Forgotten migrants receive UK apology

Former British child migrants sent to Australia and other parts of the Commonwealth
have received the apology they've waited a lifetime for. But for many it was too
late.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has followed Australia's lead and made a formal
apology to the thousands of child migrants who were sent to faraway shores and put
into orphanages, foster homes and religious institutions, including 7000 sent to
Australia.
"To all those former child migrants and their families, to those here with us today
and those across the world, to each and every one I say today we are truly sorry,"
Mr Brown told Britain's parliament late Wednesday night Australian time.
"We are sorry they were allowed to be sent away at the time they were most vulnerable.
"We are sorry that instead of caring for them, this country turned its back.
"And we are sorry that the voices of these children were not always heard, their
cries for help not always heeded.
"And we are sorry that it's taken so long for this important day to come and for the
full and unconditional apology that is justly deserved."
A STG6 million ($A10.5 million) funding package was announced to help reunite former
child migrants with their families.
The Australian parliament welcomed Britain's apology, with Families Minister Jenny
Macklin on Thursday saying it was a turning point for many people.
"This was clearly a moment of great emotion and significance with the potential to
heal past hurt," she said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised on behalf of Australians to the Forgotten
Australians in November last year.
Commemorative events were hosted by the British High Commission in Perth, Sydney,
Melbourne and Brisbane on Thursday - a bittersweet moment for many who attended.
One of those children was Lynda Craig, just five when she was forced to leave
England and told her mother was dying from cancer.
It was a lie and the British government knew it.
"When I arrived, I can remember this quite vividly, the cottage mother ... she said
your mother's dying so just get over it," the nurse, now aged 60, told AAP at the
commemorative event in Sydney.
"Girls were raped by people they entrusted to care. They've got a lot of mental
health issues."
John Ryall was 50 when he learnt his mother was alive.
Now 64, he has needed therapy to help him deal with the anger and hurt of his
childhood - and his mother's enduring rejection and guilt.
As a seven-year-old arriving in WA from Wales in 1952, he was sent to Christian
Brothers institutions in Perth and then Tardun, in the state's northern wheatbelt.
"All that time I thought she was dead," Mr Ryall said at the commemorative event in
Perth.
The reunion with his mother was a failure.
"The sad tale of that is I went back to see her, I saw her once and she never wanted
to see me again," he said.
The apology would go some way to assist the healing but he has had to face his
demons before now.
"A lot of anger, a lot of hurt, I've had to do a lot of therapy, I've had to do a
lot of work on myself, because there's many a child migrant who have ended up with
depression, (committed) suicide and alcoholism, drug use," Mr Ryall said.