*2010* ~ Year of the British Home Child in Canada

The Christmas at Sea

It was just beginning to become cold on that winter's day in December in 1951.  The leaves were long fallen, but their delicate brown and crumpled skeletons lifted up easily with the chilling wind as they fell and drifted from the bank into the Grand Union Canal whose muddy waters flowed into the village of Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, England.  The narrow Grand Union Canal had begun its journey in London, just twenty miles away, yet to the small boy on its banks, engrossed in his own imaginative world, life in this market town was truly a million miles from the devastation and destruction still evident from the last World War in the great city.  

The brisk, almost icy, breeze blew along the old rutted, uneven tow path, which still showed the wear from a hundred years ago when horses pulled the longboats.  But the little boy, Anthony, Tony to his family and friends, never noticed the cold wind as he continued playing his solitary game of pirates and scampering over the slippery wooden lock gates on the canal.

Tony's family, like most of the village, were poor, yet they were in a special position as opposed to their less fortunate neighbors.  The family resided in a lovely, old, detached home with a secluded front flower garden which was tended lovingly by his grandmother.  The family also kept an allotment where Tony's grandfather grew their vegetables.  His grandfather was a "Brickie" who worked reeling bricks for the many new homes under construction.  Masses of Londoners sought to escape the constant noise and confusion of reconstruction in an attempt to erase the memories of years of destruction through escaping to the outer villages.  

Tony, nine years old, lived in this rambling old home with his grandparents, his mother and an aunt.  This happy little boy had no idea that tensions brewed within this family.  The unspoken stigma of a child born out of wedlock placed an uncomfortable pressure upon the relationships in the home.  When Tony's mother announced her pregnancy, an undeniable and unshakeable wedge had began to form between her and her parents.

Tony had never known his father,  but this was no hardship.  Due to a close knit family, including cousins nearby, he had never missed a biological father.  He was also a joyful child, who spent his boyhood in dreams and wonder.  He would spend entire afternoons wandering the old market town, marching and running through the gentle, grassy fields and steep, wooded hills engaged in his own world of imagination.

Unbeknownst to him, Tony's seemingly idyllic existence reached its end during this cold December.  Tony's mother, due to family problems and tensions, was forced to remove herself from the home and go out to work.  To an woman without marketable skills, that meant, more than likely, a job as a live-in housekeeper.  But no domestic servant would be allowed to keep her illegitimate child in the home of her employer, so she took the only available option open to her in those days.  She approached the local authorities to see if there was a way for Tony to be properly cared for temporarily.  It would only be until she could get on her feet.

Just weeks earlier, his mother had met earlier with the child welfare agency.  They told her of a great opportunity that was available to her son.  They smiled as they told her of how he would be happier under the child emigration scheme to the British Commonwealth countries.  There, under the warm sun and healthy open spaces, Tony would be given a more secure environment than any which she could offer him in the damp, English air and tough economic climate.  

All she had to do was sign.  Just sign her name saying he could participate.  That was all she had to do and Tony would be taken to the land of milk and honey.

With that trembling signature, and without realizing the conditions, Tony's mother signed her parental rights away.  With just a pen's stroke, she lost her chance to bring him back to England once she regained her ability to support him.  As she walked out of the agency's door, she believed that Tony would only be obtaining schooling and foster care until she could have him back with her in a home she would provide.  She could confidently believe he would be safe; he would be healthy; and he would be back.

That wintery December afternoon, though, Tony ran to his home as usual having slain the pirates and capturing his imaginary castle.  Sometime later, he was told that he would be leaving.  He would be going on a holiday, a wonderful adventure, where he would be traveling on a great steamship to a new home in a strange and wonderful land.

Far from sad and filled with a sense of discovery, Tony left his home and family later that month on dreary, cold, early evening.  His large suitcase was carried by his uncle and Tony walked with his mother down the path from the house to a narrow foot bridge where he crossed the canal and away from the village where he had been born.  Away from the only home he had ever known.

The little trio reached the train station.  For Tony, it was pure magic.  He had often watched the steam trains seemingly fly by his village, but, being poor, he had never actually ridden one.  The world raced by as they sped to the great city of London.  In awe as he reached the busy train station, he excitedly  climbed aboard a double decker bus.  

They reached a large, rambling hotel where his mother and uncle gave him a quiet goodbye.  No tears, he remembered later.  Perhaps those tears would be shed later, when she was alone.  Despite her sudden onset of "cold feet," she knew she had to obtain a job and a place to live before she could arrange to bring him back.  It was only temporary, she could keep telling herself, it was only temporary.  Private regrets and consequences would follow her for the rest of her life but she always tried to believe that mantra.

Because it was late in the evening when they reached the hotel, Tony did not meet the rest of the party with whom he would be traveling.  Those children and teenagers were already tucked away in their rooms, so Tony was taken to a room where he would be staying by himself.  The kindly porter gently told him to ring a bell if there was anything he needed, then the he closed the door and was gone.

For the first time in his nine years, Tony was alone.  He had never been alone before.  He had no idea what to do or what to ask for if he did ring that bell.  He could not remember the last time he had eaten, yet he remained quiet, unable to find the courage or determination to ring the bell.  Confused and disoriented, he then spent that half of that night wandering the long, scary hotel corridors and stairwells on his own.  

During his travels through the old hotel, he had become enraptured with the central foyer goldfish pond, letting the hours slip by watching the fish dart about in the water.  The officials in his party found him still there the next morning.  Upon his discovery by the relieved guardians, Tony was ready to go.  He believed that his adventure had begun with the fascination he had found in that fishpond.  

He was introduced to his group of 17 children and teenagers, along with the two supervisors, a man and a woman.  Tony was the second to the youngest boy in the group of mixed children and three teenaged girls.  Once he had his belongings and the group were reunited, they were placed into taxis and taken to the St. Pancras station where they would catch the 10:45 boat train to the shipping docks of Tilbury.  They would be boarding the steamship Rangitoto, its name originating from "Rangi", a New Zealand Maori god, as well as a sleeping volcano in the Auckland harbor.  There the little group would join other individuals and families, emigrating for as many reasons as there were people.

The train ride from London to Tilbury was exhilarating.  It was exciting to be with the other children, who were also giddy from the adventures they would have, and with the older teenagers traveling alongside them, it became even more thrilling.  

Once in Tilbury, the group queued up with all of the ship's passengers.  Tony stayed on deck with some of the older children and watched as the ship pulled away from the dock, gliding down the Thames River past the lights of South End.  It was there, in the foggy night, that Tony, through fear or confusion, began to escape into the safety of memories which would become hidden in his subconscious, creeping through sporadically throughout his life.  Somehow, he managed to make it to his six-birth cabin where he slept with five others and the male supervisor.  He tried once to to search the ship for his mother, even though he knew inside she was gone, just in case.

Their adopted guardians were kind to the group of children.  They were New Zealanders who were returning home who had been conscripted, of sorts, by the agency handling the children's migration on behalf of the government.  Over the weeks that followed, the children clung to the couple, bonding with them  in a sort of ragtag family.

The migrant families were another story.  He would see them staring and often heard them saying about the little group "you poor kids with no mums or dads."  But I have a  mum, he thought, resenting their clouded concern.