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This programme contains some strong language | 0:00:02 | 0:00:06 | |
-Do you want a wee drink? Cheers. -Cheers. | 0:00:06 | 0:00:08 | |
THEY CONVERSE INAUDIBLY | 0:00:09 | 0:00:11 | |
It was a terrible thing that a family should be split up the way it was. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:21 | |
And what happened to these kids, that was criminal. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:23 | |
This is just one family and look at the mess. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:28 | |
The tragedy of the whole thing is that all those missing years, | 0:00:31 | 0:00:36 | |
if only we knew about each other. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:38 | |
I would say, we were... | 0:00:40 | 0:00:42 | |
..ignored and we were cheated out of getting to know | 0:00:43 | 0:00:47 | |
all our brothers and sisters. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:49 | |
When you look at everything that has happened to us all, | 0:00:51 | 0:00:54 | |
everything that happened to everybody, it's so strange. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:58 | |
You know, how did they get away with that in them days? | 0:00:58 | 0:01:01 | |
We were all taken from our mother, | 0:01:01 | 0:01:04 | |
we were all separated from each other, | 0:01:04 | 0:01:06 | |
scattered all over Scotland and we were lied to for years. | 0:01:06 | 0:01:11 | |
My name is Bernard Clark. | 0:01:35 | 0:01:37 | |
I was born the 8th of August 1954 in Greenock. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:42 | |
My name is Joan Clark. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:53 | |
My birthday is 21/05/'53. | 0:01:55 | 0:01:58 | |
Joan was always my protector, | 0:02:01 | 0:02:04 | |
if you want to call her that. | 0:02:04 | 0:02:07 | |
That's Bernard, he's my young brother. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:10 | |
We grew up together. He is a character. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:12 | |
He winds me up constantly and always has, since we were wee. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:16 | |
We were removed in 1956 from the family home... | 0:02:19 | 0:02:23 | |
..because of the state we were in, health-wise. | 0:02:25 | 0:02:29 | |
It was quite horrific. | 0:02:29 | 0:02:31 | |
We had a wee sister, Sandra, who was taken away at the same time, | 0:02:33 | 0:02:38 | |
and she was only four months. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:40 | |
The only thing I could think of was they didn't want us. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:44 | |
But as I got older and learned all the different things, | 0:02:47 | 0:02:51 | |
it was through being poor that they lost us. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
There's newspaper stories about our family in the local library. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:07 | |
I'll join that and see if I can find this. | 0:03:08 | 0:03:11 | |
-There we go. -Yes. -Right. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
"June 1956. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:16 | |
"Greenock mother gets maximum jail sentence. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:19 | |
"For what the deputy fiscal described as one of the worst cases | 0:03:19 | 0:03:24 | |
"of child neglect he had encountered." | 0:03:24 | 0:03:28 | |
Now, that is you, that's me and that's Sandra. | 0:03:28 | 0:03:32 | |
Sandra. Right. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
"She wilfully neglected three children in a manner likely to cause | 0:03:41 | 0:03:47 | |
"them unnecessary suffering and injury to their health." | 0:03:47 | 0:03:51 | |
-Right. -"Accused and her family were living in a drinking den. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:56 | |
"The baby was lying in a foul-smelling pram. | 0:04:02 | 0:04:07 | |
"The children were in a disgusting state. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:11 | |
"They were filthy, scantily clad, and their bodies... | 0:04:11 | 0:04:15 | |
"..and their bodies were infested with head and body lice." | 0:04:23 | 0:04:27 | |
When I read the paper, I was actually shocked. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:34 | |
How can you let somewhere go that bad | 0:04:34 | 0:04:38 | |
that, if you were drinking, you wouldn't notice? | 0:04:38 | 0:04:41 | |
Reading it, I know it is me and Bernard and Sandra, | 0:04:41 | 0:04:45 | |
but I have put it away in a box. | 0:04:45 | 0:04:48 | |
It didn't seem real. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:51 | |
I can understand why anybody that came into that property and seen | 0:04:55 | 0:05:00 | |
three kids in that state would have them taken away and put into care. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:05 | |
"It was scarcely credible that such a disregard and cruel outlook | 0:05:07 | 0:05:14 | |
"towards young children could be adopted by any person, | 0:05:14 | 0:05:18 | |
"least of all a mother." | 0:05:18 | 0:05:21 | |
She didn't have a solicitor, | 0:05:21 | 0:05:23 | |
she didn't have anybody to stand up for her and, | 0:05:23 | 0:05:27 | |
quite honestly, when you read the report in the paper, | 0:05:27 | 0:05:30 | |
they crucified her. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:31 | |
"'I had no hesitation at all in imposing the maximum sentence | 0:05:33 | 0:05:38 | |
"of six months' imprisonment,' said Sheriff Wilson." | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
It doesn't even feel real. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:51 | |
It feels like it's somebody's story, but it's somebody else's story. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:54 | |
-It's as if it is not our story. -I know. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:56 | |
But I always knew I had a wee sister. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:01 | |
For some reason, I always knew I had a wee sister. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:04 | |
Sandra was separated from me and Joan. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:10 | |
Why we were separated, I don't know. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:12 | |
You would have thought they would have kept us together. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:16 | |
Joan, myself, | 0:06:17 | 0:06:19 | |
we were fostered out to a Mrs Carr in Greenock. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:24 | |
Very first memory I have is in the home and there was a big, big, shiny | 0:06:26 | 0:06:32 | |
table and I was placed on the table and told to walk across the table. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:39 | |
And the lady's saying to me, "This is your new mum," | 0:06:39 | 0:06:42 | |
and that was Mrs Carr. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:45 | |
I would say, "Mum," and she would say to me, "I'm not your mum. | 0:06:45 | 0:06:49 | |
"Don't call me Mum, I'm not your mum." | 0:06:49 | 0:06:51 | |
Regarding her as a mother, I never did that. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:56 | |
She was a person that put the fear of God into you. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:01 | |
There was times I was terrified. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:03 | |
She was a big woman, so if she gave you a slap, you knew about it. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:07 | |
Bernard was put into bed and he was crying. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:09 | |
And I was put into bed with him. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:17 | |
And I says to him, "Don't worry, we'll be all right." | 0:07:17 | 0:07:21 | |
Joan would stick up for me and she would take the beating, | 0:07:23 | 0:07:26 | |
rather than her wee brother taking the beating. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:28 | |
She was strict. I don't ever remember being cuddled. | 0:07:30 | 0:07:35 | |
I don't ever remember that. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:38 | |
Cos I don't think that was the type of person she was. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:40 | |
She was always chasing us. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:43 | |
She was running after us with a poker. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:48 | |
And she hit the table, she missed, | 0:07:48 | 0:07:50 | |
and broke her fingers and that is the only reason that I remember it, | 0:07:50 | 0:07:54 | |
because she broke her fingers. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:56 | |
As far as I knew, it was just Joan and I. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:05 | |
I was never told about any other brothers and sisters. | 0:08:06 | 0:08:10 | |
Our foster mother kept saying to us, "If you meet anybody, Clark - | 0:08:15 | 0:08:18 | |
"don't you be going out with anybody called Clark." | 0:08:18 | 0:08:21 | |
And I went, "Aye, OK." | 0:08:21 | 0:08:23 | |
First contact came out of the blue. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:37 | |
It was the year 2011... | 0:08:40 | 0:08:42 | |
..and a car stopped outside. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:45 | |
When I met George and Jim, when them two walked into the house, | 0:08:47 | 0:08:51 | |
nobody had to tell me, I knew when I seen them, even getting out of | 0:08:51 | 0:08:54 | |
the car before they came to the door, | 0:08:54 | 0:08:56 | |
that them two were my brothers. | 0:08:56 | 0:08:58 | |
My name is James McIver Clark, born 19th of March 1947. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:05 | |
Didn't know anything about Jim. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:10 | |
Didn't know anything about George. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
I said, "How many more?" | 0:09:14 | 0:09:16 | |
When we met, it was as if we knew each other all our lives. | 0:09:18 | 0:09:21 | |
The feeling that came over me, it was so natural. | 0:09:21 | 0:09:24 | |
We are family. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:25 | |
They spent years looking for me and they told me that there was | 0:09:27 | 0:09:31 | |
a lot more of us. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:32 | |
I'm 59 years old and I'm finding out for the first time, | 0:09:34 | 0:09:38 | |
I could have 17, 18 siblings. | 0:09:38 | 0:09:41 | |
Some had passed away, but there was others they were still looking for. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:50 | |
My feelings of that day... | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
I was amazed | 0:09:54 | 0:09:57 | |
the number of family that we had... | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
..but fucking angry that I was never told about any of these... | 0:10:00 | 0:10:05 | |
..told any of that information by anybody before. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:11 | |
George told the story of how he has been looking for his siblings | 0:10:18 | 0:10:22 | |
and the rest of his family. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:24 | |
George was committed completely to finding out about everybody. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:32 | |
The hard work... | 0:10:33 | 0:10:34 | |
..the research, the graft was all done by George. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:40 | |
George started this over 40-odd years ago. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:45 | |
It was a lifetime work, but it must have been a mammoth task. | 0:10:45 | 0:10:50 | |
Trying to find people that didn't exist. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
And he never gave up. | 0:10:57 | 0:10:59 | |
Even when Inverclyde District Council turned round and says, | 0:10:59 | 0:11:03 | |
"We don't know anything about them." | 0:11:03 | 0:11:05 | |
George never took that as an answer, | 0:11:05 | 0:11:09 | |
because he wanted the truth. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:11 | |
Always George and me were together. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:20 | |
Most of the time, I looked after George cos the parents were too busy | 0:11:21 | 0:11:25 | |
in the next room or in the pub drinking, and a lot of strangers | 0:11:25 | 0:11:31 | |
came in and out. We didn't know who was family and who wasn't. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
Then the police got involved, we were handed over to the courts. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
George was four and a half and I was six and a half. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
We were only kids. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:49 | |
George and I came out with two little brown suitcases, then this | 0:11:52 | 0:11:55 | |
other lad appeared and they said, "That's your brother." | 0:11:55 | 0:11:57 | |
It's like saying it's raining, it didn't mean anything, | 0:11:57 | 0:12:00 | |
cos we didn't know him. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:02 | |
We didn't know that was Tommy. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:04 | |
We didn't know he was our brother. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:06 | |
We were put in a car and driven up to the Highlands to be boarded out. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
Boarding out was the welfare's way of getting children | 0:12:29 | 0:12:33 | |
out of the cities. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:34 | |
They sent kids to the farms in the Highlands, | 0:12:34 | 0:12:38 | |
where farmers were paid to bring them up. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:40 | |
It was supposed to get them away from the poverty in the cities | 0:12:43 | 0:12:47 | |
to a clean upbringing. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:48 | |
They were put somewhere where they were supposed to have been | 0:12:53 | 0:12:56 | |
taken care of, to be safe. | 0:12:56 | 0:12:58 | |
And it didn't happen. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:01 | |
When we arrived there, it was all nice, | 0:13:06 | 0:13:08 | |
the wife and the farmer were all nice and friendly, | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
and very pleasant, "Have a bit of chocolate," | 0:13:11 | 0:13:14 | |
and all this sort of thing. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:16 | |
This went on for two days. | 0:13:16 | 0:13:17 | |
And on the third day, she hit me so hard, | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
it knocked me out. I was out for hours. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
And that's when it started. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:36 | |
Because Tommy was older, | 0:13:44 | 0:13:46 | |
they accepted him, cos he could work on the farm. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:49 | |
Because George and I were too small to work on the farm | 0:13:49 | 0:13:52 | |
and that really annoyed her. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:54 | |
George and I were helping to clear out this old chicken shed, | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
then they came in and threw a couple of old 1940s beds - | 0:14:03 | 0:14:07 | |
there was no mattresses, it was just potato sacks. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:10 | |
The wind howled through and we were put in there and that was our | 0:14:10 | 0:14:14 | |
accommodation for the whole time we were there. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:17 | |
The cruelty... | 0:14:20 | 0:14:21 | |
..is a polite word. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:24 | |
The farmer's wife hated us. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:26 | |
When this woman beat you, she used anything she could pick up, | 0:14:26 | 0:14:29 | |
it could be a broom handle, a branch of a tree, an iron bar. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:33 | |
The amount of beatings, I lost count. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:37 | |
You could say, on average, every couple of days. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
They'd tie you by your wrists, | 0:14:42 | 0:14:44 | |
so you were high enough and your toes would barely touch the ground | 0:14:44 | 0:14:48 | |
and leave you there. You could be screaming, you would have no food. | 0:14:48 | 0:14:51 | |
This is two or three days at a time sometimes. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:53 | |
You're just left hanging there. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:55 | |
Sometimes they'd give you a really good smack with the branch of a tree | 0:14:55 | 0:14:59 | |
and just walk away from you. | 0:14:59 | 0:15:02 | |
Imagine somebody grabbing you by the hair, beating the... | 0:15:02 | 0:15:04 | |
Excuse the expression, but beating the crap of you, a little child, | 0:15:04 | 0:15:08 | |
only so... | 0:15:08 | 0:15:10 | |
I don't see myself now as an adult. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:18 | |
I see myself as that child, struggling to... | 0:15:18 | 0:15:23 | |
either live or die. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:25 | |
Because I ran away so much, the police got involved. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:42 | |
We did find a report from the local police. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:47 | |
"3rd of March 1957. | 0:15:50 | 0:15:52 | |
"Farmer called and reported that two orphans, Thomas and James Clark, | 0:15:52 | 0:15:57 | |
"were missing. | 0:15:57 | 0:15:58 | |
"Eventually, the boys were located in woods by a local farmer. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:02 | |
"The boys were quite prepared to go back to the farm... | 0:16:02 | 0:16:05 | |
"..and they were both clean and well cared for." | 0:16:06 | 0:16:09 | |
Where did this come from, "We were clean and well cared for"? | 0:16:10 | 0:16:13 | |
No way. | 0:16:13 | 0:16:15 | |
Only time we were lucky enough to have a bath | 0:16:15 | 0:16:17 | |
was when it rained heavy. | 0:16:17 | 0:16:19 | |
And the last bit says, "They were late going home from church | 0:16:19 | 0:16:23 | |
"and they were afraid to go home." | 0:16:23 | 0:16:26 | |
Of course we were afraid to go home, | 0:16:26 | 0:16:28 | |
cos we knew exactly what was going to happen. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:30 | |
They were evil. | 0:16:30 | 0:16:32 | |
The police, they'd ask us, you know, "Why did you run away?" | 0:16:33 | 0:16:36 | |
and stuff like that, and we daren't say anything. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:38 | |
You'd put your life in your hands if you said anything. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:41 | |
And at the same time, I didn't trust the police, either. | 0:16:41 | 0:16:45 | |
So the best thing to do was just... | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
There was one incident, I got such a hell of a beating, | 0:16:52 | 0:16:56 | |
when I was released, I just legged it straight down to the bog area. | 0:16:56 | 0:16:59 | |
These were old peat bogs, where all the peat was, it was all full of water. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:15 | |
I wanted to... I wanted it all to stop. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:18 | |
All I had to do was just move a couple of inches, and I wouldn't be here. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:25 | |
Some time, 2014, George got in contact with the Sunday Mail, | 0:17:44 | 0:17:50 | |
and we told the story. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:52 | |
"The Secret Slaves of Scotland, the Child Slaves of Scotland." | 0:17:54 | 0:17:58 | |
Maybe lost members of the family would read this... | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
..and realise that they were a member of this family, | 0:18:05 | 0:18:09 | |
that had been searching for years for lost siblings. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:13 | |
I remember seeing the article, and I didn't read it at the time, | 0:18:20 | 0:18:24 | |
but my name was in the article. | 0:18:24 | 0:18:28 | |
So, if I'd read it, I'd have been on the phone to the newspaper to say, | 0:18:28 | 0:18:32 | |
"I'm one of the brothers." | 0:18:32 | 0:18:34 | |
My name is Ian MacLean. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:41 | |
I was born David Fleming Clark on the 17th of January 1952. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:47 | |
I was adopted at ten months. | 0:19:02 | 0:19:04 | |
I was adopted through a Salvation Army home... | 0:19:05 | 0:19:08 | |
..and I had blemishes all over my skin, possibly through neglect. | 0:19:09 | 0:19:15 | |
This is me and my adoptive mother. | 0:19:18 | 0:19:21 | |
I'm just about a year and a half old. | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
What this photograph tells me is how important it was... | 0:19:24 | 0:19:29 | |
..for my mother to have a child, | 0:19:30 | 0:19:32 | |
because they thought they weren't going to have a family. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:34 | |
And you can see from the expression on my mother's face... | 0:19:34 | 0:19:37 | |
..how proud she is to have her own son. | 0:19:38 | 0:19:41 | |
When I look at it, I see my mum. | 0:19:42 | 0:19:46 | |
I see the only mum that I'd ever known. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:49 | |
And it wasn't until later, when I was 18, | 0:19:49 | 0:19:51 | |
that I was told that I was adopted. | 0:19:51 | 0:19:54 | |
You're struggling with, "Who are you? What happened? | 0:19:56 | 0:19:59 | |
"Where did I come from? | 0:19:59 | 0:20:00 | |
"Who are my family? And what are the reasons?" | 0:20:00 | 0:20:03 | |
And the big question - why? | 0:20:03 | 0:20:04 | |
My name is Ian Wilson Savage. | 0:20:08 | 0:20:11 | |
I was born Peter Clark on the 11th of November 1950 | 0:20:11 | 0:20:15 | |
in the town of Greenock. | 0:20:15 | 0:20:17 | |
A letter come through the letterbox from social services in Greenock. | 0:20:28 | 0:20:33 | |
It said that there was a family looking for me. | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
I had no idea whatsoever that there was another family existed. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:43 | |
I was lucky, I got adopted, | 0:20:48 | 0:20:50 | |
and my adoption was a fairly good one. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
When I was about six years of age, | 0:20:53 | 0:20:55 | |
my mother sat me down one day and said to me that I had been adopted, | 0:20:55 | 0:21:00 | |
and sat and explained what that meant to me. | 0:21:00 | 0:21:04 | |
I think I just looked at the family I had and thought, | 0:21:04 | 0:21:06 | |
"Well, that's my real family." | 0:21:06 | 0:21:09 | |
I didn't really want to know anything about the family, | 0:21:09 | 0:21:12 | |
because I assumed, you know, again, that they were all dead. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:15 | |
The doorbell went and I went up to answer the door and there's this guy, | 0:21:18 | 0:21:21 | |
this man standing there, guy standing there, | 0:21:21 | 0:21:23 | |
more or less the same age as me. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:24 | |
So he said to me, "I'm George." | 0:21:26 | 0:21:27 | |
And there's my brother standing there, | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
and it was as if we'd known each other for 60 years. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:35 | |
There was absolutely no difference, it was just George. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:38 | |
George achieved his goal. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:44 | |
He found them two boys. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:47 | |
I call them boys! | 0:21:47 | 0:21:50 | |
But he found both of them. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:52 | |
We were both adopted separately. | 0:21:55 | 0:21:57 | |
We grew up without knowing anything about each other or, in fact, | 0:21:57 | 0:22:02 | |
anything about any of the others. | 0:22:02 | 0:22:03 | |
I remember the day that George walked in, his face was beaming. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:08 | |
-Aye. -I says, "You've found the other brother." | 0:22:08 | 0:22:10 | |
He says, "How did you know that?" | 0:22:10 | 0:22:12 | |
I says, "I can tell by the relief and the excitement | 0:22:12 | 0:22:15 | |
-"and all the rest of it on your face." -Aye. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:17 | |
George was the driving force to bring the family together. | 0:22:24 | 0:22:27 | |
He's such an open person, George, in his own way. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:31 | |
And he had the information, | 0:22:32 | 0:22:34 | |
and we were only starting to get to know George when, unfortunately, | 0:22:34 | 0:22:37 | |
he passed away. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:39 | |
He was a terrific person to meet, to listen to. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
Erm, and... | 0:22:48 | 0:22:51 | |
..I miss him. | 0:22:53 | 0:22:55 | |
It's important to me now, because it was important to George. | 0:23:17 | 0:23:21 | |
It's as if I've been given the responsibility, | 0:23:21 | 0:23:24 | |
now that George is in a better place, if you want to call it that. | 0:23:24 | 0:23:29 | |
I've been given the responsibility now to finish it all. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:33 | |
And I'd love to do it and be able to say, at the end of the day, | 0:23:33 | 0:23:37 | |
"Well, George, there you go, there's the story finished." | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
Greenock is a big part of the family story, | 0:23:43 | 0:23:46 | |
because that's where everyone was born. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
But then a lot of the family ended up in Dundee. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:53 | |
I'm going to drop in to an old friend | 0:23:55 | 0:23:58 | |
of my late brother George's, Janet. | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
-Hi, Janet. -Hi, Bernard, come in. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:03 | |
Janet spent years helping George with his research. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:08 | |
I remember George telling me that, when he first started all this, | 0:24:08 | 0:24:12 | |
the amount of time that George spent... | 0:24:12 | 0:24:14 | |
..on trying to trace everybody. | 0:24:16 | 0:24:18 | |
He used to be along some days at half past seven in the morning, | 0:24:18 | 0:24:21 | |
and away till ten o'clock at night. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:23 | |
THEY LAUGH | 0:24:23 | 0:24:25 | |
And went we found out that there was 17 to 18 siblings, | 0:24:25 | 0:24:28 | |
it really took George by surprise. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:30 | |
All he could say, "I can't believe this, I can't believe this." | 0:24:30 | 0:24:33 | |
-Aye. -George went to the Inverclyde authorities, | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
he asked about you and Joan, and he got told that youse didn't exist. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:40 | |
That's unbelievable. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:43 | |
George knew that Joan and I existed. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:47 | |
And for them to turn round... | 0:24:47 | 0:24:48 | |
..years later and say we don't exist is absolutely unbelievable. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:54 | |
He knew there was a Bernard and he knew there was a Joan. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:57 | |
He was told there was a Sandra, | 0:24:59 | 0:25:01 | |
but she was adopted and sent to Australia. | 0:25:01 | 0:25:03 | |
Yeah, we were all told that. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:05 | |
I think the words they used was, "In the future, | 0:25:05 | 0:25:07 | |
"don't even attempt to try and find her." | 0:25:07 | 0:25:10 | |
We were always led to believe that Sandra had been adopted | 0:25:13 | 0:25:18 | |
and emigrated abroad. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:20 | |
But Sandra had been adopted by a family down in Ayr. | 0:25:22 | 0:25:27 | |
They lied to us. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:31 | |
It was a complete made-up story. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:36 | |
Why? Why? What were they trying to achieve? | 0:25:36 | 0:25:39 | |
When George finally found Sandra... | 0:25:45 | 0:25:48 | |
..we went down to meet her and her family near Ayr. | 0:25:50 | 0:25:55 | |
We'd been separated for 57 years. | 0:25:57 | 0:26:00 | |
She was never told about any of the other siblings. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
Sandra couldn't even remember Joan and myself. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:12 | |
To find out then about all the rest, I mean, she was just overcome, | 0:26:12 | 0:26:17 | |
and, I would say, with joy. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:18 | |
A few months after we did get to meet her, she passed away. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:24 | |
There was another sister in Dundee, Mary Ann. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:37 | |
She was the older sister. | 0:26:38 | 0:26:40 | |
I didn't even know about her until George came along. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
Hi, Charlie. | 0:26:52 | 0:26:54 | |
'Mary Ann passed away in 1993.' | 0:26:54 | 0:26:56 | |
Hi, Gary. 'But I got to know her two sons, Charlie and Gary.' | 0:26:57 | 0:27:02 | |
Although we've got some information on your mum, Mary, I really want | 0:27:03 | 0:27:08 | |
-to know why this all happened, you know? -Yeah. | 0:27:08 | 0:27:13 | |
Obviously, there was a darkness some place there, right? | 0:27:13 | 0:27:16 | |
-Yeah. -Aye. -And, you know, | 0:27:16 | 0:27:17 | |
words like Greenock and Glasgow become like the bogeyman, you know, | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
dinnae go there, dinnae speak about they things. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:23 | |
And my mother would tell us kind of bits, but again, the attitude was, | 0:27:23 | 0:27:26 | |
-"You've got to protect the bairns from..." -Of course. | 0:27:26 | 0:27:29 | |
"This is pretty horrific stuff, we've got to protect the bairns." | 0:27:29 | 0:27:32 | |
People were judgmental in those days, and my mum always used to say to us about keeping the house clean, | 0:27:32 | 0:27:36 | |
because the factor would come and take you away from your parents. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:38 | |
-That's right. -And we thought it was my mum kind of threatening us. | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
She would wash our clothes in Domestos, in bleach. | 0:27:41 | 0:27:43 | |
You went to school stinking of bleach. | 0:27:43 | 0:27:45 | |
And it was always that story came to you about somebody in the background | 0:27:45 | 0:27:50 | |
that could take you away. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:52 | |
She had this real agony around her family being ripped apart, | 0:27:52 | 0:27:55 | |
because my mum was a pure hero for her family. | 0:27:55 | 0:27:57 | |
Kind of like bringing up bairns wouldn't have been easy in those | 0:27:57 | 0:28:00 | |
days, either. I think my mum probably drank a lot more and stuff | 0:28:00 | 0:28:03 | |
like that when she got older, because she was trying to sort of | 0:28:03 | 0:28:06 | |
bury the demons of the past. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:07 | |
She lost her family, | 0:28:07 | 0:28:09 | |
and her family was dear to her. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:12 | |
See, the most haunting thing for me... | 0:28:12 | 0:28:14 | |
I remember at the end of my mum's life, two days before she died, | 0:28:14 | 0:28:18 | |
and people become really reflective at that stage of their life. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:21 | |
And the thing she always went on to me about was, | 0:28:21 | 0:28:25 | |
"Try and find out what happened to the wee yins." | 0:28:25 | 0:28:27 | |
She was meaning our brothers. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:29 | |
She always had this thing about wanting to find them. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:32 | |
-Yeah, she did. -And the most harrowing thing is, she never found them. | 0:28:32 | 0:28:36 | |
Mary Ann watched six of her brothers | 0:28:41 | 0:28:45 | |
being taken from the family home and scattered all over Scotland. | 0:28:45 | 0:28:50 | |
Peter and David were adopted. | 0:28:53 | 0:28:56 | |
Tommy, Jim and George were all boarded out | 0:28:57 | 0:29:01 | |
to a farm in the Highlands. | 0:29:01 | 0:29:04 | |
And there was also Billy, our oldest brother. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:07 | |
He was sent to a children's home in Aberdeen, on his own. | 0:29:07 | 0:29:14 | |
The family heard very little of him after that. | 0:29:14 | 0:29:17 | |
Losing all of those brothers | 0:29:19 | 0:29:22 | |
must have been heartbreaking for Mary Ann. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:24 | |
I would love to have met Mary, | 0:29:28 | 0:29:30 | |
because she was the true head of the family. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:32 | |
She would have been the one that made up for not having... | 0:29:34 | 0:29:37 | |
..a proper mother and father. | 0:29:39 | 0:29:41 | |
There's only two that George never found. | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
Tommy, born in 1945... | 0:30:00 | 0:30:03 | |
..and Andrew, born in 1957, who's the youngest. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:09 | |
But he lost contact with them for such a long time. | 0:30:11 | 0:30:15 | |
That would put a final chapter to his story, | 0:30:15 | 0:30:18 | |
to put an end to the complete Clark... | 0:30:18 | 0:30:21 | |
I don't want to call it a story... History. | 0:30:23 | 0:30:26 | |
With Tommy, with Andrew, with... | 0:30:27 | 0:30:29 | |
I don't know if I'll ever meet these people, | 0:30:30 | 0:30:32 | |
because they're gone, as far as we're concerned, we can't find them. | 0:30:32 | 0:30:36 | |
Right, this is the website on the internet. | 0:30:37 | 0:30:41 | |
The only photo we've got of Andrew - in his army uniform. | 0:30:43 | 0:30:46 | |
And we just let him know that, if he's out there, | 0:30:46 | 0:30:50 | |
to somehow make some sort of contact with us | 0:30:50 | 0:30:53 | |
because we're looking for him. | 0:30:53 | 0:30:55 | |
And we do that every year on his birthday. | 0:30:55 | 0:30:58 | |
But so far we've never had a reply. | 0:30:58 | 0:31:00 | |
That's you there. I'll leave you to it. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:15 | |
I am 64 years of age and I have never seen my adoption court papers. | 0:31:20 | 0:31:26 | |
This, for me, is quite an emotional thing, to find out about my past. | 0:31:26 | 0:31:31 | |
"Adoption order of Ian MacLean, | 0:31:37 | 0:31:40 | |
"birth name David Fleming Clark. | 0:31:40 | 0:31:44 | |
"Entry to be marked with the word 'adopted'." | 0:31:44 | 0:31:46 | |
This is my birth parents signing away their responsibility | 0:31:52 | 0:31:56 | |
and giving me over for adoption. | 0:31:56 | 0:31:58 | |
"Elizabeth O'Brien Clark, being the mother of said child, | 0:32:01 | 0:32:05 | |
"hereby state that I understand that the effect of the order will be | 0:32:05 | 0:32:09 | |
"permanent, to deprive me of my parental rights..." | 0:32:09 | 0:32:13 | |
I just want to pause, just for a second. | 0:32:16 | 0:32:19 | |
I'm trying... | 0:32:21 | 0:32:23 | |
In those few moments, I'm trying to picture what it would be like... | 0:32:23 | 0:32:26 | |
..for a mother... | 0:32:27 | 0:32:28 | |
..to give up a child. | 0:32:30 | 0:32:31 | |
I don't know how she coped. | 0:32:34 | 0:32:36 | |
I genuinely don't. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:38 | |
It's easy to blame the mother. | 0:32:41 | 0:32:43 | |
I've always tried to put myself back, when I've read the story, | 0:32:43 | 0:32:45 | |
back into the mother and father's shoes. | 0:32:45 | 0:32:47 | |
They obviously neglected the children. For what reason, though? | 0:32:47 | 0:32:50 | |
George told me, when I met George and Jim for the first time, 2011, | 0:32:53 | 0:32:59 | |
was we also had six siblings, | 0:32:59 | 0:33:01 | |
six youngsters, young brothers and sisters, | 0:33:01 | 0:33:05 | |
that died at very, very young ages. | 0:33:05 | 0:33:09 | |
There was John, there was Isabel, there was Ruth, there was Anna, | 0:33:09 | 0:33:13 | |
there was Elizabeth and there was Peter. | 0:33:13 | 0:33:16 | |
Some of them died very, very... | 0:33:19 | 0:33:20 | |
Within days of just being born. | 0:33:20 | 0:33:23 | |
Erm, and that, in itself... | 0:33:24 | 0:33:25 | |
..points to the sort of conditions that they were left in. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:29 | |
For my mum to lose six, I realised what she'd went through. | 0:33:33 | 0:33:38 | |
When I was first married, I lost one child. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:45 | |
It's been 40...43 years... | 0:33:48 | 0:33:52 | |
..since my daughter died. | 0:33:53 | 0:33:55 | |
And it still kills me. | 0:34:03 | 0:34:05 | |
It never leaves you. | 0:34:08 | 0:34:09 | |
And I think anybody would have turned to drink... | 0:34:10 | 0:34:14 | |
..to forget. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:17 | |
But you never forget. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:21 | |
They died, some of them were only a few days old, | 0:34:34 | 0:34:38 | |
and they're all buried in Greenock cemetery, | 0:34:38 | 0:34:42 | |
which I've walked through on many occasions | 0:34:42 | 0:34:46 | |
and I didn't even know they were there. | 0:34:46 | 0:34:48 | |
So this is where they're buried. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:52 | |
You walk in here... | 0:34:52 | 0:34:53 | |
And all you've got is this, the marker. | 0:34:53 | 0:34:56 | |
If you read it, "In loving memory, rest in peace." | 0:34:56 | 0:34:59 | |
It doesn't tell you anything. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:01 | |
-Our wee siblings, where are they? -Historically, this is a pauper's grave. | 0:35:01 | 0:35:05 | |
It's a pauper's grave. Anybody that was poor was dumped here. It's like | 0:35:05 | 0:35:08 | |
a piece of bloody waste ground, that's what it's like. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:12 | |
When you think, the struggle we had of finding each other | 0:35:12 | 0:35:15 | |
in the first place, and now we're having a struggle even finding | 0:35:15 | 0:35:19 | |
where our own siblings are buried. | 0:35:19 | 0:35:23 | |
It's a... | 0:35:23 | 0:35:24 | |
-You just... -It's sad. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:26 | |
I find it shameful. | 0:35:28 | 0:35:29 | |
Not only shameful, painful. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:33 | |
There's a deep sadness for the kids that are buried here. | 0:35:35 | 0:35:38 | |
A deep sadness for the family that didn't have an opportunity | 0:35:38 | 0:35:43 | |
to say goodbye. | 0:35:43 | 0:35:44 | |
That, to me, is important. | 0:35:46 | 0:35:49 | |
One of the biggest struggles we've had as a family | 0:36:01 | 0:36:04 | |
is getting information from the authorities. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:07 | |
Simple as that, just information on our lives. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:10 | |
In the case of George and Jim... | 0:36:20 | 0:36:22 | |
..it took them four-and-a-half years to get access to their files. | 0:36:23 | 0:36:29 | |
I remember George telling me that one of the social workers | 0:36:29 | 0:36:34 | |
said to him, "Just forget it and go and get a life." | 0:36:34 | 0:36:38 | |
We felt, most of the time, that we were getting fobbed off. | 0:36:43 | 0:36:45 | |
Their favourite saying, "This is going to upset you, | 0:36:45 | 0:36:49 | |
"you shouldn't live in the past." | 0:36:49 | 0:36:51 | |
They love saying that. | 0:36:51 | 0:36:52 | |
It's going to open old wounds. I said, "The wounds are open anyway, | 0:36:53 | 0:36:57 | |
"they've always been open." | 0:36:57 | 0:36:58 | |
This is not just one family, | 0:37:00 | 0:37:02 | |
there are hundreds of families being put through the system | 0:37:02 | 0:37:04 | |
and left in a mess. | 0:37:04 | 0:37:07 | |
It's got to stop. | 0:37:07 | 0:37:08 | |
I hate paperwork. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:21 | |
The first meeting I had with Inverclyde District Council, | 0:37:23 | 0:37:27 | |
the idea was for me to go there and actually view any files they had | 0:37:27 | 0:37:33 | |
on myself, personal files. | 0:37:33 | 0:37:34 | |
It is quite a large bundle, | 0:37:34 | 0:37:36 | |
but what they told me was that, because the file had references | 0:37:36 | 0:37:42 | |
in there to my sister Joan, I couldn't actually view the file. | 0:37:42 | 0:37:46 | |
You couldn't even look over, | 0:37:47 | 0:37:49 | |
to maybe have a wee glance, because the file was put there, | 0:37:49 | 0:37:54 | |
the person sat there, and I sat here. | 0:37:54 | 0:37:57 | |
Just going through the file, writing down, | 0:37:57 | 0:38:00 | |
going through the file, | 0:38:00 | 0:38:02 | |
writing that down, going through the file, writing that down... | 0:38:02 | 0:38:05 | |
And she handed me that and said, "Well, that's your story, | 0:38:05 | 0:38:10 | |
"that's your record of your life in care." | 0:38:10 | 0:38:13 | |
15 years. They've basically given you handwritten crap, | 0:38:13 | 0:38:18 | |
cos that's what it is. | 0:38:18 | 0:38:19 | |
I don't understand why they're withholding all that info, | 0:38:21 | 0:38:24 | |
all that... What does it mean...? | 0:38:24 | 0:38:27 | |
I mean, it means nothing to them, but it means a hell of a lot to me. | 0:38:27 | 0:38:30 | |
Asking a simple question like, "Why was I taken into care?" | 0:38:33 | 0:38:37 | |
What's wrong with that question? | 0:38:37 | 0:38:39 | |
It's as if I'm doing something wrong, you know, | 0:38:39 | 0:38:41 | |
you actually feel as if you're doing something wrong | 0:38:41 | 0:38:43 | |
by asking that question. | 0:38:43 | 0:38:45 | |
I'm pulling together documentation here for a human rights solicitor. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:13 | |
He is going to, hopefully, | 0:39:15 | 0:39:17 | |
give us advice on anything else we can do to access information | 0:39:17 | 0:39:22 | |
on our family. | 0:39:22 | 0:39:23 | |
Under the Data Protection Act, you can ask for information | 0:39:26 | 0:39:29 | |
about yourself, but they are not allowed to divulge information | 0:39:29 | 0:39:34 | |
about anybody else. | 0:39:34 | 0:39:35 | |
In certain circumstances councils hide behind the Data Protection Act? | 0:39:35 | 0:39:39 | |
Yes, they hide behind it but also they have to watch themselves. | 0:39:39 | 0:39:42 | |
'I think it's very sad that families can be kept apart | 0:39:42 | 0:39:46 | |
'and not know that other members of the family exist.' | 0:39:46 | 0:39:49 | |
You should have a right, somehow, to know that you had a family, | 0:39:49 | 0:39:52 | |
that should be your choice as you get older. | 0:39:52 | 0:39:55 | |
There must be documentation available that would help us | 0:39:55 | 0:39:58 | |
trace these people, or would that, again, come under...? | 0:39:58 | 0:40:00 | |
Well, there might well be. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:02 | |
I suppose all you could say to the social work department would be, | 0:40:02 | 0:40:06 | |
"Would you be prepared to let us have copies of any documentation | 0:40:06 | 0:40:09 | |
"which might assist us tracing these people?" | 0:40:09 | 0:40:11 | |
You know, they can easily turn round and say, | 0:40:11 | 0:40:13 | |
"Well, I'm sorry, there's no other file." | 0:40:13 | 0:40:16 | |
And you're stuck. | 0:40:16 | 0:40:17 | |
Here we are, 2016, and we've not really got any rights. | 0:40:25 | 0:40:28 | |
You know, it's crazy to me. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:31 | |
What the system has done to this family is pulled the family apart... | 0:40:34 | 0:40:38 | |
..in unmentionable ways. | 0:40:39 | 0:40:41 | |
When you look at what Jim is like now, | 0:40:43 | 0:40:45 | |
when you look at Bernard, you look at Joan, | 0:40:45 | 0:40:47 | |
they've all come through traumas of one thing or another. | 0:40:47 | 0:40:49 | |
You can see the hurt on their faces, you can see it with Jim, | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
when they talk about these stories, they go into a dark place. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:57 | |
When I was 15... | 0:40:58 | 0:41:01 | |
..I got involved with drugs. | 0:41:03 | 0:41:05 | |
I started taking drugs | 0:41:05 | 0:41:06 | |
because it was the only way I could get closure. | 0:41:06 | 0:41:09 | |
I couldn't stand anybody in authority telling me anything. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:12 | |
I was homeless a lot, I slept rough for quite a few years. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:18 | |
I used to do things to get put in jail, so I'd get a bit of rest. | 0:41:19 | 0:41:22 | |
I wanted to destroy myself. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:25 | |
HE SIGHS | 0:41:27 | 0:41:29 | |
I mean, how could I...? | 0:41:36 | 0:41:38 | |
I had a, and I still do to a certain extent, have a problem with alcohol. | 0:41:38 | 0:41:42 | |
And I did get in to a lot of trouble. I mean, I've been to | 0:41:44 | 0:41:47 | |
prison cos of fighting. | 0:41:47 | 0:41:49 | |
I lost everything, I lost my job... | 0:41:49 | 0:41:52 | |
..I lost my family, and that all stemmed from... | 0:41:53 | 0:41:56 | |
..my early years over in Ireland. | 0:41:58 | 0:42:00 | |
Mrs Carr used to take us on holidays, school holidays, | 0:42:05 | 0:42:09 | |
we'd go across to Ireland. | 0:42:09 | 0:42:10 | |
The first memories I have of it, I must've been about six or seven, | 0:42:12 | 0:42:17 | |
it didn't happen right away. | 0:42:17 | 0:42:18 | |
It only happened on certain nights and it seemed to be weekend nights. | 0:42:18 | 0:42:22 | |
Cos I'd be the only one in these bedrooms, | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
everybody else would be away out for the night. | 0:42:27 | 0:42:30 | |
I remember being terrified. | 0:42:30 | 0:42:32 | |
You're in pitch-black. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:34 | |
As you get older, you begin to realise this isn't right. | 0:42:37 | 0:42:41 | |
There's something going on here, this shouldn't be happening to me. | 0:42:41 | 0:42:45 | |
When I got to the age of about 13, 14, I refused to go... | 0:42:47 | 0:42:51 | |
..and there was a reason for that. | 0:42:53 | 0:42:56 | |
Erm, so... | 0:42:58 | 0:43:00 | |
It's not something I really speak about. | 0:43:03 | 0:43:06 | |
-Were you abused? -Mm-hm. | 0:43:06 | 0:43:07 | |
So when I became a father, I didn't know how to react, | 0:43:22 | 0:43:25 | |
I didn't know anything about bringing up kids or what a father | 0:43:25 | 0:43:29 | |
should do, because I've never... | 0:43:29 | 0:43:31 | |
I've never been able to hug. | 0:43:41 | 0:43:43 | |
I've never hugged my kids. | 0:43:46 | 0:43:49 | |
But they've accepted that. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:52 | |
But it hurts. | 0:43:54 | 0:43:56 | |
So great you've met these people, | 0:44:11 | 0:44:13 | |
it's so great you've now got brothers and sisters and you can sit | 0:44:13 | 0:44:15 | |
and talk and talk about things that happened in the past | 0:44:15 | 0:44:18 | |
and find out about each other. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:21 | |
What's it like, Jim, coming back after all these years, | 0:44:21 | 0:44:24 | |
-back to the Highlands? -It's strange. | 0:44:24 | 0:44:26 | |
Jim has really been through a lot. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:30 | |
He showed me what happened to him, and the places where it happened. | 0:44:30 | 0:44:34 | |
And, you know, I really think that is a release for him. | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
He's got his own personality, Jim. | 0:44:45 | 0:44:47 | |
I can only put that down to, obviously, | 0:44:47 | 0:44:49 | |
the trauma that Jim went through. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:51 | |
Just look at this place, | 0:44:59 | 0:45:00 | |
you wouldn't believe the horrors that happened across the Highlands. | 0:45:00 | 0:45:03 | |
The day we got out of there was because of the welfare officers | 0:45:05 | 0:45:09 | |
turned up unannounced. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:10 | |
We were standing outside the kitchen window, usual threats - | 0:45:10 | 0:45:13 | |
if we said anything, they'd batter the hell out of us. | 0:45:13 | 0:45:16 | |
They passed us, went in the house, came out, didn't say anything, | 0:45:16 | 0:45:19 | |
just looked at us, went back to the car. | 0:45:19 | 0:45:21 | |
George held my hand and said, | 0:45:21 | 0:45:22 | |
"Come on, let's tell them where we were really living." | 0:45:22 | 0:45:26 | |
He ran up, managed to grab the lad by his trousers, | 0:45:28 | 0:45:31 | |
dragged the two of them down and showed them | 0:45:31 | 0:45:34 | |
the shed we lived in. | 0:45:34 | 0:45:36 | |
They went in, they came out. | 0:45:36 | 0:45:38 | |
He was crying and she was physically sick. | 0:45:39 | 0:45:42 | |
And then they went back in the house. | 0:45:43 | 0:45:45 | |
All hell let loose, shouting and bawling. | 0:45:47 | 0:45:49 | |
Of course we were worried because we didn't know where the hell | 0:45:49 | 0:45:52 | |
they were going to put us next. | 0:45:52 | 0:45:55 | |
But the good thing was they got us the hell out of that place. | 0:45:55 | 0:45:58 | |
-So you look at this, Jim, beautiful. -It is. | 0:46:02 | 0:46:05 | |
Everything I saw was black and white. | 0:46:06 | 0:46:09 | |
-So there was nothing colourful about the place. -Aye. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:12 | |
So I didn't see the colour. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:13 | |
I spent all my time hating these people. | 0:46:15 | 0:46:18 | |
What a waste of my time, | 0:46:18 | 0:46:20 | |
-I'm the only one that's paying for it, not them. -Aye. | 0:46:20 | 0:46:22 | |
Yeah, I feel more at peace. | 0:46:25 | 0:46:27 | |
They're still looking for Tommy. | 0:46:42 | 0:46:44 | |
Nobody's heard from him since 1980-something. | 0:46:44 | 0:46:49 | |
And we're still looking for Andrew. | 0:46:51 | 0:46:53 | |
We want to find Andrew because he's the only one that grew up | 0:46:54 | 0:46:57 | |
with the mum and dad. He knows what they look like. | 0:46:57 | 0:47:01 | |
Andrew was last seen in England so we put adverts in the local papers | 0:47:03 | 0:47:08 | |
to see if somebody would recognise him. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:10 | |
My name is Andrew Clark. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:22 | |
I was born on the 24th of December, 1957. | 0:47:22 | 0:47:26 | |
I am the youngest of 17. | 0:47:26 | 0:47:28 | |
As far as I was concerned, I had nobody. | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
I was on my own down in England. | 0:47:42 | 0:47:43 | |
-I like your hair. -Aye, it's a change, isn't it? | 0:47:48 | 0:47:52 | |
-How are you doing? -Ian, how you doing? All right. | 0:47:52 | 0:47:55 | |
'The advert worked.' | 0:47:58 | 0:47:59 | |
There we go... 'We found Andrew.' | 0:47:59 | 0:48:02 | |
Ah, there it is, there. 'And today we're going to meet him.' | 0:48:02 | 0:48:05 | |
Andrew was the only sibling that was brought up | 0:48:06 | 0:48:09 | |
with the mother and father. | 0:48:09 | 0:48:11 | |
Take a deep breath now, cos we're getting there. | 0:48:25 | 0:48:29 | |
Jesus, the butterflies are going now. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:32 | |
THEY CHAT AMONG THEMSELVES | 0:48:49 | 0:48:51 | |
Jimmy. | 0:48:55 | 0:48:57 | |
Hi, Andy. | 0:48:57 | 0:48:58 | |
Jimmy, my God! | 0:48:58 | 0:49:01 | |
-Long time no see. -And you. | 0:49:01 | 0:49:03 | |
-You've got to be Joan. -Yes. -Come here. | 0:49:04 | 0:49:07 | |
-Aw, it's lovely to see you. -And you. | 0:49:07 | 0:49:10 | |
Well, I can remember you. | 0:49:10 | 0:49:12 | |
-Bernard. -How you doing? | 0:49:13 | 0:49:15 | |
I can't remember... Hi. | 0:49:15 | 0:49:19 | |
Absolutely brilliant. My God. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:23 | |
I can't remember. And you've got to be Ian. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:25 | |
-That's it, that's it. -Lovely. -Nice to meet you. -A brother. | 0:49:25 | 0:49:30 | |
My God. | 0:49:30 | 0:49:32 | |
Christ. For days I was walking round in a bit of a daze, | 0:49:32 | 0:49:35 | |
-you know what I mean? -I can imagine. | 0:49:35 | 0:49:37 | |
Can I handle this? Am I able...? Do you know what I mean? | 0:49:37 | 0:49:40 | |
How do you handle something like that? | 0:49:41 | 0:49:43 | |
Come on. Come on. | 0:49:45 | 0:49:47 | |
Don't want to brag - I'm the youngest. | 0:49:49 | 0:49:51 | |
I was basically the same as you. | 0:49:53 | 0:49:54 | |
It was about two years ago, not even two years ago, | 0:49:54 | 0:49:57 | |
when I got a knock on the door, basically. | 0:49:57 | 0:49:59 | |
My head was going like this because it was the whole story. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:01 | |
After nearly 59 years, to find out you've got brothers and sisters. | 0:50:01 | 0:50:04 | |
That's what we've all said when we met each other - the missing years. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:07 | |
We're missing years, and I'm missing brothers and sisters. | 0:50:07 | 0:50:11 | |
-Aye. -My dad never spoke about it. | 0:50:11 | 0:50:13 | |
-Nothing was said? You never...? -No. No. | 0:50:13 | 0:50:16 | |
Whether they did that cos I was the youngest and they didn't... | 0:50:16 | 0:50:18 | |
Shielding me away from it, I don't know. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:21 | |
But your father was the spitting image of David Niven. | 0:50:21 | 0:50:24 | |
-Right. -Small build, and that's... | 0:50:24 | 0:50:28 | |
He looked, yes, he looked like David Niven. | 0:50:28 | 0:50:30 | |
-You know what I mean? -What did the mother look like? | 0:50:30 | 0:50:32 | |
What did your mother look like? | 0:50:32 | 0:50:34 | |
I have got the only photograph. | 0:50:34 | 0:50:36 | |
-With you? -You're kidding on. -She looked like Mary? | 0:50:36 | 0:50:38 | |
-Did she have red hair? -That's Mum and me. | 0:50:40 | 0:50:42 | |
Good God. | 0:50:45 | 0:50:47 | |
I would think that was in Greenock. | 0:50:47 | 0:50:48 | |
That's a cracker. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:49 | |
That's unbelievable. | 0:50:52 | 0:50:54 | |
I've kept... I've had that for years. | 0:50:59 | 0:51:01 | |
Well, I didn't know about my mother going to prison. | 0:51:03 | 0:51:06 | |
Bloody hell. | 0:51:08 | 0:51:09 | |
What was going on? | 0:51:09 | 0:51:11 | |
To learn now that all this went on previously is absolutely horrendous. | 0:51:11 | 0:51:16 | |
Some of the stories were horrific. | 0:51:16 | 0:51:18 | |
-Absolutely horrific. -We were just torn apart and thrown over Scotland, | 0:51:18 | 0:51:23 | |
and nobody was told anything about anybody. | 0:51:23 | 0:51:26 | |
But social services put you people into care - must've had records. | 0:51:26 | 0:51:30 | |
-They must've had the information. -They held them back, | 0:51:30 | 0:51:33 | |
they held all the information back. | 0:51:33 | 0:51:34 | |
See, that's totally wrong. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:35 | |
The authorities weren't interested in giving you any of that information. | 0:51:35 | 0:51:39 | |
It's such a sad story, such a horrible story, | 0:51:39 | 0:51:42 | |
but it's got the happy ending, because here we're all sitting now. | 0:51:42 | 0:51:44 | |
-We're here. -We are here. -That's right. -We're here. | 0:51:44 | 0:51:46 | |
I think, after all the years, it's amazing, | 0:51:46 | 0:51:48 | |
the work that you've gone through, George has gone through, | 0:51:48 | 0:51:51 | |
and suddenly we're here. | 0:51:51 | 0:51:53 | |
-Aye. -It's a weird feeling. | 0:51:53 | 0:51:56 | |
-Oh, it is. -Cos I thought I was on my own. | 0:51:56 | 0:51:58 | |
But suddenly now I've got family. | 0:51:58 | 0:52:00 | |
But, eh, I'm here. | 0:52:02 | 0:52:04 | |
Oh, aye. | 0:52:04 | 0:52:05 | |
I nearly walked out, to be honest with you. | 0:52:08 | 0:52:10 | |
I had to bite my lip. | 0:52:10 | 0:52:12 | |
I thought, "I'm here, I've got to do this. | 0:52:12 | 0:52:14 | |
"This has got... Once-in-a-lifetime. | 0:52:14 | 0:52:16 | |
"It's got to be their Andy, hold yourself together, | 0:52:16 | 0:52:18 | |
"and get in there." | 0:52:18 | 0:52:21 | |
Definitely a big shock. | 0:52:21 | 0:52:23 | |
But to learn... | 0:52:24 | 0:52:26 | |
..what they've gone through is absolutely unbelievable. | 0:52:28 | 0:52:32 | |
-This is Greenock, eh? -Aye. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:33 | |
It's as though there's lights everywhere, you know? | 0:52:33 | 0:52:36 | |
It's weird, it is. It's weird, aye. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:40 | |
I've got to say I've had a lot of bad days in my life, | 0:52:40 | 0:52:44 | |
and I've had a lot of good days, but this is one of the best. | 0:52:44 | 0:52:48 | |
Put it that way. | 0:52:48 | 0:52:49 | |
The picture that Andrew's got, she's really smart, | 0:52:55 | 0:52:58 | |
and wee Andrew, standing beside her. | 0:52:58 | 0:53:00 | |
She's now human. She is actually a person. | 0:53:02 | 0:53:04 | |
When Andrew was about three years old, the mum and dad moved to Dundee, | 0:53:06 | 0:53:11 | |
and that's where they stayed for the rest of their lives. | 0:53:11 | 0:53:15 | |
That's Andrew that's with her, and he's, what, two, three years old? | 0:53:16 | 0:53:21 | |
So you're talking about a few years after we were taken into care, | 0:53:21 | 0:53:24 | |
and if my mother had been as bad as what the newspaper reports made her | 0:53:24 | 0:53:29 | |
out to be, she certainly wouldn't have looked like that. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:32 | |
We still don't know what the father looks like, | 0:53:40 | 0:53:43 | |
but we have a picture of my mother, and she's quite a lady. | 0:53:43 | 0:53:47 | |
How's things, Charlie? | 0:53:57 | 0:54:00 | |
'The last couple of days to me has been one hell of an eye-opener. | 0:54:00 | 0:54:05 | |
'It has been overwhelming, and it's still...' | 0:54:05 | 0:54:10 | |
I'm still numb a bit. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:12 | |
I didn't get a chance to meet Andy at the reunion, | 0:54:14 | 0:54:17 | |
but I got an opportunity to meet Andy the next day when we | 0:54:17 | 0:54:21 | |
brought the whole family together, and that was fantastic. | 0:54:21 | 0:54:24 | |
-In for a big hug... -Aye. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:27 | |
He's down there - that's him. Well, we'll introduce you, then. | 0:54:27 | 0:54:30 | |
Aye. There you go. | 0:54:30 | 0:54:31 | |
-You OK? -I'm fine, aye. | 0:54:31 | 0:54:33 | |
-This is Ian. -Ian. | 0:54:33 | 0:54:35 | |
-Pleased to meet you. -And you. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:37 | |
I've waited a long time for this. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:40 | |
I only knew about you two years ago. | 0:54:40 | 0:54:43 | |
What a joy to meet him on the Sunday, what a joy. | 0:54:43 | 0:54:46 | |
What a gentleman. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:48 | |
And that's when I lost it. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:50 | |
Come here. | 0:54:51 | 0:54:53 | |
Oh, dear. | 0:54:54 | 0:54:56 | |
I'm glad we've got you. | 0:54:56 | 0:54:58 | |
That's the main thing, eh? | 0:54:59 | 0:55:01 | |
-That's the main thing. -I'm glad you're here. | 0:55:01 | 0:55:04 | |
I don't usually come to tears, but I can't help it. | 0:55:04 | 0:55:06 | |
It's just knowing that finally we're all together. | 0:55:09 | 0:55:14 | |
Everybody feels apprehensive | 0:55:14 | 0:55:16 | |
when they go to meet folk that they don't know, | 0:55:16 | 0:55:18 | |
but there is a connection there, and the connection is the blood. | 0:55:18 | 0:55:22 | |
Aye. Oh, dear. | 0:55:22 | 0:55:24 | |
When you get all the aunties, the uncles, the cousins, the nieces, | 0:55:27 | 0:55:32 | |
the nephews, you get everybody together - | 0:55:32 | 0:55:35 | |
we're one heck of a size of a family. | 0:55:35 | 0:55:37 | |
That's Michael, look. | 0:55:37 | 0:55:39 | |
-Where? -Michael. Wave. | 0:55:39 | 0:55:40 | |
Still got the blond hair? | 0:55:41 | 0:55:43 | |
-Ah, still got the blond hair. -Do you know what I mean, aye? | 0:55:43 | 0:55:47 | |
Hi, everybody, I'm going to tell you a wee story. | 0:55:47 | 0:55:51 | |
I think we'll need to really go back. | 0:55:51 | 0:55:54 | |
Two people got together. | 0:55:54 | 0:55:56 | |
A William Clark meets a wee lassie called Elizabeth. | 0:55:56 | 0:56:01 | |
These two got married in 1935. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:05 | |
The result is you lot. | 0:56:05 | 0:56:06 | |
Today I want to dedicate this family gathering to a miracle worker... | 0:56:19 | 0:56:24 | |
..and his name was George. | 0:56:25 | 0:56:27 | |
I still cry when I think about him, because he's done so much, | 0:56:35 | 0:56:41 | |
and the sadness is he's no' here... | 0:56:41 | 0:56:43 | |
..any more. | 0:56:45 | 0:56:46 | |
This is what he wanted - he wanted to find everybody. | 0:56:49 | 0:56:53 | |
We'll have a good toast, then, to the one who caused it all. | 0:56:55 | 0:56:58 | |
Let's all have a good, big cheer to George. | 0:56:58 | 0:57:01 | |
-That's right. -To George! | 0:57:01 | 0:57:02 | |
ALL: To George. | 0:57:02 | 0:57:04 | |
There's a bit of sadness, too, that he hasn't found Tommy. | 0:57:09 | 0:57:12 | |
Yeah, it's a pity we could never find Tommy. | 0:57:16 | 0:57:18 | |
But you never know. Maybe one day we'll get a phone call. | 0:57:18 | 0:57:21 | |
Let's hope. | 0:57:21 | 0:57:23 | |
Suddenly, I've got family. | 0:57:24 | 0:57:27 | |
I've got brothers and sisters that I never knew existed. | 0:57:27 | 0:57:30 | |
I was down in England on my own, thinking that was going to be it. | 0:57:30 | 0:57:34 | |
But now I'm here. I always wanted to come back to Scotland, | 0:57:34 | 0:57:37 | |
always said, when I was 60, I'd come back to Scotland, | 0:57:37 | 0:57:41 | |
but now I'm definitely coming back. | 0:57:41 | 0:57:43 | |
I have family. | 0:57:43 | 0:57:44 | |
I think you've just got to look round the family and see, you know, | 0:57:50 | 0:57:52 | |
they've all done well for themselves, | 0:57:52 | 0:57:55 | |
considering the problems we've all had. | 0:57:55 | 0:57:57 | |
They split our family up completely, | 0:57:59 | 0:58:03 | |
and to isolate them from each other - | 0:58:03 | 0:58:05 | |
it should never, ever happen to anybody. | 0:58:05 | 0:58:08 | |
What kind of life would I have had if we'd have all stayed together? | 0:58:08 | 0:58:12 | |
Would things have turned out better? | 0:58:12 | 0:58:14 | |
Who knows? | 0:58:14 | 0:58:16 | |
But we never had the chance. | 0:58:16 | 0:58:18 | |
I learned - just remember the good things. | 0:58:22 | 0:58:26 | |
The bad things only pull you down. | 0:58:26 | 0:58:28 | |
And with meeting all these wonderful people that I never knew, | 0:58:30 | 0:58:34 | |
has raised me up. | 0:58:34 | 0:58:36 | |
Mm-hm. | 0:58:36 | 0:58:37 |