Return to Oz

Christopher was shipped against his will to Australia. It was 44 years before he saw his family again…

Christopher Booth soaks up the Australian sun and relaxes with old friends. He smiles and says: “It’s been a long time coming. I love the UK, but I prefer the weather here.”

It’s a banal statement and one which cloaks a stolen childhood marred by torment and loss.

When he was just 11 Christopher was forced to leave his family and board a ship for a six-week journey to Tasmania where he would remain for more than 40 years.

Although he returned to live in the UK in 1995, every day he asks himself the same agonising questions why did his mother allow him to be sent away? Why did she keep his older sister and why did she go on to have, and to keep, two other children?

His return Down Under this week was organised to mark the 60th anniversary of that forced migration when the terrified boy was placed in the care of monks, who he claims physically and mentally abused him.

The monumental trip in which he hopes to revisit the Tasmanian home was made possible by £23,000 compensation awarded by the Tasmanian authorities. The cheerful Scot, who will celebrate his 72nd birthday in the Antipodes next month, admits the visit may be his last: “Unless I win the lottery,” he says, laughing. “You have to be in it to win it and I am ever the optimist.”

His indomitable spirit certainly not the fruit of a charmed childhood is borne out of a yearning for happiness.

The retired accountant, who never knew his father’s identity, renewed contact with his mother and siblings when he returned to Aberdeen, the city of his birth, in 1995. But he reveals he may never get answers to his questions. His mother has taken them to the grave.

He says: “I asked my mother countless times, ‘Why did you let them send me away?’ But it was like speaking to a brick wall. Now she has passed away I’ll probably never know. I went to her funeral out of courtesy but it was like going to the funeral of a stranger.”

He adds: “My siblings can’t help. My older sister was just a kid herself when it happened.”

Born out of wedlock in Aberdeen, Christopher was sent to live with an aunt. When he was 10 he was put into the care of Catholic sisters at the city’s Nazareth House children’s home.

The frightened lad had just had his 11th birthday when he was forced to board the boat for Tasmania. He claims his aunt protested and wanted him to stay, without success.

With him on the ship were two other boys from the home. They were among thousands of child migrants transported with the agreement of the British and Australian governments, often without the knowledge of birth families who were told they had been adopted in the UK. Many of the children were told their parents were either dead or no longer wanted them.

The scandal came to light in 1987 when Nottingham social worker and whistleblower Margaret Humphreys uncovered the British programme of Home Children, under which 150,000 children were believed to have been “resettled” in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the former Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

Reliving the terrifying start of his life at St John Bosco’s Boys Town in Hobart, where for four years he worked on a farm and was at the mercy of Salesian monks, Christopher says: “We slept in dormitories and when studies were over we were made to carry out manual labour. Discipline was harsh. The brothers would walk around with a piece of rubber hosing a foot long under their cassocks to give you a clout on the ear or the back of the legs.

“We weren’t allowed to talk in the dormitories. One night, someone next to me was talking but the brother in charge thought it was me and I got a whack around the ear.

“The next morning he made me go into the huge washrooms and clean between the tiles, the sinks, showers and toilets with a toothbrush. Every now and again he would come back and give me a boot up the backside.”

He reveals: “I still have poor hearing in my right ear after being hit so many times. We were told our mothers didn’t want us and our countries didn’t want us. We were just garbage.”

Both the British and Australian governments apologised in 2009 and 2010 for the forced migrations.

Christopher has no family photographs or mementoes of his childhood except for a faded shot of him with his pals from Nazareth House. He does have a piece of paper bearing the date and place of his birth with a short physical description of him before he was shipped to Tasmania. It reads “wearing glasses, but a happy lad”. That joy disappeared and Christopher admits his experiences left him introverted. He left the home at 16 and went to work in a tannery in Hobart, later moving to Sydney. He then studied for six years to gain a professional accountancy qualification and worked his way up. He married, had a son and daughter and provided for his family. But Christopher’s past took its toll on his relationships and he struggled with family life. When the marriage ended he returned to Aberdeen. He then received news that his daughter had died following a failed heart and lung operation. She was just 29.

Despite his heartache, Christopher does not regret his return. The move brought him his wife of 15 years, Annette, and a new step-family.

He is using his compensation cash to travel and to finally enjoy life. Christopher says: I was really pleased that the Tasmanian authorities compensated us for the poor care we received. The British and Australian governments should follow suit.

“Still, I’m happy now. If anyone had told me when I was a lad in Tasmania that I’d be back in Aberdeen, married to a woman I love and travelling the world I’d never have believed it.”