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All Newsletters : June 2001 : A Better Understanding of Where Mick Comes From

A Better Understanding of Where Mick Comes From

Edna is a migrant herself, having been born in Manchester. She and Mick have been married for 32 years. They had four children, Andrew now 30, Grayem who died when he was 18 from an asthma attack causing cardiac arrest while on a fishing trip, Louise now 25 and Caroline aged 24. Mick, who left to visit family in Ireland on 30 April, worked as an agricultural worker and still helps friends out at sheep shearing time.

As I write his, or rather our story, my husband Mick is flying to Galway, Ireland to meet an aunt and two cousins.

Mick’s quest to find family goes back to 1973, four years after our marriage. We had two small boys at that time and perhaps this evoked memories for him of children in a family situation because he was always thinking about the circumstances of his transportation from the orphanage at Gravesend to Tardun, Western Australia, in 1953.

I encouraged him to go in search of relatives but with the little information he had and no freedom of information in force the search proved fruitless! We went on to have two daughters and so with a large family to keep us busy plus a move to Tasmania, the focus shifted for a while. But Mick always wondered about people that he could call his own! Then tragically and suddenly we lost our son Grayem at eighteen years of age. As this tragedy stirred deep feelings of overwhelming loss at his death, Mick was compelled to start searching once again for family.

In March 1994, we received a phone call from the U.K. to say relatives had been found in Bow, London. We were to write a letter and if these relatives wanted contact we would subsequently hear from them! I remember there were mixed feelings of both excitement and apprehension during the four weeks we waited for a reply! A letter arrived from Mick’s Uncle Jim and Auntie Nellie with photos of family members including his Mother. Mick was devastated to learn she had died eighteen months previously. However it was wonderful to see people smiling from these photos with faces and expressions so like Mick’s. It was even better when we were eventually to meet them later that year! I would sit in the background with a roomful of relatives observing. I’d say to Mick on our way home, “I saw another ‘Mick-ism’ today”! It would be a gesture, a smile or an expression that I had only ever seen from Mick and I found this fascinating and amusing! I also felt a great sadness at the loss he’d incurred from being deprived contact with his family. People he could call his own.

From talking with his family we learned that his mother fled Ireland when she discovered her pregnancy to a soldier stationed there. She placed Mick in St Mary’s Orphanage when she was summoned back to Ireland to care for ailing parents. As she was the “spinster” of the family, this responsibility fell to her. Jim and Nellie went to the orphanage after a change of heart about taking care of Mick, only to be told he’d already left for Australia. Mick has since learned that in fact he was still at the orphanage at that time!

I’m happy for Mick that he has found family of his own. It has changed him a great deal and these days his outlook is brighter and he is more confident. But I also see a man who has struggled for a great many years to find his place in life, sometimes to the detriment of his family. A man who is so independent that at times he doesn’t need anyone! A man who finds expression difficult, who cannot allow himself to get too close to anyone, a driven man who finds solace in physical hard work and a break-neck pace of life!

I’m grateful to C-BERS for helping organise this trip for Mick to meet more family, his Mum’s youngest sister and two of her children in Galway, Mick’s own people. His family!

We acknowledge that the impact of child migration extends to encompass a broad circle of loved ones and extended family members. This is the first time we have published a story which gives a voice to the perceptions and feelings of that broader network of affected people. Edna Monaghan is the wife of Mick who is a Tardun Old Boy and former Child Migrant. She writes of Mick’s search for his family origins and the impact of Mick’s early childhood experiences
on their shared family life.


Edna Monahan


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