SqueezeMe's transcription was near perfect, but there are a few words I hear differently - most significantly the word "well" in the second verse and a couple of words, "the" and "that," in the third. Anybody else have corrections to offer? It's available on Spotify. Can anybody give us a more detailed background story for this powerful song? When did this happen?

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, well, 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.
CHORUS

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 the maze,
Only to find that she'd just died.
Michael cried as he stood by her grave;
For all those years they had lied.
CHORUS

from the 2004 Bruce Watson album, A Moving Feast