Lost Children of the Empire - Bruce Watson


From England out to Australia they came,
Grubby faces, overcoats and shorts;
No one told them why they had to change their names;
No one gave them a thought.
They weren't convicts; they'd done no crime;
Just kids with no one of their own.
And this is not in some far off time,
But just a few short years ago.

Chorus:
Lost children of the Empire
Searching for their past;
Souls caught in the crossfire;
Ten thousand broken hearts.

Michael's mother was just fifteen years old;
They said she couldn't keep her son;
'Cos back in those days, when you did what you were told,
She had to give him to the nuns.
They put him on a ship at seven years of age;
They told him that his mum had died.
Out on the station they worked him like a slave;
Each night in bed, Michael cried.

Michael started on the search for his past,
Fifty years down the road;
At every step there were hurdles in his path;
No one wanted to know.
He traced his mother after years in a maze,
Only to find she'd just died.
Michael cried as he stood by her grave;
For all those years they had lied.