Oranges and Sunshine: Empty Cradles (6 page)

It was a brief conversation, just a few minutes long and it ended with Madeleine promising to keep in touch. As I put the phone down, I thought that she seemed to be a person who didn’t give her trust easily and her voice, full of hesitancy, suggested fragility.

I looked at the photograph she’d sent me. She was small in stature and quite slim, almost like a little girl in adult’s clothing; and I wondered whether the look in her eyes was sadness or resignation.

My professional training told me that I needed to find out more about Madeleine. I needed to know her strengths and weaknesses; her level of self-esteem; whether she had people around her to support her. Was she forgiving or did she harbour resentments?

Although I had my professional skills and experience to rely on, I felt isolated and exposed. In the past I had approached a birth mother or father on behalf of an adopted son or daughter. This was different from anything I’d done before.

I didn’t know if Vera had given her baby to people she knew and trusted; or if she realized Madeleine had been sent to Australia.

My normal practice was to write an informal card, explaining that I was a professional social worker who was looking for a particular person about something that happened many years ago. I would give the child’s birth date but not the full name and invite the person to telephone or write to me.

I had never just arrived on somebody’s doorstep, but this case was different. If Vera was elderly and living on her own, I wanted to ask her about Madeleine in person.

It was almost a three-hour drive to Harrogate and I spent the time rehearsing what I’d say. I chose a weekend when I had plenty of time and left early so I could drive through the streets getting a feel for the area. Every piece of information could help.

I parked a little way from the house and sat for a long time, rehearsing the scene over and over. It was a Victorian house that had seen better days but the neighbourhood seemed friendly. Two children were kicking a white plastic ball on the road.

An elderly woman came out of the house with a dog, and I watched her disappear down the street and then return. She was in her seventies and moved slowly, obviously unsteady on her feet. I saw her go back into the house.

This is it, I thought, taking a deep breath as I got out of the car.

A light was shining through the stained glass of the front door and I heard the dog barking and footsteps in the passage.

The door swung open and the woman stood there and almost shouted, ‘Yes, what do you want?’ The voice seemed far too loud for such a tiny figure.

There was a brief moment when we both simply looked at each other. I was wondering whether to be formal or informal with her but didn’t get the chance.

Before I could say a word, she said quietly, ‘I know why you’re here. You’re here about my baby.’

We walked down the narrow passageway with the dog nipping at my ankles. ‘Come into the kitchen, it’s warmer,’ she said. As I passed the living-room I noticed a bed, and assumed that she had trouble tackling the stairs.

She tried to make a cup of tea but her hands were shaking too much to fill the kettle. She let me take over as she needed to sit down. As I arranged the milk and sugar, I saw that Vera was still looking at me, waiting for confirmation that I’d come about her baby. I wanted to reassure her but first I needed to be certain of my facts.

‘Vera, can you tell me when your baby was born?’

‘Of course I can. How could I forget it?’ she said, as she gave me the date of birth.

‘And where was she born?’

‘Of course I know that,’

Again the information matched.

Peering over my shoulder she said, ‘Have you got her with you? Is she here? Has she been happy with her family? Have they looked after her? She’s all right, isn’t she?’

It was clear that Vera had no idea that Madeleine was in Australia. I didn’t want to tell her. I had to deal with her anxiety. Her questions kept coming, and suddenly she began to sob. Her whole body was shaking.

For a long time I sat holding her hand and she told me about her life, especially the sad times.

‘I tried hard to keep her but my baby was placed for adoption. I was working, trying to get money together, but I wasn’t well after the birth. I just couldn’t cope.’

Finally she asked, ‘Well, what’s happened to her? Where is she?’

I took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know all the answers. All I can tell you is that Madeleine seems happy, but she is desperate to find her family.’

‘Did her new family treat her well? Did they love her?’

‘I’m sorry, but it looks as if she wasn’t adopted. For some reason which I don’t understand, Madeleine went to Australia as a young girl where she lived in a children’s home.’

Vera’s whole body stiffened. Her lips narrowed and her knuckles grew white. She suddenly turned away from me and I saw her shoulders begin to shake. Her whole face was buried in a large white handkerchief.

‘How could they?’ she sobbed. ‘How could they?’

After waiting more than forty years, Madeleine finally met her mother on a Saturday morning in January 1987. Although I’d brought them together and both needed the security of my presence, I couldn’t intrude on such a private moment. I took Madeleine to her mother’s house in Harrogate and then left them alone together while I found a quiet corner in another room.

There were countless emotions that mother and daughter had to work through. The experiences of a lifetime were distilled into a few days and hours. It was difficult to imagine how it felt for both of them. For Vera the joy at being reunited with Madeleine was tempered by an enormous sense of guilt. Even though Vera had little choice but to give her baby for adoption, and had played no part in her being sent to Australia, I knew it would be difficult for her not to accept the burden of responsibility for these decisions.

Seeing them together, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I felt enormous satisfaction at having helped achieve this reunion, but I also felt sadness. It was not what they’d found that touched me, but what I could see had been lost. Madeleine could never recover her childhood while Vera’s faith had been shattered.

What would it be like for Madeleine going back to Australia, leaving her mother behind? Would she go back fulfilled, with a sense of identity and family, or confused and bewildered about her past?

Something wonderful had happened but it might only serve to remind Madeleine of everything that had been taken away from her. Until then, she simply hadn’t known what she had missed both as a child and as an adult. She had always believed that she was an orphan. Some nameless, faceless person had told her that.

Somebody had sent her overseas and denied her even the most basic truths about herself. She had no foothold on the world; not even a birth certificate to tell her that she belonged to a family and a country.

Why had Madeleine been sent overseas? What could justify such an act? Why send a four-year-old from a children’s home in England to another in Australia? What was the reason for all these lies?

The Australia House official had implied that many children had been involved when he mentioned that files were in Canberra. Indeed, Madeleine remembered travelling to Australia with other orphans.

When I explained all this to Merv, he was intrigued. He has a very analytical mind and cannot leave a question hanging unanswered. With very little prompting, he decided to see if Nottingham University library held any answers.

Meanwhile, I still had my full-time job with Nottinghamshire Social Services and the fortnightly meetings of the Triangle group.

Marie also wanted to find her mother but I knew that I couldn’t start that search without Harold. Their relationship had to be resolved and I needed to know if both brother and sister would take the journey together. This meant talking to Harold face to face, not across the oceans.

‘Is there any chance Harold would come to England?’ I asked Marie at the next Triangle meeting.

‘I don’t know where he is,’ she said. ‘He’s disappeared and is somewhere in the Northern Territory working with the Aborigines. He has a friend in Melbourne and I’ve been sending letters to her in the hope she can forward them to Harold.’

‘I need to talk to him,’ I explained. ‘I would like to know if he also wants to find his mother.’

‘Oh, he does, I’m sure he does. His letters used to talk about almost nothing else.’

Marie felt as though she’d abandoned Harold. She had promised when they last met, on that troubled Christmas Eve years earlier, that she would visit him in Australia. But as time passed, Harold began believing that Marie was never coming. He’d given up on her and his depression had deepened.

Eventually, one day he took all his paintings to the banks of the Yarra River in Melbourne and, one by one, threw them into the murky water, watching them float away. Then he packed a few possessions and disappeared.

‘He thinks he’ll never know me properly,’ Marie said, looking from face to face in the circle of armchairs. ‘He says that I’ll never keep my promise to go out there. But wouldn’t it be lovely – so lovely – to see him again?’

‘So what’s stopping you, for God’s sake?’ someone asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged shyly.

‘I know that if I had a brother in Australia, I’d be out there – with or without my husband,’ someone else declared.

Marie smiled defensively. I could see the panic on her face.

‘Does your husband have brothers and sisters?’ somebody asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Does he see them?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Why can’t you be with your brother then? What’s the difference?’

I suggested that Marie write a letter to Harold, care of his friend in Melbourne. ‘Tell him I would like to meet him. Perhaps I can help him. But there’s only one way to get him out of the desert, Marie. You have to go to Australia. He’ll come out to see you.’

‘I can’t do that!’ said Marie.

‘Why not?’ the group chorused.

‘I can’t afford it.’

‘Look, life is short. You’re miserable,’ somebody said. ‘You won’t feel any better, and nor will Harold, until you see each other. Think, Marie – the only person Harold really wants to see is you!’

And then, before Marie had time to voice an objection, somebody declared: ‘And if you can’t find the money, we’ll buy the ticket for you.’

I was astonished. There was so much warmth and care for each other and a clear appreciation of how important it was for Marie and Harold to meet again. For the first time since she’d joined the group, Marie went home from a session looking relieved. It was as if a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders.

The more I thought about Harold Haig and the possibility that there were others like him, the more I realized that I needed time and money to investigate. I had talked to many social-work colleagues, all of whom reacted with disbelief. The Civil Servants at the Home Office and the Department of Health didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.

I applied to the Winston Churchill Trust for a fellowship to solve this puzzle but was turned down. Finally, I decided to try the British Association of Social Workers and explained my problem.

‘Look,’ I told the press officer, ‘I want to find out how many of these children were sent to Australia and what happened to them. The only way to do that is to go there.’

Even as I spoke, I thought the whole idea sounded fanciful. Who would believe that British children had been shipped to Australia without parents or guardians?

As I expected, the Association couldn’t help in a direct way, but the press officer sat down with me and discussed the options. There weren’t many. ‘Have you thought about going to Fleet Street?’ she asked. ‘Even if only a few children were shipped out, it sounds awful.’

The very thought of dealing with journalists filled me with horror. Social workers and the media have an uneasy, sometimes downright hostile, relationship, and I worked to a strict code of professional ethics, especially regarding confidentiality. More to the point, I didn’t know if I had a story for a newspaper to investigate.

‘I have a few journalist contacts,’ said the press officer. ‘If you like, I can talk to them.’

‘But I can’t give them names – I can’t break the confidences of clients,’ I told her.

‘Just talk to them in general terms. There’s no harm in that. It’s the only way.’

I left it in her hands and several days later she rang to say she’d had a tentative discussion with a journalist who worked for the
Observer
.

‘She’s the health correspondent and I’ve always trusted her. She wants to meet you.’

Annabel Ferriman was waiting for me when I arrived at the
Observer
offices near Blackfriars Bridge. We had a long talk, but it was clear that I had too few details to convince her editor that there was a possible story.

‘There isn’t enough,’ Annabel said. ‘I need more evidence than just two cases to get the paper interested.’

‘How do I do that?’ I asked.

‘Well, what about placing an advertisement in some Australian newspapers asking people to come forward? If you get a positive response, then maybe we can do something.’

Annabel’s suggestion was a good one. Regardless of how I got to Australia, I still had to find out if there were others like Harold and Madeleine.

On 10 January 1987, the first ad appeared in the Melbourne daily,
The Sun
. It read:

Would anyone who was sent as a child without parents to Australia from Britain in the 1940s and 1950s, and who was put into a children’s home, please contact Margaret Humphreys, a British social worker, who would be interested in researching their past.

A fortnight later, during the morning scramble to get the children to school, the first letter arrived. I sat at the kitchen table, nervous about opening it.

Dear Margaret
,

I’m writing in answer to your advert in Melbourne’s
The Sun.
A friend of mine is one of these children sent out to Australia from London on the liner
Asturias
arriving at Sydney on the 13th March, 1950
.