G'day SINSULL,

You wrote about: " ... recent documentaries ... British orphans and foster children ... shipped to Australia ... to work for a variety of churches without pay. Conditions ... brutal, sexual attacks ... food short ... they should be grateful for a roof over their heads ... girls who were deemed incorrigible ... 18 hour work days doing laundry and household chores ... strict rule of silence ... some of them had just discovered that their parents were living ... somehow related to an attempt to populate Australia. Anyone have details? ..."

I know this sort of thing happened - at its worst between the wars, but British Commonwealth migration programmes contained elements of this after WWII. I have no personal contacts with victims, although I knew people who experienced some of the more enlightened schemes. (Incidentally, English singer / folklorist A.L. Lloyd came to Australia as a young lad in the 1930s under such a Commonwealth migration/training scheme - obviously not one of the badly run ones ... or we would have heard a lot more about it!

There was a joint ABC - BBC docu/film about some of the worst of these, 10 or 15 years back - and I set the vcr to record it, while I was playing music for a dance somewhere. I must admit I could not bring myself to watch all the way through the programme! Maybe I need to drag out the video cassette, dust it off and make myself view it right through!

Regards,

Bob Bolton