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Life has come full circle for British-born, Kiwi-raised child migrant Tony Chambers with his return to his hometown of Hemel Hempstead in England. Tony was one of approximately 150,000 British children sent to various parts of the then Empire and Commonwealth in a child migration scheme operated before and after World War II by 35 large British charities. The Government selected children mainly from orphanages and long-term care homes, but some, including Tony, were taken from displaced and broken family homes.

On April 18, TVNZ’s current affairs programme Sunday aired a story on New Zealand’s involvement in the British child migration policies. Whilst Sunday focused on the negative experiences some children had, Tony’s upbringing in New Zealand was one of great happiness.

Tony was born in 1942 in Hemel Hempstead and remembers he was a happy little boy who had a carefree childhood. After the war, his single mother, Phyllis, found it difficult to both work and look after him. She went to the social services to see if they could provide a solution to how he could be looked after while she went to work. Phyllis was told that Tony could be sent to New Zealand in order to have a better start in life.

“Mother agreed, but without understanding the implications; without realizing that it was a one-way ticket.”

Tony remembers his mother and uncle dropping him off at the train station in London from which he was taken to a hotel, where he met the rest of the group of 15 children and teenagers, from similar circumstances, who would be travelling with him to New Zealand. “There were also hundreds of other British families migrating, and some New Zealand visitors returning to New Zealand from England,” Tony says.

Although Tony had been told that he was going to New Zealand, a “country far away”, he did not fully understand what was happening. On December 3, 1951 the Rangitoto left from the Port Authority of Tilbury, bound for New Zealand. Tony had never even stayed the night away from his Belswains Lane home in Hemel Hempstead but despite this, he became close friends with the other children on board and enjoyed the trip.

During the voyage, Tony broke his wrist and had his right arm put in plaster. When the time came for a picture of his group, the photographer put Tony in a lifebuoy to support his broken arm; in time this photo became quite recognisable as a piece of memorabilia, and it was from this experience that Tony came to refer to himself later in life as “The Boy in the Lifebuoy”. The Rangitoto arrived in Wellington in January 1952. Within a year Tony had been fully adopted by May and Arthur Chambers, and their large and loving extended family in Christchurch.

Tony’s memories of his Christchurch childhood are fond; of growing up with adoptive parents who doted on him; spending time with an equally supportive extended family on farms; and travelling all over New Zealand seeing different places. “I grew into a well-adapted Kiwi guy – British-born but New Zealand bred,” Tony says. “Despite my wonderful upbringing and considering New Zealand my home, I always felt a longing to return to ‘Mother Britannia’”.

Tony saved enough money through his job as a typesetting engineer to take a trip overseas. He took a ship to Singapore and travelled mostly overland from the Far East, eventually arriving in Britain. He settled in London and in August 1965 retraced his steps to Hemel Hempstead and, from memory, to his mother’s house. “I didn’t know if my mother was still alive or not. I plucked up the courage to step off the train at Hemel Hempstead. It was a big step for me,” Tony says. As he crossed a familiar footbridge, he says it felt like a lifetime ago that he had crossed this bridge on his way to the train station, although in fact it was only thirteen years. He says “memory ghosts” were there to meet him. “I had some sort of an emotional breakdown on that bridge, but managed to continue forward,” Tony says. He was reunited with his birth mother and birth family, who welcomed him with open arms.

While Tony continued to live in London, he visited his mother on weekends, reminiscing about the past and discussing what had happened. “My mother told me that she had been led to believe she would always get me back. She thought New Zealand would offer me a better start in life. She never knew what had happened to me after she heard I had been adopted,” Tony says.

Whilst in England, Tony met and fell in love with Spanish-born Maria. They married in London with a honeymoon in Spain before setting off in 1967 to visit Central America. Later that year they returned to New Zealand as the only passengers on a British cargo ship out of Panama, bound for Auckland. “Us married lovers beat the Titanic film for adventure; we too were migrating, having come overland via Central America,” Tony says. Tony and Maria enjoyed their young family life with their two sons in Christchurch, Auckland and Sydney, always staying close to Tony’s adopted and extended family.

Tony and Maria returned to the UK for short stays in 1987 and 1991 before they moved back permanently 1994. By this time, Tony’s adopted parents had passed away and he and Maria thought it was time to return to Europe to be with her family in Spain, and to revisit and care for his natural mother in England until she passed away in 2008. They retired back to his hometown of Hemel Hempstead. Tony had a full reconciliation back into his hometown, precipitated by the Mayor of the Borough of Dacorum, Councillor Stephen Holmes. “I now feel very much at home; my full life of multi-migration has come full circle,” Tony says. Neverthless, he still holds New Zealand very dear.

Recently, Tony was the subject of a twenty minute film documentary, The Boy in the Lifebuoy, by independent  filmmaker Sejal Deshpande, and has had other newspaper articles written about him. He is also featured in a Canadian Home Children website, and later this year will be part of an international exhibition of former child migrants in Sydney that will eventually go to London and Liverpool. A British television channel is looking into featuring his life. Also, here in New Zealand, Canterbury Television (CTV) will be screening Tony’s story on : 6 June at 11.00 am.

Through telling his story, Tony seeks to widen the historical knowledge of British child migration; and to reiterate that while so many cases were sad, a few are happy stories, like his.

Article written by Anne Boswell (Waikato Times)

Tags: Britain, Children, History, Migration