'There was no love:' Child migrants sent to Canada as young as 7 still asking why
Fairbridge Farm on Vancouver Island was home to 329 impoverished British children from 1935 to 1951
It's not easy for Roddy Mackay to sum up how he feels to be back in the Fairbridge Chapel.
"I was not too fond of it, [but] I fight for it now because I would really hate to see it go," he said.
"It's kind of the icon of what Fairbridge is about."
Mackay is a Fairbridgian — one of 329 children sent from the slums of Britain in the 1930s and '40s to the Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School in Vancouver Island's Cowichan Valley.
Every year, the surviving Fairbridgians hold a reunion in Cowichan. It feels like a family reunion, and for many, their fellow Fairbridgians are the only family they remember from childhood.
Mackay was born in 1934 in Edinburgh, Scotland, arriving at Fairbridge in 1941 at age seven, staying until it closed in 1951. That decade shaped his life forever.
A complicated history
Fairbridge Farm School was part of a larger policy program of the British government to populate its colonies while ostensibly also providing a better life for children in some of the country's poorest cities.
The practice goes back at least as far as the 1600s, but it was formalized in the mid-1800s as the "Home Children" program. However noble the aim may have been, the reality was that many children ended up in slave-like living conditions on farms.
In an attempt to solve the problem, a series of "farm schools" were established. Most of the schools were in Australia, but in 1935, one was opened at Cowichan Station in British Columbia.
Most Fairbridgians were between the ages of seven and 11 when they arrived. Roy Myhill vividly recalls the 12-day voyage across the Atlantic in 1941, which included a pursuit by a German submarine.
"We were going to Canada," Myhill said. "That was all we knew."
"We didn't know what Canada meant. We had no idea," Roddy said with a grim laugh. He was on that very same boat with Roy. "It would've been like telling us we were going to Disneyland."
Life at Fairbridge was spartan. Children were assigned to cottages of about a dozen, with a "cottage mother" in charge. "We were made to work," Myhill said. "Chopping wood, chopping kindling, cleaning houses, scrubbing floors."
Lingering trauma
As the daughter of a Fairbridgian, Christina Dobson wanted to explore how Fairbridge had left its mark. She interviewed nearly a dozen Fairbridgians — including her father, Danny Dobson.
"There was a lot of emotional problems," Christina Dobson said. "Fairly significant anxiety and depression issues, certainly some substance abuse issues, heavy drinking."
From seven years old on, you didn't have a parent.- Glen Dobson, on his father Danny's experience at Fairbridge Farm
Her father developed severe anxiety and agoraphobia later in life. "He wondered if that was created out of lack of stability [in his early life]," Dobson said.
Glen Dobson, Christina's brother and current president of the Fairbridge Association, said their father often had trouble showing affection.
"He'd never experienced that, from the time he was a little kid," Glen said.
"From seven years old on, you didn't have a parent. Nobody ever patted you on the back or or hugged you, right? And so my dad wasn't that guy either. He just didn't have it in him."
'I can't talk about it, I'll get into trouble'
Not all Fairbridgians were as open about their past as Roddy Mackay and Danny Dobson. For Patricia Skidmore, her mother's inability to talk about it drove a wedge into their relationship for decades.
"I didn't understand her," Skidmore said of her mother, Marjorie Arnison. "She wouldn't tell me her story."
"I would ask her, why are you here, and why is your family in England? And I would just get a blank stare and the conversation would end."
Years later, Skidmore began to research her family's history. Starting with two photographs of her mother as a child, she was able to trace Arnison's journey from Whitley Bay, England, to Fairbridge.
"It was wretched for her," Skidmore said. "At one point when I'm trying to pull these stories out of her, she responded, 'I can't talk about it, I'll get into trouble.' And she was in her 80s…. That fear was instilled in her as a child."
Mackay remembers this fear all too well.
"I went through two cottage mothers that should never been in charge of children," he said. "You know, they were strapping us — you were terrified. I was terrified."
This is why, 60 years later, the Fairbridge Chapel still holds such a special place for Mackay. "This chapel became a bit of a sanctuary, because they laid off while we were here."
"I see my mother's eyes gloss over when she sees certain photographs," Skidmore said. "I know things happened, I just don't know what. She would not go there."
No apology from Canadian government
The British and Australian governments have both apologized for their roles in the child migrant scheme, but despite calls from people like Mackay and Skidmore, the Canadian government has not.
Despite the advanced age and dwindling numbers of Fairbridgians, Skidmore feels the government still owes them a formal apology. In 2010, she and her mother were among the party of child migrants at the British government's apology — something she said changed her mother's life.
Though it's been more than 60 years since Fairbridge closed its doors, the journey isn't over for surviving Fairbridgians and their descendents. Mackay recently testified at an inquiry in Scotland, and Skidmore just returned from England where she scattered a portion of her mother's ashes in her birthplace of Whitley Bay.
"There will be those that say, well, it's better than what you came from, but I think that's just rhetoric," Mackay said. "They don't know what would have happened had I stayed with the remnants of my family."
"Many that were born from my age in Britain went through what was going on and still had a happy life," Mackay added. "They had love — but that was completely lacking here. There was no love."
"If you ever heard the word Fairbridge and you don't know your family history, look for us," said Glen Dobson. "It's out there. We can help you connect the dots."
To hear the full documentary, tap or click the Listen link at the top of this page.
About the Producer
This documentary was co-produced by Alison Cook, and edited with Veronica Simmonds and Acey Rowe.
Special thanks to Steve Turnbull.