A great read is "The Forgotten Children"
written by David Hill, it is a true story & a heartbreaker about children from poor british familes in the 20th century that were transported to Australia -
a quick summary is
When David Hill was a young boy of 12, he was brought with his two brothers from his home in England to live at Fairbridge Farm School at Molong in New South Wales. His mother, like so many other British parents, had been led to believe that in signing away guardianship to Fairbridge Farm, she was entreating her children to a new and better way of life.
In Australia, she thought that her kids would be privileged to grow up in wide open spaces and be educated to a high standard. The reality was completely different. While David acknowledges that he had an easier time than most because in a rare situation his mother was permitted to live nearby, in this extraordinary book he reveals how so many Fairbridge childhoods were ruined by hardship, physical and sexual abuse, loneliness, malnutrition and educational neglect.
Based on the testimonies of ex-Fairbridge children, many of whom have been interviewed by David himself, this moving and compelling account of the failure of a misguided and myopic project -- to relieve the poverty problems in the UK and populate Australia at the same time -- is one of duplicity and misconduct on behalf of the Fairbridge Farm Schools and the British government.
Part memoir, part history, part investigation, it is a story that needed to be told.
David is/has been chairman then m d of ABC, chairman of australian football association, chief executive of the state rail authority nsw, chairman of railways australia CREATE foundation - so he has done alright for himself & lives now in Sydney.
