Jan Haggart's Stories

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I was born in Carshalton, Surrey. I went to primary school at the Catholic school in Morden and then to high school at The Ursuline Convent, Wimbledon. I was evacuated to St. Helens in Lancashire in 1943 and remained there for two years, a most unhappy time.   We have lived in Australia since I was fourteen years of age, I am 64 now and have always considered moving to Australia just another forcible removal from what I loved. The first I knew of our planned emigration was when my dad told me we were going to move to Australia about 3 or 4 weeks before we sailed. I remember being extremely homesick for some time. I have three grown children and ten grandchildren, who are all thoroughly Australian and would never want to live anywhere else now, but I still remember the time just after our arrival in Sydney and how miserable I was. Some years ago I studied counselling and did a major assignment on child migrants, who of course had no choice about where they wanted to live. I talked to quite a number of people who had had the same experience and found they all had similar memories to mine.   Jan Haggart