Oranges and Sunshine: Empty Cradles (2 page)

‘What could an eight-year-old possibly have done that was so bad?’

She smiled a little and squeezed my hand. ‘Do you mind if I ask you some questions?’

‘No, that’s why I’m here. Ask anything you want.’

I thought she was going to ask me about something I wouldn’t be able to answer. I knew so little about the child migration schemes.

‘Do the daffodils and violets still grow on the side of the streets, and are there still chimney pots?’

I laughed, it came as such a surprise.

‘You see, I remember the chimney pots and I’ve never seen a chimney pot in Australia.’

‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’ I told her all the daffodils and tulips were out on the day I left, and all the blossoms on the trees. She was just mesmerized. She wanted me to describe how things looked and smelt and felt.

‘You see, when I was in England we used to walk to school and home at night and I was very happy there. But when we came here …’ She began sobbing. ‘When we came here …’ She took a deep breath. ‘When we came here we were prisoners. We didn’t have that freedom.’

Although it seemed a silly question, I asked, ‘Did you want to come to Australia?’

She looked at me incredulously. ‘I thought I was going on holiday. They told me I was going on holiday. Said I would be away for six weeks. I didn’t know where Australia was.

‘I felt very strange on the boat and I can remember looking at the English coast and I thought, I’m never going to see this place again. I think I knew really – deep down – that I wasn’t meant to come back.’

I had never seen such pain and sense of loss. Until now, in my work with adoptees, I was used to talking with people who had a small piece of their identity missing. It was just a slice. But the child migrants weren’t missing a slice. Their lives were blank sheets of paper. If I had handed this woman a sheet of paper and said, ‘Write down everything you know about yourself,’ she would have handed back a blank sheet of paper.

As she wiped away tears, I explained to her: ‘We have to view this like a journey. You have to help me understand, somehow, the milestones of your life so far and from there we will take another journey. Neither of us knows where it’s going to lead. I know it’s going to be painful but you have to help me.’

She nodded her head.

I asked, ‘What are your earliest memories? What can you remember about leaving England?’

‘When we were on the boat, somebody told me that we would be going to families. I knew it wasn’t a holiday then. They said there was a family especially chosen for me who were waiting for me in Australia. But that wasn’t to be. No-one was waiting.

‘We were taken by bus to an orphanage miles out of the city – all the land looked burnt and dry and it was hot and there were flies everywhere. I just hated it.

‘I arrived with only a suitcase. In the children’s home in Liverpool I’d had a few toys, not much, but I wasn’t allowed to bring anything with me.’

‘What about photographs?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Any letters?’

She shook her head.

‘We slept in dormitories. They didn’t let us go out to school. Lessons, if you can call them that, were at the orphanage. There were about sixty girls – some Australians but most of us were English. The Australian girls used to poke fun at us because of the way we spoke.

‘For the first few months I was there I used to cry myself to sleep every night. I wasn’t the only one. We used to put the sheet over our mouths to muffle the sobs.’

‘What were the differences between the children’s homes in England and Australia?’ I asked.

‘Within two days of arriving at the orphanage I was scrubbing floors on my hands and knees. The people in charge didn’t know who I was, they didn’t seem to care where I came from. Back then I had lovely long hair that was plaited and fell down my back. I loved my hair. In that first week I was called on to the veranda and a woman told me to turn around. I was scared because I didn’t like being singled out. She picked up my plait and tugged on it. Then I heard the scissors. “You can’t have long hair,” she said and then she hacked it off.’

It had been two hours since we began talking and her voice was beginning to show the strain. When she got up to leave she threw her arms around me and gave me a hug.

‘We knew you’d come. I knew that some day, somebody would come and ask about us. What took you so long?’

I couldn’t answer her. Where would I start?

‘Why do you think you came to Australia?’ I asked her.

She paused and thought for a moment.

‘It must have been that nobody wanted us. I’ve never forgotten England. It’s my home. It’s my birthplace, but they just didn’t want me.’

My family had been rooted in Nottingham for generations. My grandfather was an astute businessman who owned several houses in one of its leafier suburbs. My parents survived the Depression there, and then the uncomfortably close attentions of the German
Luftwaffe
. Bombs fell on the well-known football and Test cricket grounds on either side of Trent Bridge, not far away, but the house I was to grow up in was spared.

My two older sisters were already teenagers when I came into the world in 1944, but they were not old enough to be conscripted into the war effort. My father dealt with the casualties of the conflict as an ambulance driver.

My parents were very close. Their lives revolved around the family and each other, with the local church providing an added sense of rhythm and purpose. As committed Methodists who attended church regularly, their religion was woven into the fabric of their everyday existence. My father had sworn a pledge of abstinence, and nothing stronger than a well-brewed cup of tea ever passed his lips. Although his liver must have enjoyed excellent health, his lungs consumed at least a full packet of cigarettes a day.

From an early age, I found my parents’ fellow Wesleyans a very bland collection of people: pleasant and easy-going, but unwilling to take a view. They lived in a genteel world where bodily functions didn’t exist and the closest they came to intimacy was shaking hands in church. Nevertheless, I enjoyed Sunday school every week and put some pocket money in an envelope for the National Children’s Home to help deprived children. I wrote long essays on the perils of drinking and gambling and the joys of a sober, honest life. What remained a mystery to me, however, was that while I was being told that drink was the source of most human misery, many neighbours seemed to enjoy themselves immensely in noisy and cheerful pubs like the Sherbrooke Arms at the end of our street. Many was the night I heard a raucous rendering of ‘When Irish Eyes are Smiling’ resounding from behind its profane doors, and wondered what devilry was going on inside. Was this what he meant when the minister said, ‘Why must the devil always have the best tunes?’

My parents owned a large Edwardian terrace house on a long road near the river and the playing-fields. Since my grandfather had been well known in business circles it was natural, perhaps, that my father had inherited his outlook as a Conservative voter. It wouldn’t have mattered, had we not been in a predominantly Labour constituency: everyone around us lived in rented accommodation or new council houses. When it was voting day I didn’t dare go outside. All the other people had their red Labour posters on display, while our sitting-room window sported a large, provocative, blue rosette.

‘Why aren’t you going out?’ my father asked me during one General Election.

It never occurred to him that I ran the risk of grievous bodily harm from my school friends! At times I felt isolated in our neighbourhood, but its saving grace was the presence of my wonderful grandmother. Selflessly devoted to her sense of public duty, Grandma had served the St John Ambulance Brigade in a senior role for many years. On Saturdays, I would accompany her as a cadet to local events at the skating-rink or football ground. It was expected that my uniform would be immaculately clean, my badges shining, my black shoes gleaming with polish and my white cap starched so fiercely that it almost cut your hand. Her high standards were softened by her calm temperament and warm, accepting smile. I adored her.

I attended good local schools and my parents were proud and pleased when I passed exams. They believed that hard work should be rewarded; their maxim was: There’s no such word as can’t. The word is: you can, you will. They drummed this into me day and night, especially my father. I was very shy, and quite happy at home reading books or going for a ride to the Embankment on my treasured Raleigh bicycle. In those days, my bike could be left outside the sweetshop for a few minutes without it being stolen.

I didn’t want to mix a lot. I’d say, ‘I don’t want to go to that party.’

‘You must go, and you will,’ my father would say, in a firm but caring voice, followed by a smile and a wink.

In his book, there was no such thing as failure. You had to grasp every opportunity with a positive approach. However, I have never felt that I reached my full potential at school. As children growing up in the post-war period, we were expected to breathe life into other people’s hopes and expectations for us. Yet I was too young to remember the war and I had no idea of the hardships earlier generations had endured.

Although our home enjoyed few modern amenities, it was comfortably furnished with large, dark oak sideboards, cushioned sofas and big open fires. In the evenings we’d listen to
The Archers
on the radio and when it finished my father would always say, ‘It’s up the wooden hill to bed, young girl.’ Every year, as a family ritual, we’d all listen to the last night of the Proms and feel proud and patriotic.

I inhabited a secure and relatively restricted little world with my home, school, library and church all within ten minutes’ walking distance. Occasionally, at weekends, I would venture beyond this familiar territory. My father’s saloon car, a black Austin Seven, was his pride and joy. It provided one way of broadening my horizons, though many of our family outings ended with roadside repairs on Trent Bridge rather than the intended picnic in the countryside.

My parents believed strongly in helping those in less fortunate circumstances. My mother would not hesitate to knit five school jumpers for a local Catholic family whose mother was expecting another baby.

They both worked hard. Father was an engineer with the Electricity Board, Mother ran her own haberdashery shop. She often let local families have considerable amounts of credit before their bills were eventually paid – long after they were due. My father was not amused.

Another key figure influencing my outlook, as a child and in later years, was George O’Gorman, a firm and trusted friend of my parents, and our family doctor. He often came to dinner on a Sunday. An Irishman and a Catholic, he would tease my parents about their more traditional, conservative views and habits. Dr O’Gorman had an open mind, an extroverted personality, and a wicked sense of humour. He helped contribute to the feeling I had that, all in all, my childhood was secure, ordinary and quite predictable, as if it rested on solid foundations.

When I was twelve years old, however, that ground began to shake. Gradually, I realized that my father seemed to be at home more and more when I returned from school in the afternoon. He would tell me he was tired, but none the less he’d always help me with my homework.

‘I can’t do it,’ I’d say, knowing full well what the answer was going to be.

‘No such word as can’t.’

Soon he began to take whole days off work. It was not long before cancer was diagnosed.

One night, I heard my mother tell Dr O’Gorman that she would not allow my father to be admitted to hospital. ‘No-one’s taking him away from home,’ she said.

‘Well, Margaret can’t stay here then,’ replied Dr O’Gorman.

Within a few days, I was sent to stay with my mother’s sister. As I left, my mother said, ‘When you go to school in the morning and when you go to Aunty’s at night, you mustn’t call in here.’

‘Why on earth not?’ I asked. ‘I want to pop in to see you.’

‘You must get straight on the bus to Aunty’s, you see.’

I didn’t see. I didn’t know what my mother was thinking of by sending me into exile at my aunt’s house on the other side of Nottingham.

It was only much later that I realized my mother probably hoped that I would retain a memory of my father at his best. Or perhaps she simply felt unable to care for my father at home and cope with my reactions. However, this was not explained to me at the time. I was just aware of everyone telling me, ‘Your dad is getting worse.’ I didn’t need anyone to tell me that. I knew he was very ill but I felt powerless to help and marooned by my family’s good intentions.

Then one day I came home from school and Aunty looked very serious and solemn as she put her hands on my shoulders. In a soft voice, she said, ‘You know what we said was going to happen? Well, I’m afraid it’s happened.’

My mind struggled to find the right answer to this puzzle. ‘What has? What’s happened?’ I asked.

‘Your mother will ring you in half an hour.’

When the telephone rang, my mother said simply, ‘Your daddy died this morning.’

‘Oh dear,’ I replied, ‘what do we do now?’

‘You can come home after the funeral.’

I wanted to go to my father’s funeral but my mother had clearly decided against it. I felt strongly that it was wrong for me not to be there, but I did not urge Mother to let me go. She was busy trying to appear as if she was in control of her emotions, though her voice betrayed the true extent of her sadness and confusion. I guessed that she wanted to shield me from the grief, but instead it only made it more difficult for me to come to terms with my father’s death.

Nobody told me when it was the day of my father’s funeral. I must have gone to school as usual that day, because every morning my first thought when I woke up was: I have to go to school, but perhaps it’s the day when the phone will ring and Mother will tell me she’s ready and I can go back.

The call came two weeks later. Returning home was very strange. I went back to a mother who had lost her husband, her life partner, and along with him all their hopes and dreams. Her life changed completely; she dressed only in black and lilac and took little interest in her shop. It wasn’t just his life which had been cut short, but hers as well. I didn’t know how to help her and she didn’t know how to comfort me, perhaps because we had not shared the ordeal of my father’s last days together.