Mixed reaction to Australia’s offer of apology to the British ‘orphans’

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JEAN COSTELLO was seven years old when she boarded the SS Asturias in Southampton in 1947 with 200 other girls and boys. Their destination was Australia, a land where "everyone was black and there'd be animals hopping down the street", Costello recalls being told. The reality was somewhat less romantic.

Originally from Stonehaven, near Aberdeen, Costello was sent to St Joseph's orphanage in Perth, run by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy.

Beatings were routine, and one particularly sadistic nun used to thrash the girls with the buckle end of a strap. The food was appalling, and the children went barefoot, even in winter. "Your feet used to get so cold," says Costello. "I would sit on my feet to try to keep warm."

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She was one of an estimated 10,000 British children shipped to Australia in the post-war years, under a policy aimed at ridding the mother country of its war orphans and populating the former colony with "good white stock". But Costello was no orphan, and neither were most of the other children. She later found out - too late - that her parents had been alive well into their 70s.

Many of the child migrants were subjected to horrific abuse and neglect in state and church-run institutions. For years, they have been lobbying for official recognition of what they endured. Last week, the Australian government finally announced it would offer them an apology, along the lines of the one delivered last year by the prime minister, Kevin Rudd, to the Aboriginal "Stolen Generations".

Some were elated. "You have no idea what this means to me," says Mick Snell, 74, from Paignton, Gloucestershire, who has grim memories of Dalmar House, a Methodist children's home in Sydney. He adds: "All I want is for them to admit it was wrong, and for my kids to be able to understand me a bit better."

For others, such as Costello, the move represents too little, too late. "I wonder how they think making an apology can right the wrong that was done," she says. "They turn your life upside-down, they deprive you of ever knowing your mum and dad. An apology won't make any difference to me."

Most of the children had been given up by single or impoverished mothers, or removed after being born out of wedlock. It was the same in Costello's case. Her mother was not consulted when she was sent to Australia after spells in care in Scotland and England. As for Costello, she was told she was an orphan.

The move by the Rudd government follows nearly 10 years of official inaction in the wake of parliamentary inquiries in Britain and Australia. Britain has yet to apologise to child migrants, although it has provided funds for them to travel back to try to trace relatives.

In Australia, some states and church organisations have paid limited compensation.

Costello found a sister living in South Africa, who gave her a photograph of her as a baby, in her mother's arms. "I told everyone: I've got a mother!'" she says. "It didn't seem real until then."

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