‘People thought we were scum’ – forgotten legacy of British children sent to Canada
“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.
George saw service in France during the Second World War
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.”
Sky News asked Canadian PM Justin Trudeau: ‘Does your government owe an apology?’
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.
George in Canadian military uniform. He served with the 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.
A memorial to British Home Children at Toronto’s Park Lawn cemetery
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.”
The memorial lists the names of more than 70 children.
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.”
George shows James Matthews his birthday messages from the King and Queen, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
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.”
Lori Oschefski founded the charity Home Children Canada
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
‘At least 798 killed’ at Gaza aid points – as medical charity warns acute malnutrition at all-time high
At least 798 people in Gaza have reportedly been killed while receiving aid in the past six weeks – while acute malnutrition is said to have reached an all-time high.
The UN human rights office said 615 of the deaths – between 27 May and 7 July – were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” said Ravina Shamdasani, from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Its figures are based on a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries, and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), its partners on the ground, and Hamas-run health authorities.
Aid agency Project Hope said on Thursday that 10 children were among at least 15 people killed as they waited for its clinic in Deir al Balah to open.
Ten children were reportedly killed when Israel attacked near a clinic on Thursday. Pic: AP
The GHF has claimed the UN figures are “false and misleading” and has repeatedly denied any violence at or around its sites.
Meanwhile, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said two of its sites were seeing their worst-ever levels of severe malnutrition.
Cases at its Gaza City clinic are said to have tripled from 293 in May to 983 in early July.
“Over 700 pregnant or breastfeeding women and nearly 500 children are now receiving emergency nutritional care,” MSF said.
The humanitarian medical charity said food prices were at extreme levels, with sugar at $766 (£567) per kilo and flour $30 (£22) per kilo, and many families surviving on one meal of rice or lentils a day.
It’s a major concern for the estimated 55,000 pregnant women in Gaza, who risk miscarriage, stillbirth and malnourished infants because of the shortages.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the coastal territory.
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US aid contractors claim live ammo fired at Palestinians
It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip.
The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.
Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.
The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what it says is a suspicious manner.
It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies from falling into the hands of militants.
Read more:
GHF aid distribution linked to increased deaths
Gaza situation ‘apocalyptic’, says UN expert
After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach the aid hubs, the United Nations has called the GHF’s aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
In response, a GHF spokesperson said: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”
The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.
At least 798 people in Gaza have been killed while receiving aid in six weeks, the UN human rights office has said.
A spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said 615 of the killings were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
The office said its figures are based on numbers from a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as NGOs, its partners on the ground and the Hamas-run health authorities.
The GHF has claimed the figures are “false and misleading”. It has repeatedly denied there has been any violence at or around its sites.
The organisation began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the enclave.
It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip. The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.
Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.
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US aid contractors claim live ammo fired at Palestinians
The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what they say is a suspicious manner.
It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies falling into the hands of militants.
Read more:
GHF aid distribution linked to increased deaths
Gaza situation ‘apocalyptic’, says UN expert
After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach the aid hubs, the United Nations has called the GHF’s aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
In response, a GHF spokesperson told the Reuters news agency: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”
The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.
Ten children and two women are among at least 15 killed in an airstrike near a Gaza health clinic, according to an aid organisation.
Project Hope said it happened this morning near Altayara Junction, in Deir al Balah, as patients waited for the clinic to open.
The organisation’s president called it a “blatant violation of international humanitarian law, and a stark reminder that no one and no place is safe in Gaza“.
“No child waiting for food and medicine should face the risk of being bombed,” added the group’s project manager, Dr Mithqal Abutaha.
“It was a horrific scene. People had to come seeking health and support, instead they faced death.”
Operations at the clinic – which provides a range of health and maternity services – have been suspended.
Some of the children were reportedly waiting to receive nutritional supplements, necessary due to the dire shortage of food being allowed into Gaza.
Israel‘s military is investigating and said it was targeting a militant who took part in the 7 October terror attack.
“The IDF [Israel Defence Force] regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible,” added.
The deaths come as an agreement over a 60-day truce hangs in the balance – with President Trump cautiously saying it could happen “this week, or next week”.
Elsewhere in Gaza, the Nasser Hospital reported another 21 deaths in airstrikes in Khan Younis and in the nearby coastal area of Muwasi.
It said three children and their mother were among the dead.
Israel said its troops have been dismantling more than 130 Hamas infrastructure sites in Khan Younis over the past week, including missile launch sites, weapons storage facilities and a 500m tunnel.
On Wednesday, a soldier was shot dead when militants burst out of a tunnel and tried to abduct him, the military added.
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Do Trump and Netanyahu really get along?
Eighteen soldiers have been killed in the past three weeks – one of the deadliest periods for the Israeli army in months.
A 22-year-old Israeli man was also killed on Thursday by two attackers in a supermarket in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said the Magen David Adom emergency service.
People on site reportedly shot and killed the attackers but information on their identity has so far not been released.
Read more:
IDF chief says conditions ‘created’ for Gaza ceasefire
What is the possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal ?
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Lack of food and water ‘lethal’ for Gaza children
Negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire are ongoing and President Trump reportedly put “heavy” pressure on Israel’s leader, who visited the US this week.
A major sticking point is said to be the status of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) inside Gaza during the 60-day ceasefire and beyond, should it last longer.
However, Sky News understands the Israeli government thinks the chances of a permanent truce are “questionable”.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
More than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war – more than half are women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry.
Its figure does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
The war began in October 2023 after Hamas killed around 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 251 others.
Some of them remain In Gaza and are a crucial part of ceasefire negotiations, which also include a planned surge in humanitarian aid into the strip.
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