The Forgotten Children by David Hill

Author:David Hill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2010-09-30T14:00:00+00:00

They used to look after me … She’d hit me and they would be upset but they didn’t want to say much to her … ‘Here’s this little girl getting bashed and we want to stick up for you and we want to say something but if we do, we’ll probably cop worse than what you just did’ – so, they shut up.

Vivian’s claims of maltreatment were corroborated in a report that followed an investigation by the New South Wales Child Welfare Department. The report has remained secret and restricted for more than forty years.

The investigation followed complaints made in 1964 to the child-welfare authorities by Mrs Jeanette Bradfield, whose children – thirteen-year-old Clair and ten-year-old William – had gone to Fairbridge under the One Parent Scheme. When she came to Australia she was alarmed at what she witnessed when visiting the farm school. While Mrs Bradfield’s complaints were not substantiated by the inquiry, many other children’s allegations of cruelty were.

The results of the inquiry were communicated in a letter from A. C. Thomas, Under Secretary, Child Welfare, to the Fairbridge Council in Sydney and a copy of the letter was sent to the Fairbridge Society in the UK; they remain in the Fairbridge files.3 In the letter Thomas wrote:

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