September 14th 2019
For further information about the lost children project / exhibition you can visit the project website here: https://thelostchildren.uk
The Lost Children Exhibition served as a platform for a performance of The Lost Children Dramatic lecture which was performed by Balsall Heath Youth Theatre and the Birmingham History Theatre Company.
A particular delight were the original songs written specially by community musician Pater Churchill. Many people commented that they found the performance heart breaking.
Song extract Dear Mr Middlemore
one:
Dear Mr Middlemore.
Just thought you’d like to know
We want to run away form here
But don’t know where to go
The local boys all bully us
The girls are even worse
The promise of this promised land
Turned out to be a curse.
two:
Dear Mr Middlemore
We’ve settled in quite well
Despite the funny way they talk
Despite the farmyard smell
There’s lots and lots of open space
The weather’s pretty fine
Not like back in Birmingham
Where the sun don’t even shine.
Across the Ocean
Song chorus
Where are we going
So far from home?
What awaits us?
A fate unknown
Who will meet us?
What will greet us?
Where are we going
So far from home?
The story started in the Birmingham Bull Ring Market where the traders had plenty of wares to sell but they were surrounded by starving children seeking to find discarded food.
Then John Middlemore came in, to be accosted by one of the children, begging for a penny. He declared he could do better than that. He could offer the children a new life in Canada. He took them back to his own house where the servants were horrified.
Then we saw the children being admitted to his newly founded Emigration Homes, ready to have a bath and their heads shaved. Next it was on board ship and arrival in Canada.
We saw the confusion of a small boy migrant being asked to milk a cow and witnessed an Inspection visit to a backwoods farm. After that time moved on to the Fairbridge Farm School in the late 1930s.
The finale song reflected the ongoing question about the Homes.
“Opinion is divided
Truth is double sided.
What is wrong and what is right?
If only life were balck and white”
