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Fading Memories

Spring had faded

Into the summer.

Memories were fading

Into the past.

Summer 1937

Days turned into weeks, then into months, and any plans for finding a way back home slipped into the background of Marjorie’s new life. Her days had fallen into a busy routine with a rigid schedule and at times she hardly remembered how she arrived at the home. Whitley Bay was fading and so was her mum’s face, but her love for her never lessened, even when her anger towards her grew so sharp she could taste it.

Marjorie snuggled into her cot. She was thankful that most everyone was nice to her at the home. She had quickly learned how to avoid the cranky matrons, and they were given lots of food to eat every day. She never had to worry about that at all. Memories of her mum would often come to her at mealtimes and she wished she could find a way to send some food to her. Her face used to light up with a beautiful smile when Norman and Fred brought home food or money. They would all dance around singing for joy and it would be just like a party. Maybe it would have been different if she had learned to bring home some money to her mum. Maybe then they would still be at home together. Marjorie treasured the idea of them all at home again and hung on to her wish with desperation. In her daydreams she was always helping, just like her big brothers.

Sometimes Marjorie worked with Joyce in the kitchen. Once she slipped a few potatoes and carrots into her pocket for her mum. What a treat! Her mum would be very happy and surprised! She might see what a good helper she was and bring her back home. Marjorie had planned to put them in the post, but when the nurse asked her why she wanted a little box, she had to say that she didn’t need it anymore. They might punish her for stealing even though there were so many potatoes and carrots. Surely, they would not miss a few.

Washing the never-ending mountain of dishes and peeling the heaps and heaps of potatoes and carrots made Marjorie’s hands ache. The best and freest place to be was down on the playing fields. She did not know how Joyce could stand working in the kitchen day after day. After the summer Marjorie would be eleven. She wondered if she would have to work all the time like Joyce, or go to the day school as she had before the summer break.

It was not so bad here, really. Audrey’s giggles came from across the room. When they first got here, Audrey cried a lot and Joyce had to be brave and sneak Audrey into her cot every night to settle her down. One night Joyce fell asleep and when the night nurse found Audrey in Joyce’s bed, she smacked Joyce, not Audrey, with a slipper, and it was Joyce who lost her Sunday sweets. Even so, for ages, her big sister risked the night nurse catching her rather than let Audrey get a whipping for crying. Night time was easier for Audrey now that she had settled in and made some friends.

Marjorie wiggled and punched at her pillow until it felt cozy. It was her one place to be alone. Funny, that in a room full of girls, she could still feel alone. At first the loneliness threatened to overwhelm her but now, once the light was off, the darkness surrounded her and she felt free. Thoughts of her mum snuck into her mind. She tried to quickly get them out because they always made her feel sad — and now it was not only sad but also scary because most of the time she could not remember what her mum looked like. If only she had a picture of her. If only her mum would come to visit them or even send a letter to them. She wished, oh she wished, not for so much, but for the one thing that the home would not give her, to be back with her mum.

In the back of her mind, Marjorie believed it when the older girls at the home said that no one would be going home — not ever. But she vowed that she would never give up hope. Some of the girls had visits from adults and one girl danced and skipped down the hall holding onto her mother’s hand. She never came back. She must have gone home. Marjorie dreamed of doing the same thing. She would be so happy to see her mum that she would not even tell her how mad she was at her. She would just hug her and hug her.

Marjorie wrestled with her cover. She had to stop thinking about her mum. She tried to go back to thinking about some of the good things at Middlemore. There was a special Saturday that popped into her mind. It was her turn to mop the floor in the girl’s dorm. She and her new best friend, Olive, were laughing and having a contest to see who could mop to the middle of the room first. She started at one side of the room and her friend at the other. That, of course, was not the special part. It was while they were racing towards the middle that Audrey pranced into the dorm.

“Marjorie! Marjorie! Look at me!” she yelled. Audrey was dressed in a new summer frock and had a wonderful panama hat on her head. “Don’t I look smashing, Marjorie?” Audrey asked.

Immediately Marjorie asked her where she got the clothes. Marjorie and Joyce’s job of keeping Audrey out of trouble had not lessened in the past few months. Marjorie grabbed her and told her to quickly get them off and put them back where she found them. But Audrey twirled around, her skirt swirling beautifully, and she laughed and told them that everyone gets a new outfit for summer. She told Marjorie that she could find her new outfit in the locker room and ran off to tell Joyce next. As she skipped away, they could hear her laughter as she disappeared down the hall.

Marjorie remembered how proud she had been of her new dress on her tenth birthday. She remembered swinging on the gate. She was so hopeful that she would get a half penny to buy sweets. Now she had sweets almost every Sunday. And the clothes were so nice — much better than they ever had. If they outgrew something, they got another, just like that. Now that summer was here, everyone had a new summer outfit. She would love to walk into her old classroom at Rockcliffe School now. They would be so jealous.

Her new school was not the best. Every weekday morning they would march out two by two all the way to the Ilmington Girl’s School. It was a long walk, especially when the weather was bad. The best mornings were when Olive was her partner. The two girls talked about being life-long friends and that they would help each other find their families when they got away from the home. It made the walk go faster and it was less lonely having a close friend especially when being teased by the other children at this school. Some of the children at the school would call the home kids bad names, but there were enough children from the home so they could take care of themselves. What frustrated Marjorie the most though, was that no one, including her teacher, would believe that she was just ten and not eleven.

A school report from Ilmington Road Girl’s School, which Marjorie attended while at the Middlemore Emigration Home. Note the incorrect age at the top left side, which identified Marjorie as a year older than she was.

University of Liverpool Archives, Special Collections Branch, Fairbridge Archives, Arnison Family Records, D296.E1.

“Your records show that you are eleven, almost twelve, so you belong in this group,” her new teacher told her.

“But, ma’am, I’m not eleven! I am ten!” Marjorie stubbornly stated.

“Enough of this nonsense! Records do not lie but it appears to me that little girls do! To your desk please. Now!” Her teacher pointed to Marjorie’s desk, clearly expecting this to be the end of the conversation.

“But I really am ten.” Marjorie whispered under her breath as she walked to her desk. So much seemed unfair and confusing. Since they were living at the home, other kids treated them differently. A few times Marjorie overheard the girls in her class talking about having sleepovers and parties, but no one from the home was ever invited. She pretended not to care because she knew that children from the home would never be allowed to go even if they received an invitation.

Sundays were definitely the best days at the home in Marjorie’s mind, even if they had to go to church three times that day. Their mum hadn’t made them go to church in Whitley Bay because they didn’t have any Sunday clothes and she told them that she felt too embarrassed to walk into church with barefoot children. But she was proud that she had her children baptized, most of them at St. Paul’s in the heart of Whitley Bay. At the home they went to church first thing in the morning, then Sunday school in the afternoon, and then off to church again in the evening. It was a lot of church going for one day, however, they only had one chore for the whole day and that was to make their beds.

And Sundays were sweet days. Only the kids who had been really bad missed their sweets. After the morning service, they quickly changed to their play clothes, collected their treat, and ran out to the fields where they could play until the midday meal bell, and if the weather was nice they had free play again in the afternoon after church. Marjorie missed the beach though. Playing on the field was not the same as playing on the beach. She missed the sounds and the smell of the ocean.

A photograph of St. Mary’s Church in Selly Oak taken in 2010 and the church with the three sisters, Joyce, Marjorie, and Audrey, in the doorway in 2001. This was the church they attended while at the Middlemore Emigration Home.

Photo by Patricia Skidmore.

Marjorie tried to be good. Pulling her covers over her shoulders, she snuggled down and felt happier than she had in a long while. The home was okay for now, but she would never stop dreaming of finding her way back to her real home.

It was different for Joyce. She looked across the room, shouted goodnight to her younger sisters, and pulled her covers up. Like most of the older girls, she worked in the kitchen during the day and was used to it now, but when she watched the younger ones running out in the field she felt jealous. Joyce did not mind working in the kitchen instead of going to school, but working there now that it was summer break did not seem fair.

Joyce’s thoughts turned to Kenny. She had watched the boys having a race in the afternoon. Kenny was one of the fastest runners and definitely the fastest for his age. She was happy to see Marjorie jumping up and down, cheering him on, and wished she could be out there with them. There were only a few times when the boys and girls could play together and the playing fields were the only place they could really talk to each other.

Joyce loved her kitchen window. It was her portal to a bigger world where she could look past the playing fields and watch the horse and the donkey grazing on the far side of the fenced-in field. There were fences even beyond where they kept the animals. Joyce thought it was to keep the kids from running away, but if they were really determined to go, they needed more than these fences. What stopped most of them from going was having nowhere to go once they got beyond the fence. As Joyce peeled vegetables she schemed of ways to get them all back to their mum.

Joyce’s best friend had run away earlier in the summer. She wanted Joyce to go with her, but Joyce told her she had to stay because of her sisters and Kenny. Then her friend called her a chicken, a baby, and other names too, but Joyce stood her ground. As the girls readied for bed, Joyce noticed that her friend’s cot was empty. She casually walked over and lumped up her pillow under the blankets to make it look like she was sleeping, just as she had promised to do. No one said a word as the girls walked past the empty cot. There would be trouble the next day. After the lights went out, one of the girls whispered to Joyce, “Where is she? Did she really run away?” Joyce was too afraid to answer, so she pretended to be asleep.

Cook was everyone’s friend, but she made certain the chores were done on time. “Joyce! Stop yer daydreaming and get that peeler working. The meal will never be ready on time.” That was Cook’s favourite saying, and Joyce grinned to herself. Cook scolded everybody. She was nice though, and never really got mad at anyone.

Joyce could talk to Cook about most things. She asked her about the small groups of children who sometimes marched down the path, with a nurse or a master in the lead. She never saw any of the children return. She always got a funny answer. It was still hard to understand her accent. It sounded like she said Canada or Australia, but Joyce knew that was wrong. There were no places with those names in England. She had seen Canada and Australia on the huge wall map of the world in one of the schoolrooms and those places were clear around the world. The kids would not go there. Maybe they were getting to go home, but then they should have looked happier. The faces of some of these children reminded Joyce of her friend after they found her and brought her back — as if they were afraid about what was coming next.

Her friend had been back for a few days before Joyce had a chance to talk to her. “Where have you been? How far did you get? Why haven’t you been in our dorm at night?” Joyce’s questions came tumbling out. She admired her friend and wished she had some of her courage. Her friend’s troubled eyes glanced at Joyce and she walked away. Later that day, when Joyce tried to talk to her again, all she got was an angry retort: “Stop pestering me! Leave me alone! I hate you all!” Her friend’s words stunned her.

She pulled her covers up over her shoulders and closed her eyes. Would it have been any different if she had run away with her? Would they still be friends now? Friends were important here and losing one was hard.

The summer of 1937 moved along. The children in the home were kept busy with their daily chores. Marjorie looked forward to Sundays because of the little bit of freedom it afforded her, and she took the opportunity to go off by herself whenever possible. One warm sunny day in late July, Marjorie was out of bounds, exploring the graveyard down by the church. As she looked through the old graves she found herself thinking of Joyce. She wished her sister could be out with her instead of always working in the kitchen. The only good part of it was her big sister usually managed to sneak them some extra treats. The best treats were the cookies that Joyce took from the special jar — the jar that the kitchen helpers were not supposed to touch. Joyce knew how to rearrange the jar so that no one could tell that some cookies were missing. Many of the kids were jealous that she had a big sister in the kitchen, but she did not care, that only made her happier to have Joyce.

As she examined the graves, she felt a tingling go up her spine. It was spooky and exciting at the same time. She especially liked the old gravestone with the anchor on it. It seemed out of place because she was told that the ocean was so far away. She was rubbing the moss away from the writing, trying to see the date, when she heard her name. She nearly jumped out of her skin. She told Nurse that she thought she was a ghost. Nurse asked what on earth she was doing way down here, she should be in the fields and not over the fence. Marjorie explained that she was exploring things, but Nurse told her to get up and come along with her as she needed her to go in, get washed up, and put on her school clothes to look presentable. Marjorie protested that it was not a school day, and reminded Nurse that they were on their summer break. The ease of her protest showed how much more comfortable Marjorie had become at the home.

“Marjorie, enough cheekiness. Just do as you are told. We have some special guests here today and they want to talk to you. Get down to the headmaster’s office as soon as you are changed.”

Joyce looked out her window. She could see Marjorie walking up the path with the Nurse. What was going on today? Every quarter of an hour or so, the Nurse would come out to the playing field and call in two or three of the children.

A short while later, Marjorie gingerly walked down the hall, towards the dreaded office. Most of the children tried their best to avoid this room. If they sent a child there, he or she usually came out crying. When children needed to pass by the room, they usually tiptoed to avoid disturbing the headmaster.

When Marjorie reached the room, a line of children already stood along the wall. One of the older girls told her to stand at the end of the line and wait until she was called. Marjorie stood for ages. She wanted to get back outside, her playtime was disappearing. Finally, it was her turn. As Marjorie walked in, she heard Joyce’s name being spoken.

“No, it says here that she is already thirteen. I don’t even want to see her.” A man’s voice answered. Marjorie wondered what Joyce’s age had to do with anything, and besides, her sister was not thirteen, she was twelve. Marjorie was surprised to find two strange men in the headmaster’s office, but no headmaster. She was about to tell the man in the white doctor’s coat about the mistake in Joyce’s birthday, but he immediately called her over to him, and as she did so, he asked if she was indeed Marjorie Arnison.

She whispered, “Yes, sir.” Her voice always seemed to stick when she had to talk to people like this. His voice boomed out, showing Marjorie what he expected of her, and asked her to speak up. He told her that he needed to hear her clearly.

“Yes, sir, I am Marjorie,” she yelled out, immediately putting her hand to her mouth, surprised at the loudness of her voice. He said the records show that she was eleven years old. He peered over his glasses and told her that she was pretty small.

“Sir, I am ten, sir.” Marjorie whispered. Her age had become a bothersome topic. She didn’t know how to get the adults to listen to her.

“What? Speak up.”

“Ten, sir.” It still came out as a whisper.

“What? Never mind.” He asked her to come closer as he had to weigh her, measure her height, and look down her throat, all the while assuring her that it would not hurt at all.

The other man, who had been sitting quietly going over a stack of papers, called Marjorie over to him when the doctor was finished. He told her he had to give her a couple of tests, pointed to a desk beside him, and told her to sit. Next he handed her a paper. When she was done, he gave her another paper; this time it had a maze on it. He told her to trace her way through to the end. He didn’t hurry her so she took her time.

Marjorie looked at the maze. She liked mazes. Before she put her pencil on the paper, she looked through to find the end, searching out the blind alleys. She hated having to trace back from them. She found it was best to spot the dead ends first. When she was done, she picked up her paper and handed it back and said she was finished and asked if she could go.

She sat back down when he said no. There was one last test to do. He handed her another group of papers and she started the test. Frustration filled her, but over the months she had learned that it was easier to do what they asked without questioning or complaining. It was the summer holidays and she resented having to do these tests, but kept her feelings to herself. When she was done she stood up and looked at him. He nodded his head and told her to go. “Send in the next one in line.”

A formal letter under the Fairbridge letterhead, dated August 20, 1937. The Fairbridge Society, the Middlemore Emigration Homes, the Canadian officials at Canada House in London, and Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa, Ontario, sent and received many pieces of correspondence with regard to Marjorie and her siblings’ inclusion for the Fairbridge farm scheme in Canada.

University of Liverpool Archives, Special Collections Branch, Fairbridge Archives, Arnison Family Records, D296.E1.

Marjorie was about to ask the doctor what this was all about, but he was writing in a notebook. When he did not hear her leave, he looked up and shooed her away and told her to be quick about it, as he did not have all day.

She walked out and the next girl went in. Kenny was standing at the end of the line. He grabbed his big sister as she walked by and in a whisper asked her what was going on. She told him that that the doctor checks you and the other man just asks a bunch of silly questions and gives some tests, but she assured him that it did not hurt a bit. She told him that she would see him later and she skipped off towards the door. Before she could open it, Nurse shouted at her, “Where do you think you are going? Go up and change into your play clothes first.”

Joyce watched Marjorie skip along the path from her kitchen window. As she scrubbed her dishes, she thought of asking Cook what was going on. However, she did not, as it would be easier to ask Marjorie later. Adults did not like the children to ask too many questions, and, besides, you could never be sure if they were telling you the truth. As she washed dishes, she thought about her mum and Phyllis and the babies. She missed them. Did they miss her? They had been at Middlemore Homes for several months now, and her mum had not sent a single letter to them. Never mind that, she told herself, she was twelve and a half now and she would soon be old enough to be on her own. They insisted that she was already thirteen. Maybe she should stop telling them they were wrong. It might mean that she would get out of here sooner. The first thing she would do would be to find her way back to Whitley Bay, and she would take Marjorie, Audrey, and Kenny with her.

What would she find in Whitley Bay? Would they still be living in the same flat on Whitley Road? Would her mum take her back? She would miss the nice clothes, the food, and the sweets, but she definitely would not miss the mountains of dishes and potatoes to peel. She scrubbed furiously at the big pan. She wanted her mother, but she also wanted the nice things too. Nothing was easy to figure out anymore. She looked up; Kenny was skipping down to see Marjorie. One thing for sure she would do anything for her little sisters and her brother. Cook had left the room for the moment. She quickly grabbed the cookie jar and snuck a handful into her apron pocket. During her break, she would run out to the field and ask Marjorie what was going on.

The approval for Marjorie’s emigration.

Liverpool University Archives, Fairbridge Fonds, Special Collections Branch, Arnison Family Records, D296.E1.