Review “Twelve
Years in Care” by John Bicknell
Up to 150,000
children were deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a
'new life' in distant parts of the British Empire, right up until as recently
as 1970. John was one of
these children who came with his two bothers to the Barnardo’s Farm
Training School at Mowbray Park near Picton. In his new book he takes the
reader back to where it all began in a small house in a small village in
southern England, into their incarceration in English orphanages and then to
Australia with several other children. The chapters describing life in Mowbray
Park give the reader a glimpse into the lives of similar children raised in
philanthropic institutions away from traditional family structure and make
their subsequent social problems easier to understand. This is a timely story
for today as we all struggle to understand why so many children were taken away
from families and countries. John worked hard to overcome his early life to
create acceptance into local communities and successfully run a farm and raise
a family but it was only at a significant cost to himself. Many other children
did not. They all have stories we should know before we can remedy past
mistakes and apply better policies in future.
Sid Harta Publishers
Melbourne Australia
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