An honest and powerful insight into the challenges faced daily by us as stepchildren, the impossible human default to love and care for children from a first marriage and cross-cultural biases, as they do their own children. Animals can care for an abandoned cub of an alternative species, notably to a certain age when their natural instincts kick in, either with the cub or the adopted parents. So, from the minds of the children involved in this saga let us start at the beginning bringing events into light removing the pretentious masks worn by the very people who chose to have us in their homes. Make no mistake this is not a boohoo account of difficulties in our childhood, this work I hope will show that there is hope and achievements to be realised by the resulting adults even when you are conditioned to believe otherwise.
Post-World War 2, the British colonies including the Caribbean islands, were invited to provide a labour force with the aim of rebuilding England's infrastructure to enable recovery after years of bombings resulting from World War 2. There was a heavy loss of lives, disbursement of children away from families, protecting them by moving them into the countryside where heavy bombing was less likely. We can only try to imagine the heartache of those children and their parents, as the authorities did their best to keep the children as safe as possible. It was not just a loss of lives but also massive damage to central cities around England, to buildings, communications, and trade, leaving the country devastated. England still owned parts of the Caribbean as part of their commonwealth assets. Jamaica had not yet realised independence from England, a tiny island trying to build herself up after years of oppression, provided a large work force for the rebuilding of England, many answering the call from their mother country, the stories that London was paved with gold was taken literally by some, so they hurried to the call with great expectations. They would leave their families, wives, and children, while they worked to send as much money as they could back to the islands, to feed and clothe their families. The initial excitement would be cut sharp as they ventured from the ships and made their way through the cities to find work, facing racial abuse, unwelcoming neighbours, and loneliness away from their families.
Enter stage left my mother one of a twin girl and boy, to their father Thomas and mother Mary in February 1935, both healthy and loved by both parents and living with their grandparents. Thomas was a soldier called up to support the armed forces to go overseas leaving the twins wiyh his mother.
Enter stage right following the request from Britain, for labourers in the colonies to help rebuild post war damage, my father, a child of indentured workers who were taken as children by the British government from their homes in India and shipped to Jamaica in 1912 to work on the plantations vacated by the abolishment of slavery.