‘People thought we were scum’ – forgotten legacy of British children sent to Canada

Published

2 years ago

October 5, 2023

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“A lot of people thought we were the scum of the earth,” he says of the Canada he encountered upon arrival as a teenager in 1938.

George Beardshaw is immaculate in pressed Canadian military green, beret and blazer. On his lapel, a strip of medals is anchored by the French Legion of Honour, for action during World War II.

George’s appearance and his past speak to the service this Yorkshire-born veteran gave to Canada, a country he grew to love. It would love him back, in time, after a difficult start.

George was one of 115,000 so-called British Home Children transported from orphan homes to Canada between 1869 and 1948. They were used as cheap labour, typically farm workers and domestic servants.

Their stories of being routinely overworked, mistreated and abused have been well-documented over the years. Many died young and suspicions persist that some were murdered.

Campaigners for the Home Children have demanded that Canada follow the UK and Australia in apologising for their involvement in child migrant schemes. When asked by Sky News if his government owed them an apology, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau didn’t address the question, saying only: “Good to see you.”

Today, George Beardshaw is one of the last surviving Home Children in Canada. The fighting days of an old soldier might be far behind him but this centenarian doesn’t shy away from the struggle to hear the word “sorry” from his adoptive country.

Asked if Justin Trudeau owed the Home Children an apology, he replied: “Yes, I think so. Yes.”

George was born in Thorne, South Yorkshire, in 1923. His mother sent him to live in a Barnardo’s home when he was a small child and he was shipped to Canada when he was 14 and put to work as a farmhand.

He told Sky News: “People thought that Britain was sending over some of the scum from off the streets of London, they all thought we were thieves.”

“Some got pitchforks through them. Some slept in the barn with the cattle.

“There was a furnace in this house (where I lived) to keep it warm, you know, down in the basement. But there was no heat on my side, where my bedroom was, and it used to get pretty chilly.”

Many British Home Children, when they were old enough, enlisted in the military to be sent back across the Atlantic and reunited with their families.

George joined the Second World War effort and was posted, temporarily, to the UK.

He told Sky News of the day he walked back into the family home in Yorkshire, for the first time since he was a small child, wearing the uniform of Canada’s Queen’s Own Rifles.

“Can you imagine? ‘Georgie Porgey’, here he is – 20 years-old, knocking on [my mother’s] front door. She didn’t know I was coming and she’d not seen me since I was three. When I went inside, people didn’t know what to say or do, you know, ‘Here he is, George from Canada’.”

He continued: “My grandmother was sitting in a big easy chair. As I walked by, she grabbed me by my webbing belt, sat me on her knee and she rubbed her face up against mine.”

Today, roughly 10% of Canada’s population is descended from the British Home Children. In a corner of Toronto’s Park Lawn cemetery, a memorial stands to more than 70 children whose remains have been discovered, in recent years, in unmarked graves.

The memorial consists of a block of granite with a piece of plate steel – complete with porthole – taken from a ship in the style of the vessels that transported children to Canada. Carved into the steel are the names of youngsters who died.

It was commissioned by the charity, Home Children Canada, which works to preserve the memory of the Home Children and to reunite families separated by child migrant schemes. It has led the campaign for an apology by the Canadian government.

The charity’s founder, Lori Oschefski, told Sky News: “This country was built on the backs of these children. It’s just a travesty. They knew about the horrific treatment.

“A lot of these kids were stripped of their identities. They were taken from their parents and they never saw their families ever again. And a lot of them were not even told about who they were and where they had come from.

“It’s human trafficking. It’s a violation of their fundamental human rights. They were put out on farms and… were often made to sleep in barns and unheated attics to stay far away from the families.

“Typically, for a young boy, they would be woken up at daybreak and work until nightfall. A lot of them were fed scraps of food. And when they showed any defiance, if we can call it defiance, they were beaten.”

Home Children Canada has also called on Canadian authorities to include the history of Home Children in the educational curriculum and to honour youngsters who fought for Canada at war.

At the heart of its campaigning, however, is the demand for a formal apology.

“We’re looking for an apology from the government of Canada and one of the primary reasons is because Canada failed these children. They had a hand in in bringing them here. They paid money to the sending organisations to have them here in Canada,” Ms Oschefski added.

“Why wouldn’t you apologise, especially when there are other countries stepping up to the plate and and apologising and becoming accountable for what happened? We’re not looking for compensation in the form of money. What we’re looking for is proper recognition for the Home Children.”

In 2010, the then-UK prime minister Gordon Brown apologised for those involved in child migrant schemes to former British colonies. The year before, former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd offered a formal apology for its role.

In 2017, Canada’s parliamentarians passed a motion of apology for the treatment of Home Children, but a formal apology hasn’t been forthcoming from the government itself.

The Canadian government did issue a statement to Sky News, which spoke of regret but didn’t say ‘sorry’. It read: “The Government of Canada is committed to keeping the memory of the British Home Children alive so that we can all learn from past mistakes.

“Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada deeply regrets this unjust and discriminatory policy, which was in place between 1869 to 1948. Such an approach would have no place in modern Canada, but we will not pretend that this did not happen.

“In 2017, a motion was passed in the House of Commons, by unanimous consent, to offer its sincere apology to the former British Home Children and to the descendants of these 100,000 individuals.

“The Government acknowledges the injustice, abuse and suffering endured by the British Home Children, and thanks them sincerely for their remarkable efforts, participation and contribution to strengthening our communities and our country in the face of extreme adversity.”

Back at the Parkwood Institute in London, Ontario, George Beardshaw was celebrating his 100th birthday. We joined him as he assembled friends and fellow veterans.

“If things improve with age, I’m getting pretty near perfect,” read the legend on his T-shirt and no-one was arguing – his friends and fellow veterans are familiar with, and fond of, the legend inside.

“All my buddies are in here,’ George told us, and he was duly serenaded with his favourite song, The White Cliffs of Dover. The Vera Lynn classic was sung by Grace, who happened to be a Patsy Cline impersonator. It was a mild incongruity but this was George’s party and it was what he wanted to hear.

At the age of 100, he still waits to hear the word “sorry” – officially. The hardest word comes with a hard reality. He can’t wait forever.

World

Why do so many from around the world try to cross the English Channel?

Published

1 hour ago

July 9, 2025

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Why do so many from around the world try to cross the English Channel?

While the politicians talk, so many people come from around the world to try to get across the Channel on small boats. But why?

Why make such a perilous crossing to try to get to a country that seems to be getting increasingly hostile to asylum seekers?

As the British and French leaders meet, with small boats at the forefront of their agenda, we came to northern France to get some answers.

It is not a new question, but it is peppered with fresh relevance.

Over the course of a morning spent around a migrant camp in Dunkirk, we meet migrants from Gaza, Iraq, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sri Lanka and beyond.

Some are fearful, waving us away; some are happy to talk. Very few are comfortable to be filmed.

All but one man – who says he’s come to the wrong place and actually wants to claim asylum in Paris – are intent on reaching Britain.

They see the calm seas, feel the light winds – perfect conditions for small boat crossings.

John has come here from South Sudan. He tells me he’s now 18 years old. He left his war-torn home nation just before his 16th birthday. He feels that reaching Britain is his destiny.

“England is my dream country,” he says. “It has been my dream since I was at school. It’s the country that colonised us and when I get there, I will feel like I am home.

“In England, they can give me an opportunity to succeed or to do whatever I need to do in my life. I feel like I am an English child, who was born in Africa.”

He says he would like to make a career in England, either as a journalist or in human resources, and, like many others we meet, is at pains to insist he will work hard.

The boat crossing is waved away as little more than an inconvenience – a trifle compared with the previous hardships of his journey towards Britain.

We meet a group of men who have all travelled from Gaza, intent on starting new lives in Britain and then bringing their families over to join them.

One man, who left Gaza two years ago, tells me that his son has since been shot in the leg “but there is no hospital for him to go to”.

Next to him, a man called Abdullah says he entered Europe through Greece and stayed there for months on end, but was told the Greek authorities would never allow him to bring over his family.

Britain, he thinks, will be more accommodating. “Gaza is being destroyed – we need help,” he says.

A man from Eritrea tells us he is escaping a failing country and has friends in Britain – he plans to become a bicycle courier in either London or Manchester.

He can’t stay in France, he says, because he doesn’t speak French. The English language is presented as a huge draw for many of the people we talk to, just as it had been during similar conversations over the course of many years.

I ask many of these people why they don’t want to stay in France, or another safe European country.

Some repeat that they cannot speak the language and feel ostracised. Another says that he tried, and failed, to get a residency permit in both France and Belgium.

But this is also, clearly, a flawed survey. Last year, five times as many people sought asylum in France as in Britain.

And French critics have long insisted that Britain, a country without a European-style ID card system, makes itself attractive to migrants who can “disappear”.

A young man from Iraq, with absolutely perfect English, comes for a chat. He oozes confidence and a certain amount of mischief.

It has taken him only seven days to get from Iraq to Dunkirk; when I ask how he has made the trip so quickly, he shrugs. “Money talks”.

He looks around him. “Let me tell you – all of these people you see around you will be getting to Britain and the first job they get will be in the black market, so they won’t be paying any tax.

“Back in the day in Britain, they used to welcome immigrants very well, but these days I don’t think they want to, because there’s too many of them coming by boat. Every day it’s about seven or 800 people. That’s too many people.”

“But,” I ask, “if those people are a problem – then what makes you different? Aren’t you a problem too?”

He shakes his head emphatically. “I know that I’m a very good guy. And I won’t be a problem. I’ll only stay in Britain for a few years and then I’ll leave again.”

A man from Sri Lanka says he “will feel safe” when he gets to Britain; a tall, smiling man from Ethiopia echoes the sentiment: “We are not safe in our home country so we have come all this way,” he says. “We want to work, to be part of Britain.”

Emmanuel is another from South Sudan – thoughtful and eloquent. He left his country five years ago – “at the start of COVID” – and has not seen his children in all that time. His aim is to start a new life in Britain, and then to bring his family to join him.

He is a trained electrical engineer, but says he could also work as a lorry driver. He is adamant that Britain has a responsibility to the people of its former colony.

“The British came to my country – colonising, killing, raping,” he said. “And we didn’t complain. We let it happen.

“I am not the problem. I won’t fight anyone; I want to work. And if I break the laws – if any immigrant breaks the laws – then fine, deport them.

“I know it won’t be easy – some people won’t like me, some people will. But England is my dream.”

World

Trump applying ‘heavy pressure’ on Netanyahu to end war in Gaza

Published

10 hours ago

July 9, 2025

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Trump applying 'heavy pressure' on Netanyahu to end war in Gaza

US President Donald Trump is putting “heavy” pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza, two sources close to the ceasefire negotiations have told Sky News.

One US source said: “The US pressure on Israel has begun, and tonight it will be heavy.”

The source, who is not authorised to speak publicly, was referring to the White House dinner on Monday night between Trump and Netanyahu.

A second Middle Eastern diplomatic source agreed that the American pressure on Israel would be intense.

Netanyahu arrived in Washington DC in the early hours of Monday morning and held meetings on Monday with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser.

The Israeli prime minister plans to be in Washington until Thursday with meetings on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

Trump has made clear his desire to bring the Gaza conflict to an end.

However, he has never articulated how a lasting peace, which would satisfy both the Israelis and Palestinians, could be achieved.

His varying comments about ownership of Gaza, moving Palestinians out of the territory and permanent resettlement, have presented a confusing policy.

Situation for Palestinians worse than ever

Over the coming days, we will see the extent to which Trump demands that Netanyahu accepts the current Gaza ceasefire deal, even if it falls short of Israel’s war aims – the elimination of Hamas.

The strategic objective to permanently remove Hamas seems always to have been impossible. Hamas as an entity was the extreme consequence of the Israeli occupation.

The Palestinians’ challenge has not gone away, and the situation for Palestinians now is worse than it has ever been in Gaza and also the West Bank. It is not clear how Trump plans to square that circle.

Trump’s oft-repeated desire to “stop the killing” is sincere. Those close to him often emphasise this. He is also looking to cement his legacy as a peacemaker. He genuinely craves the Nobel Peace Prize.

In this context, the complexities of conflicts – in Ukraine or Gaza – are often of secondary importance to the president.

If Netanyahu can be persuaded to end the war, what would he need?

The hostages back – for sure. That would require agreement from Hamas. They would only agree to this if they have guarantees on Gaza’s future and their own future. More circles to square.

Was White House dinner a key moment?

The Monday night dinner could have been a key moment for the Middle East. Two powerful men in the Blue Room of the White House, deciding the direction of the region.

Will it be seen as the moment the region was remoulded? But to whose benefit?

Trump is a dealmaker with an eye on the prize. But Netanyahu is a political master; they don’t call him “the magician” for nothing.

Trump makes decisions instinctively. He can shift position quickly and often listens to the last person in the room. Right now – that person is Netanyahu.

Gaza is one part of a jigsaw of challenges, which could become opportunities.

Diplomatic normalisation between Israel and the Arab world is a prize for Trump and could genuinely secure him the Nobel Peace Prize.

But without the Gaza piece, the jigsaw is incomplete.

World

IDF presence in Gaza ‘only issue’ still to be resolved in push for Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Sky News understands

Published

10 hours ago

July 9, 2025

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IDF presence in Gaza 'only issue' still to be resolved in push for Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Sky News understands

Only one issue remains unresolved in the push to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, according to Sky sources.

Intense negotiations are taking place in Qatar in parallel with key talks in Washington between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Two sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations have told Sky News that disagreement between Israel and Hamas remains on the status and presence of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) inside Gaza.

The two sides have bridged significant differences on several other issues, including the process of delivering humanitarian aid and Hamas’s demand that the US guarantees to ensure Israel doesn’t unilaterally resume the war when the ceasefire expires in 60 days.

On the issue of humanitarian aid, Sky News understands that a third party that neither Hamas nor Israel has control over will be used in areas from which the IDF withdraws.

This means that the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – jointly run by an American organisation and Israel – will not be able to operate anywhere where the IDF is not deployed. It will limit GHF expansion plans.

It is believed the United Nations or other recognised humanitarian organisations will adopt a greater role.

On the issue of a US guarantee to prevent Israel restarting the war, Sky News understands that a message was passed to Hamas by Dr Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian American who has emerged as a key back channel in the negotiations.

The message appears to have been enough to convince Hamas that President Trump will prevent Israel from restarting the conflict.

However, there is no sense from any of the developments over the course of the past day about what the future of Gaza looks like longer-term.

Final challenge is huge

The last remaining disagreement is, predictably, the trickiest to bridge.

Israel’s central war aim, beyond the return of the hostages, is the total elimination of Hamas as a military and political organisation. The withdrawal of the IDF, partial or total, could allow Hamas to regroup.

One way to overcome this would be to provide wider guarantees of clear deliverable pathways to a viable future for Palestinians.

But there is no sense from the negotiations of any longer-term commitments on this issue.

Two key blocks have been resolved over the past 24 hours but the final challenge is huge.

The conflict in Gaza erupted when Hamas attacked southern Israel in October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Some 20 hostages are believed to remain alive in Gaza.

Israel has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.