did they know you’d gone to Australia? Write to them. Ask them if they have a file on you. Ask them how they found you.’
‘The good old Salvos,’ Harold said. ‘They won’t let us down.’
A fortnight later he received a short note bluntly informing him that no records existed. Nor was there any evidence of the Salvation Army ever having found him for his sister. He could, however, rest assured that they were saying a prayer for him.
When Harold blows, he just blows, and this was like a flame to the fuse. He screamed down the phone to me: ‘I’m getting on a plane. They can’t do this – not to me, not now. How can they get something this important wrong?’
By the time Harold arrived in England I had decided that he should go to the Salvation Army on his own. I had become a red rag to the charities because of the growing reputation of the Child Migrants Trust. Harold was articulate and could deal with the issues; they would surely see and feel his pain.
Sadly, however, the answer was the same. There were no records at all. Harold recounted the meeting and said that, initially, they denied ever finding him for his sister, but later went on to say, ‘Well, if we did – aren’t we wonderful?’
‘But how did you know I was in Australia?’ Harold pleaded. ‘You have to have known my mother, because you placed my sister for adoption. Please tell me, what did you do with me? What did you do?’
Later that day, feeling very depressed, Harold told me about a recollection he had carried with him since childhood. He remembered being a small boy and seeing a woman in a Salvation Army uniform walking up a hill holding a little girl’s hand. The little girl was Marie being taken away.
It was obvious to Harold that the charities offered nothing – some wouldn’t and some couldn’t. Because he was sent to Australia as part of a Government scheme – a
This is what amazed me about Harold’s story. He wasn’t sent abroad by a charity, he was sent by East Sussex County Council. He was in local authority care and ultimately the responsibility of the British government – so much so that the Home Secretary had personally to give his consent before Harold could be sent overseas. This bureaucratic chain of command meant that something had to have been written down. It was policy not accident. So where were the files? Where was the Home Secretary’s report?
I contacted an archivist at Sussex County Council and asked him if he could find out if they held a file on Harold Haig, a child who had been in their care many years ago.
He was very co-operative, although I doubt that he appreciated the importance of my questions. At the same time I began putting pressure on the Department of Health to reveal what the Government knew about sending Harold abroad. I needed to know why he was taken into care and who placed him there.
Harold had every right to know these things. He wasn’t adopted so parental rights hadn’t been severed by law and there was no legislation preventing him finding out about himself.
East Sussex County Council had no details of Harold or his parents, and the Department of Health continued to maintain that it had no records.
What could I tell Harold? It had been almost a year since we started the search and he was living so near to the edge that only blind hope was keeping him from falling. And then, one night, I suddenly remembered the Salvation Army, who had arranged Marie’s adoption in 1947. How had it managed, back in 1963, to find Harold when Marie had asked after him?
I rang Harold, waking him at some ungodly hour.
‘Listen! How did the Salvation Army find you? How did they know you’d gone to Australia? Write to them. Ask them if they have a file on you. Ask them how they found you.’
‘The good old Salvos,’ Harold said. ‘They won’t let us down.’
A fortnight later he received a short note bluntly informing him that no records existed. Nor was there any evidence of the Salvation Army ever having found him for his sister. He could, however, rest assured that they were saying a prayer for him.
When Harold blows, he just blows, and this was like a flame to the fuse. He screamed down the phone to me: ‘I’m getting on a plane. They can’t do this – not to me, not now. How can they get something this important wrong?’
By the time Harold arrived in England I had decided that he should go to the Salvation Army on his own. I had become a red rag to the charities because of the growing reputation of the Child Migrants Trust. Harold was articulate and could deal with the issues; they would surely see and feel his pain.
Sadly, however, the answer was the same. There were no records at all. Harold recounted the meeting and said that, initially, they denied ever finding him for his sister, but later went on to say, ‘Well, if we did – aren’t we wonderful?’
‘But how did you know I was in Australia?’ Harold pleaded. ‘You have to have known my mother, because you placed my sister for adoption. Please tell me, what did you do with me? What did you do?’
Later that day, feeling very depressed, Harold told me about a recollection he had carried with him since childhood. He remembered being a small boy and seeing a woman in a Salvation Army uniform walking up a hill holding a little girl’s hand. The little girl was Marie being taken away.
It was obvious to Harold that the charities offered nothing – some wouldn’t and some couldn’t. Because he was sent to Australia as part of a Government scheme – a
Similar Books
