Oranges and Sunshine Page #2

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she might still be alive.

- I know.

- So you going to follow that up?

Well, I'll find the address on the certificate

and follow the trail from there.

Do you think it's her?

About the right age.

Hello, Vera.

Yeah, not bad. And you?

Is that the time already?

Thanks.

Hang on, I'll finish that up.

Excuse me, are you Vera Wilson?

That's me.

How can I help you, love?

I was wondering if I could

have a word with you in private.

It's something personal.

I'll take you through.

What's it about?

It's about your family.

Oh, my God.

I knew you'd come one day.

It's you, isn't it? You're my baby.

No, Vera, I'm a social worker.

Do you know where our baby is?

Let's go somewhere

where we can talk in private.

Where is she?

Does she have a family?

Is she happy?

Charlotte's in Australia.

She grew up in a children's home

in Australia.

In Australia?

What was she doing over there?

What was she doing

in a children's home?

I went back to get her

and they told me she'd been adopted.

I went back to get her.

They told me she was better off.

She was in a real family.

What's she doing in a children's home

on the other side of the world?

This flight

is now closed and will depart.

Final call for British Airways...

All right, let me take that.

- How was your flight?

- All right.

We'll go out this way to the car.

You ready for tonight?

That's, uh, my mother.

Your grandmother.

She was very strict, you know.

Well, you've got to understand

how things were 40 years ago.

No-one wanted... the shame.

It was such a scandal.

Mother wouldn't have me in the house.

They took my baby away from me

at the hostel

and I tried to visit.

And then one day

they said she'd gone.

You had gone.

I kept this for you.

In case.

Well, I always kept it.

I'm up to my eyes at work.

I know.

And we can't afford it.

I know.

And the kids?

We'll be fine here.

Hey.

Oh!

- Nice to see you.

- You too.

Uh, Margaret.

This is my brother, Jack.

It's very nice to meet you.

I've heard a lot about you.

Good to meet you too.

How was the flight?

Uh, yeah, good.

Get these into the car.

- You all right?

- Yeah.

Still OK to come

to the reunion tomorrow?

Yeah. Yeah, of course.

You must be tired.

Yeah, a little bit.

So we are delighted

to see our usual wonderful turnout

of former Fairbridge residents.

This is a nostalgic and happy day

for all of us.

Now, just before I go,

this is Mrs Humphreys,

who has come all the way from England

to join one of our old Fairbridgians

at the reunion today.

She'd love to hear any stories

you have about your time here,

so do take the time to talk to her,

if you can.

Hello, my name's Margaret Humphreys.

I was recently contacted by a woman

who was sent here to Australia as a child

and has lost all contact

with her family in England.

And I'm here today to see if

any of you are in the same position.

If you want to talk to me,

just come and find me later.

All right. Thank you.

So is this all there is,

the bunkhouses, the farm buildings?

What about the school?

Well, you only got to go to school

if you finished your farm work first.

Jack told me some stories

about this place, didn't you, Jack?

Food was terrible, wasn't it?

What was it you used to have, Jack?

You could always tell the Fairbridge kids

because they were the ones

nicking the other kids' lunch boxes.

Do you know if all the other children

were sent out from Britain,

the same as you?

I don't know, I don't know.

Do you know who sent you?

- It's a bit hot. I'll be out by the bus.

- Yeah.

Sorry, Margaret.

This woman you were talking about.

- Did you find any family for her?

- Yes.

She was told that her mother

was dead but we found her.

- You found her mother?

- Yes.

Do you think I've got a mother?

Everybody's got a mother.

What year?

What year are we talking about?

Sorry to keep you waiting.

Any records of

who the child migrants were

would be back in the UK

or with local state authorities.

More.

Oh, there's so many of them.

These migrations...

were they organised schemes?

I can't tell you, really.

It's not my area, I'm afraid.

So, why have I never heard about it?

Why has no-one ever heard about it?

I don't suppose

anyone was really that interested.

Stay there while I get a view of you two.

What's up, Jack?

I can't stand Mother's Day.

Get the same feeling every year,

like someone's twisting a knife

inside me.

So, normally I stay inside on that day

and I draw the blinds

and I let the phone ring.

I was married, you know.

I've got three kids.

I never knew what was wrong with me.

You know,

I'd think about my mother all the time,

but I could never talk about it.

How can you talk about someone

when you've been told

they don't even exist?

I went to see this doctor.

He put me on antidepressants.

That didn't really help,

so I saved them up,

I saved them all up and then...

I mean, it wasn't my wife's fault,

you know.

There's a...

...there's an emptiness in me.

There always has been and I think...

I thought...

I think that the only thing

that could fill it is her, you know?

- Is my mother.

- Jack! Jack!

There's a very strong memory.

I was in the children's home in the UK,

I was only ten.

This man in a suit,

he came to see me and he says,

'How'd you like to go to Australia?

The sun shines every day.

You'd live in a white house,

ride a horse to school

and you'd pick oranges off the trees

for your breakfast.'

When I didn't say anything,

he says,

'Well, your mother's dead, you know,

so you might as well.'

So...

Now you're telling me that

she might not have been dead, after all.

No, I can't say that, Jack.

We just don't know.

What we can do is

we can search for her records

and see what we can find.

I don't know. Of course, of course.

I don't know.

You found your sister.

She was so happy to see you,

you know.

Nicky trusts you.

And I reckon I...

I think I should too.

There she is.

Hello, sweetie.

Hello, darling.

Good to see you.

How was the plane?

It was all right, actually.

Come on, guys.

- Did you get any sleep?

- Little bit, yeah.

You all right?

Oh, yeah. I'm tired. I'm exhausted.

But I'm very happy to be home.

That's what I found first.

By then I was desperate.

I've been searching court records,

children's panel, minutes, you name it.

No trace of the children anywhere.

I was just looking through

newspapers round about our date

and that leapt out at me.

Now you have

the name of the organisation.

- Fairbridge.

- It wasn't just Fairbridge.

All sorts of different charities

ran these schemes.

Churches, Barnardos.

Children from deprived backgrounds,

shipped off for a better

life in the colonies.

This is it.

This is all fitting together.

The scheme was run

from the 19th century

till... you won't believe this... 1970.

But there was a wave of

migrations to Australia

between the mid-'50s and the mid-'60s.

How big? How many kids?

I don't know exactly

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