Patricia Skidmore 
Marjorie Her War Years 
A British Home Child in Canada

Her family broken apart and her identity taken away, she had to forget her past in order to face her future. But forgetting isn’t forever.



Taken from their mother’s care and deported from England to the colonies, ten-year-old Marjorie Arnison and her nine-year-old brother, Kenny, were sent to the Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School on Vancouver Island in September 1937. Their eight-year-old sister, Audrey, followed the next August.



Marjorie’s new home was on an isolated farm — a cottage she shared with at least ten other girls and a “cottage mother” at the head, who had complete control over her “children.”



Survival required sticking to bare essentials. Marjorie had to accept a loss, which was difficult to forgive. Turning inward, she would find strength to pull her through, but she had to lock away her memories in order to endure her new life.



Marjorie was well into her senior years before those memories resurfaced.

Tabela de Conteúdo

• Foreword


• Introduction: There Is No One More Vulnerable Than a Child


• Chapter 1: Winifred’s Children


• Chapter 2: A Difficult Year


• Chapter 3:Bunny’s Birthday


• Chapter 4: Exiled: A One-Way Ticket to Nowhere


• Chapter 5 : I Ain’t Gonna Be a Farmer’s Wife


• Chapter 6: A Partial Eclipse


• Chapter 7: Little Farmers


• Chapter 8: Off to Fintry: Now What Did I Do Wrong?


• Chapter 9: A Bad Home Is Better Than Any Institution


• Chapter 10: Fintry or Fairbridge?


• Chapter 11: For Now and Evermore


• Chapter 12: I Think I Can … Make it …


• Chapter 13: Bullies! It’s Not Fair!


• Chapter 14:Christmas Eve: Survival Is the Most Important Thing


• Chapter 15: Why Would I Go Back? My Country Didn’t Want Me


• Afterword (Afterwards): Peace in Marjorie’s Senior Years


• Acknowledgements


• Appendix A: Fairbridge the Founder


• Notes


• Bibliography


• Photo Credits


• Index

Sobre o autor

Patricia Skidmore is the daughter of a British child migrant. She lives on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.