Directed by Jim Loach
Margaret Humphreys (Emily Watson), a social worker from Nottingham, uncovered one of the most significant social scandals of recent times; the organised deportation of thousands of British children to Australia. Humphreys has spent years documenting the stories of some of the 130,000 children who were shipped to Australia from the mid 1950s up until 1970, and has written a best-selling book, Empty Cradles. She began her work in 1986 when nobody was aware of what the British and Australian governments had done, and the world certainly wasn’t aware of the abuse that many of these displaced children had suffered from those entrusted with their care.
Despite the personal toll, Humphreys is still racing against time trying to trace relatives, reuniting families and helping to mend fractured lives. Along the way she has unearthed plenty of lies, faced uncooperative authorities in both Britain and Australia, been threatened and finally gained some recognition for the deported children. On 17 November 2009, while Jim Loach (son of Ken Loach) was filming in Britain, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a National Apology to the children who were uprooted from Britain. While filming in Australia on 24 February 2010, then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave an apology to the child migrants and their families.
Western Australia was the destination for 80% of these child migrants and Fairbridge, Bindoon and the Child Migrants’ Trust in Perth are all locations for this powerfully painful story. They were promised oranges and sunshine, and they got hard labour and life in institutions. At one of the first screenings in Perth, many of the former child migrants in the audience congratulated Jim Loach for bringing their story to the big screen. See this film to bear witness to the travesty that affected so many people’s lives.
Lezly Herbert
***
