Oranges and Sunshine Page #4

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Everybody's got a mother.

What year?

What year are we talking about?

Sorry to keep you waiting.

Any records of

who the child migrants were

would be back in the UK

or with local state authorities.

More.

Oh, there's so many of them.

These migrations...

were they organised schemes?

I can't tell you, really.

It's not my area, I'm afraid.

So, why have I never heard about it?

Why has no-one ever heard about it?

I don't suppose

anyone was really that interested.

Stay there while I get a view of you two.

What's up, Jack?

I can't stand Mother's Day.

Get the same feeling every year,

like someone's twisting a knife

inside me.

So, normally I stay inside on that day

and I draw the blinds

and I let the phone ring.

I was married, you know.

I've got three kids.

I never knew what was wrong with me.

You know,

I'd think about my mother all the time,

but I could never talk about it.

How can you talk about someone

when you've been told

they don't even exist?

I went to see this doctor.

He put me on antidepressants.

That didn't really help,

so I saved them up,

I saved them all up and then...

I mean, it wasn't my wife's fault,

you know.

There's a...

...there's an emptiness in me.

There always has been and I think...

I thought...

I think that the only thing

that could fill it is her, you know?

- Is my mother.

- Jack! Jack!

There's a very strong memory.

I was in the children's home in the UK,

I was only ten.

This man in a suit,

he came to see me and he says,

'How'd you like to go to Australia?

The sun shines every day.

You'd live in a white house,

ride a horse to school

and you'd pick oranges off the trees

for your breakfast.'

When I didn't say anything,

he says,

'Well, your mother's dead, you know,

so you might as well.'

So...

Now you're telling me that

she might not have been dead, after all.

No, I can't say that, Jack.

We just don't know.

What we can do is

we can search for her records

and see what we can find.

I don't know. Of course, of course.

I don't know.

You found your sister.

She was so happy to see you,

you know.

Nicky trusts you.

And I reckon I...

I think I should too.

There she is.

Hello, sweetie.

Hello, darling.

Good to see you.

How was the plane?

It was all right, actually.

Come on, guys.

- Did you get any sleep?

- Little bit, yeah.

You all right?

Oh, yeah. I'm tired. I'm exhausted.

But I'm very happy to be home.

That's what I found first.

By then I was desperate.

I've been searching court records,

children's panel, minutes, you name it.

No trace of the children anywhere.

I was just looking through

newspapers round about our date

and that leapt out at me.

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