0:00:11 > 0:00:13They called it boarding out.
0:00:17 > 0:00:19For over a century,
0:00:19 > 0:00:21it was the favoured Scottish method
0:00:21 > 0:00:23of dealing with impoverished city children
0:00:23 > 0:00:27who had been orphaned, abandoned, neglected.
0:00:32 > 0:00:35At its worst, at its most heartless,
0:00:35 > 0:00:40local councils would place groups of these youngsters in cars or taxis...
0:00:41 > 0:00:45..to be driven into the countryside, to villages,
0:00:45 > 0:00:47to remote crofting communities.
0:00:49 > 0:00:51The children were offered to local families
0:00:51 > 0:00:54who'd be paid to become their foster parents.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58There were no references, there were few checks.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02The lady said, "I'll take this one,
0:01:02 > 0:01:04"but I don't want him, he looks a bit scrawny."
0:01:06 > 0:01:08Nobody's child, nobody wanted him.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12This is the story of the part played by governments,
0:01:12 > 0:01:15by churches and charities,
0:01:15 > 0:01:18in raising Scotland's most vulnerable children.
0:01:19 > 0:01:21Boys and girls from broken homes.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26For some, their supposed salvation caused only more suffering.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:01:30 > 0:01:34But as the 20th century progressed, Scotland's institutions would
0:01:34 > 0:01:38reach into the lives of tens of thousands of Scottish children,
0:01:38 > 0:01:40improving their health,
0:01:40 > 0:01:42improving their happiness.
0:01:44 > 0:01:48For me, I mean, care was...
0:01:48 > 0:01:50a very, very positive experience.
0:01:52 > 0:01:56I really wouldn't be who I am or where I am or what I am
0:01:56 > 0:02:00without fostering, it's just so fundamental to my life.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06After a century that revolutionised attitudes to education
0:02:06 > 0:02:08and childhood itself,
0:02:08 > 0:02:11how did Scotland's institutions learn to cope
0:02:11 > 0:02:15with the young lives entrusted to their care?
0:02:15 > 0:02:16GIGGLING
0:02:40 > 0:02:42I was about seven or eight
0:02:42 > 0:02:44and I was playing in a field just up there
0:02:44 > 0:02:47where there's some swing park and a couple of lads came and told me
0:02:47 > 0:02:49there was a problem going on at my home.
0:02:51 > 0:02:55This was the moment, in the summer of 1961,
0:02:55 > 0:02:58that changed Gordon Bucher's young life...
0:02:58 > 0:03:00for ever.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03And I remember coming around here and seeing...
0:03:05 > 0:03:07..just everything that we possessed, practically,
0:03:07 > 0:03:09was out in the...
0:03:09 > 0:03:12the back yard, just in a big pile.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17And all our furniture was just sort of thrown out through the windows
0:03:17 > 0:03:21or whatever, out the back door, onto the back yard, here.
0:03:22 > 0:03:24And just left.
0:03:25 > 0:03:28And my mum and dad were here, quite distressed,
0:03:28 > 0:03:32talking to what turned out to be Sheriff's officers,
0:03:32 > 0:03:36and basically they'd come for some reason or another,
0:03:36 > 0:03:38I think we owed them about 30 quid's rent,
0:03:38 > 0:03:41and they turfed us out onto the street.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47Dad, you know, Dad had a gambling problem
0:03:47 > 0:03:49and rather than pay his bills, he...
0:03:49 > 0:03:53He didn't provide as a father should.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56They took five of us into care out of the seven,
0:03:56 > 0:03:59and that was us in the system, as it were.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03Then aged between 2 and 11,
0:04:03 > 0:04:06Gordon and his four siblings spent an unhappy year
0:04:06 > 0:04:08in a series of children's homes...
0:04:11 > 0:04:13..before being driven out of the city,
0:04:13 > 0:04:15and onto a ferry...
0:04:17 > 0:04:20..bound for the island of Tiree in the southern Hebrides.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25The five Bucher children were to be boarded out.
0:04:27 > 0:04:31I'd never been out of Glasgow. Never been out of the city.
0:04:31 > 0:04:32It was just...
0:04:32 > 0:04:33It's a different place.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36This was abroad.
0:04:36 > 0:04:39Our guardian, as it were, for the journey,
0:04:39 > 0:04:42she informed my sister Mary that we were...
0:04:42 > 0:04:44to go to separate homes.
0:04:46 > 0:04:47My...
0:04:48 > 0:04:50..younger sister, my older sister,
0:04:50 > 0:04:53and my younger brother were taken away in a car.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58And, you know, we didn't know where they'd gone.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04We honestly believed we wouldn't see them again.
0:05:12 > 0:05:169-year-old Gordon and his 11-year-old sister Jean
0:05:16 > 0:05:20were sent to this isolated croft house in the village of Barrapoll
0:05:20 > 0:05:22in the west of the island.
0:05:24 > 0:05:28Jean and I were brought in and the lady come to meet us.
0:05:28 > 0:05:32I remembered my impressions, thinking she was an old woman.
0:05:32 > 0:05:33But...
0:05:33 > 0:05:36she was certainly a strong woman.
0:05:36 > 0:05:38Her name was Christine.
0:05:38 > 0:05:40But here she was called Kirsty.
0:05:41 > 0:05:45And I was shown me bedroom and I...must admit I was...
0:05:45 > 0:05:47It sort of sweetened the pill a little bit
0:05:47 > 0:05:50to find I had me own bedroom.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52And my own bed and...
0:05:52 > 0:05:53it actually had sheets and blankets on it
0:05:53 > 0:05:55instead of old army coats...
0:05:56 > 0:05:59..which is what we'd have had in Glasgow.
0:06:00 > 0:06:02Despite his fears,
0:06:02 > 0:06:05Gordon was soon reunited with his brothers and sisters
0:06:05 > 0:06:06at the local school.
0:06:09 > 0:06:11Half of his classmates had been boarded out.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16For a nine-year-old from the East End of Glasgow,
0:06:16 > 0:06:19everyday life on a Tiree croft was an education.
0:06:21 > 0:06:23The cattle would...
0:06:23 > 0:06:25They would graze here and they also,
0:06:25 > 0:06:28they would graze in a field way up by the church, there.
0:06:28 > 0:06:33And my job many a night would be to go all the way to the church
0:06:33 > 0:06:34to bring them back,
0:06:34 > 0:06:38all the way down this road here, to go into the milking shed.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41I loved it, 100%. It was... It was fantastic.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44This was my domain, you know, when I was a kid,
0:06:44 > 0:06:46this was my playground, this was...
0:06:46 > 0:06:50You know, I was safe, I was fed, I was watered.
0:06:51 > 0:06:53It was great. It was great.
0:06:55 > 0:06:58Gordon stayed on Tiree for four years.
0:06:59 > 0:07:02After which, Glasgow Corporation returned him
0:07:02 > 0:07:03to the care of his family.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08Aged 13, he reluctantly left the island...
0:07:09 > 0:07:12..but he never forgot his foster mother, Kirsty.
0:07:13 > 0:07:15When she was in an old folk's home,
0:07:15 > 0:07:17and I spent a good few hours with her,
0:07:17 > 0:07:19you know, sitting with her,
0:07:19 > 0:07:21and every time I come up,
0:07:21 > 0:07:24without fail, I'll go and visit her grave,
0:07:24 > 0:07:25and I'll put some flowers down.
0:07:28 > 0:07:29Yeah.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33The practice of sending city children like Gordon
0:07:33 > 0:07:36to the Highlands and Islands had begun in the 1860s.
0:07:42 > 0:07:44By the time of the First World War,
0:07:44 > 0:07:46Scottish local authorities were boarding out
0:07:46 > 0:07:48up to 8,000 children per year.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55They liked it because it was cheap, it was...
0:07:55 > 0:07:59cheaper than placing children in institutions.
0:07:59 > 0:08:03I think the city was seen as a pollutant, really, or polluting.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07It was seen as having a very poor effect on families
0:08:07 > 0:08:09and on family life and on children.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12I mean, remember, if we think about Glasgow in this period,
0:08:12 > 0:08:14late 19th, early 20th century,
0:08:14 > 0:08:16it was overcrowded,
0:08:16 > 0:08:19it was the most overcrowded city in the UK.
0:08:19 > 0:08:21It was dirty, it was unhealthy.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24People lived in very poor circumstances,
0:08:24 > 0:08:27often in slums.
0:08:27 > 0:08:30There was a philosophy that it was more healthy,
0:08:30 > 0:08:32and more...
0:08:32 > 0:08:34more Christian, I suppose,
0:08:34 > 0:08:38to place children within rural Highland families.
0:08:38 > 0:08:44They romanticised that crofting lifestyle as a kind of basic,
0:08:44 > 0:08:49again, hard-working, God-fearing lifestyle.
0:08:55 > 0:08:59Boarding out was born of the best intentions of the time.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02But not all children would have the best of memories.
0:09:04 > 0:09:06At the age of four,
0:09:06 > 0:09:10Stuart Wilson was already a veteran of children's homes and foster care.
0:09:13 > 0:09:15In the May of 1969,
0:09:15 > 0:09:17he set off for Tiree,
0:09:17 > 0:09:19clutching his favourite toy.
0:09:22 > 0:09:25I remember holding a fire engine in my hand.
0:09:25 > 0:09:26A wee toy.
0:09:26 > 0:09:29And I was taken to Glasgow airport...
0:09:29 > 0:09:32I was told I was going to a place with lots of children.
0:09:35 > 0:09:36A happy...
0:09:36 > 0:09:38family place.
0:09:38 > 0:09:40And we got in the plane,
0:09:40 > 0:09:41and came all the way out to Tiree.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47I had no clue where I was, bewilderment...
0:09:47 > 0:09:49Bewilderment, basically.
0:09:51 > 0:09:52Terrifying.
0:09:54 > 0:09:56But I mean, who's listening to a child?
0:09:57 > 0:09:59Nothing was done to reassure me.
0:10:02 > 0:10:04And when I arrived in Balinoe,
0:10:04 > 0:10:07it was a big farmhouse.
0:10:07 > 0:10:10It WAS quite busy, because there WAS loads of children there.
0:10:12 > 0:10:17Stewart was to be one of 20 children looked after by Maryellen McLane,
0:10:17 > 0:10:20a foster mother paid by Glasgow Corporation.
0:10:23 > 0:10:24From their first meeting,
0:10:24 > 0:10:27her approach to Stewart was brutal.
0:10:27 > 0:10:31And Maryellen says, "Hello, I'm your new mum."
0:10:32 > 0:10:33I wasn't even five.
0:10:36 > 0:10:37And I grasped...
0:10:39 > 0:10:41..that somewhere, I did have a mum.
0:10:42 > 0:10:44And I said, "You can't be."
0:10:44 > 0:10:49And she says, "I am. "Your mum was a hoor.
0:10:49 > 0:10:51"You're a bastard, and I'm your mum."
0:10:55 > 0:10:57Stuart remembers that the cruelty continued,
0:10:57 > 0:10:59and became physical.
0:11:01 > 0:11:03In the first months of his stay,
0:11:03 > 0:11:06Maryellen accused him of stealing a piece of fruit.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10I was taken out of the room and it was the wee...
0:11:10 > 0:11:13There was an old cooker with the four...
0:11:13 > 0:11:15three rings on it.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18And I was told to admit it or produce the orange.
0:11:18 > 0:11:20I couldn't.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24So my head was grasped and I was placed onto the ring.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28And I had actually three rings that was burnt on me.
0:11:28 > 0:11:30And because I was trying to force myself away,
0:11:30 > 0:11:33my hands were taken and placed as well.
0:11:33 > 0:11:35It was... There was no visit to the doctor.
0:11:36 > 0:11:37I just...
0:11:37 > 0:11:40Like a wounded dog, I just went away to greet.
0:11:42 > 0:11:43But considering...
0:11:45 > 0:11:48..this is a person who has been paid to look after me.
0:11:49 > 0:11:51But...
0:11:51 > 0:11:53In charge of Stuart's safety,
0:11:53 > 0:11:55in theory, at least,
0:11:55 > 0:11:58was a visiting welfare officer from Glasgow Corporation.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00I told him I hated it.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05I said I just can't settle, I'm pissing the bed, now.
0:12:06 > 0:12:08I was in bits.
0:12:08 > 0:12:12And he's told me, don't worry. He wasn't aware of it, he was now,
0:12:12 > 0:12:14and he'd fire it up the chain,
0:12:14 > 0:12:17and it wouldn't be long before I was away.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20But he told me, when I first went into to see him,
0:12:20 > 0:12:22it was in confidence.
0:12:22 > 0:12:23So...
0:12:24 > 0:12:27Again, I wasn't even six.
0:12:27 > 0:12:31You tend to...believe adults if they give you assurances.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36After all the children had been in,
0:12:36 > 0:12:38he went and had a word with Maryellen,
0:12:38 > 0:12:41and as soon as he left, I took a beating again.
0:12:41 > 0:12:44And I thought...I'm saying nothing to nobody from now on.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50Never really played football when you got down here, did you?
0:12:50 > 0:12:51Oh, no...
0:12:51 > 0:12:54- What was a football? - Yeah, exactly.
0:12:54 > 0:12:56Something the posh kids had.
0:12:56 > 0:12:58THEY CHUCKLE WRYLY
0:12:58 > 0:13:00Stuart and Gordon's time on Tiree
0:13:00 > 0:13:04was the legacy of a 19th-century belief -
0:13:04 > 0:13:06that vulnerable children should be removed
0:13:06 > 0:13:10from sinful, unhealthy cities,
0:13:10 > 0:13:12taken far from their parents,
0:13:12 > 0:13:15and placed in the healthy God-fearing countryside.
0:13:17 > 0:13:21That belief was a cornerstone of public policy,
0:13:21 > 0:13:24and also of the many Scottish childcare charities
0:13:24 > 0:13:26of the early 20th century.
0:13:29 > 0:13:30HORN TOOTS
0:13:32 > 0:13:34Gosh, rain again?
0:13:34 > 0:13:36BANGING
0:13:36 > 0:13:37What the...?
0:13:37 > 0:13:41The 1934 film Tam Trauchle's Troubles
0:13:41 > 0:13:44was made by one such charity...
0:13:44 > 0:13:48the wonderfully-named Necessitous Children's Fund.
0:13:48 > 0:13:50With his wife in hospital,
0:13:50 > 0:13:54the unemployed and impoverished Tam is left at home
0:13:54 > 0:13:55with his two excitable boys.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58Come on out, you hear me?
0:13:59 > 0:14:00Robert Trauchle.
0:14:00 > 0:14:02We were just playing at miners.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05I work down the bowels of the Earth.
0:14:06 > 0:14:08And it took us a wee while to come up.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12The chaos is disturbed by the arrival of an unexpected
0:14:12 > 0:14:14and rather genteel visitor.
0:14:15 > 0:14:17I'm from the education authority.
0:14:18 > 0:14:19Oh, come in.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23You have two boys, Mr Trauchle, who have applied for a holiday.
0:14:23 > 0:14:24Aye.
0:14:24 > 0:14:26Their new guest signs the boys up
0:14:26 > 0:14:29to attend a countryside holiday camp.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35Two decades later, Owen Grieve was leaving behind a Glasgow slum
0:14:35 > 0:14:38for two weeks at a very similar camp,
0:14:38 > 0:14:40at Langbank on the Clyde coast.
0:14:41 > 0:14:44We came here, out the station,
0:14:44 > 0:14:45and that was amazing,
0:14:45 > 0:14:47all these greeting-faced kids,
0:14:47 > 0:14:49and all crying for their mammie.
0:14:51 > 0:14:53And I'm wondering why they're crying,
0:14:53 > 0:14:56I'm just happy that I'd got away.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59Now I've got a big adventure for me.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02They walked us from the station right up through,
0:15:02 > 0:15:04up into the home,
0:15:04 > 0:15:06and there was big trees on either side.
0:15:08 > 0:15:09Look at this old path.
0:15:10 > 0:15:12That took us up to the children's home.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18Owen has preserved special memories of his time at Langbank.
0:15:19 > 0:15:21For a boy who understood hunger,
0:15:21 > 0:15:23it's the food he remembers most.
0:15:25 > 0:15:27I woke up at breakfast,
0:15:27 > 0:15:28knives and forks,
0:15:28 > 0:15:30I never used a knife and fork in my life,
0:15:30 > 0:15:35spoon, cornflakes, that and all. And...
0:15:35 > 0:15:37it was scrambled egg and toast or something. You know?
0:15:37 > 0:15:40But it was fun, it was lovely, it was nice.
0:15:40 > 0:15:44# Oh, we're in a camp in the country, hurray, hurray! #
0:15:44 > 0:15:47After a fresh air fortnight of exercise and healthy food,
0:15:47 > 0:15:51the Trauchle boys return home as reformed characters.
0:15:53 > 0:15:55What's for the tea?
0:15:55 > 0:15:57I learnt a thing or two.
0:15:57 > 0:15:58Holy smoke!
0:15:58 > 0:16:00Wonders will never cease.
0:16:00 > 0:16:02# Oh, been to the camp in the country
0:16:02 > 0:16:04# Hurray, hurray! #
0:16:04 > 0:16:05Come on, again!
0:16:05 > 0:16:09As for Owen, he came home refreshed and well-fed,
0:16:09 > 0:16:12with warm memories of the nuns who looked after him.
0:16:12 > 0:16:14# So hip hip hip hurray! #
0:16:14 > 0:16:15That's a great song.
0:16:15 > 0:16:19Those nuns, they were strict but they were fair.
0:16:20 > 0:16:22They were nice people.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26And I remember one old, old, very old woman.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29It was raining one day,
0:16:29 > 0:16:30and she helped me with a jigsaw.
0:16:32 > 0:16:34And I gave her a wee cuddle for it.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37She wondered, What's happening here?
0:16:37 > 0:16:42In the last minutes of the Necessitous Children's Fund movie,
0:16:42 > 0:16:44the melodrama was cranked to maximum,
0:16:44 > 0:16:48and cinemagoers were pressured to make their own donation.
0:17:00 > 0:17:02JAUNTY TUNE
0:17:07 > 0:17:11Not all families were as fortunate as the fictional Trauchles.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15In the first half of the 20th century,
0:17:15 > 0:17:17the impoverished children of broken families
0:17:17 > 0:17:20would be visited by the so-called Cruelty Men.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25Agents of the Scottish National Society For The Prevention
0:17:25 > 0:17:29Of Cruelty To Children, their intervention would see
0:17:29 > 0:17:31children taken from their parents,
0:17:31 > 0:17:33and placed in residential care.
0:17:36 > 0:17:40So, here we have Maggie and Isabel Higgins
0:17:40 > 0:17:46who were...admitted to the Windmill children's home in Stirling in 1910.
0:17:46 > 0:17:49Their father, William Higgins,
0:17:49 > 0:17:53was 41 years old, and he was a former coalminer,
0:17:53 > 0:17:57and we think he had been in the army,
0:17:57 > 0:17:59and he was an epileptic.
0:17:59 > 0:18:01Their mother was dead.
0:18:01 > 0:18:03And he had spent the last two and a half years
0:18:03 > 0:18:05trying to care for these children.
0:18:06 > 0:18:09This is a letter that was sent
0:18:09 > 0:18:13by the officer of the Scottish National Society Of Prevention Of Cruelty To Children
0:18:13 > 0:18:16to the director of the Windmill children's home.
0:18:16 > 0:18:18"During the past year,
0:18:18 > 0:18:22"he has tramped the country accompanied by the children,
0:18:22 > 0:18:23"living in lodging houses,
0:18:23 > 0:18:27"and subsisting by singing in the streets and begging.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30"You know what a miserable existence this is."
0:18:35 > 0:18:40There's a photograph of Isa, and she's beautifully dressed,
0:18:40 > 0:18:43and she looks very well, and very healthy,
0:18:43 > 0:18:45and just looks like a normal child
0:18:45 > 0:18:48that anyone would want to look after.
0:18:55 > 0:18:57So the next document we're looking at here
0:18:57 > 0:19:00is, I think, an admission document and it says...
0:19:00 > 0:19:02It says, "I, William Higgins
0:19:02 > 0:19:05"beg to state that I'm quite willing to hand over my children,
0:19:05 > 0:19:07"Maggie Higgins and Isabella Higgins.
0:19:07 > 0:19:11"From this date, I will cease to be responsible for the children
0:19:11 > 0:19:13"and have no after claim whatsoever."
0:19:17 > 0:19:18In the years that followed,
0:19:18 > 0:19:21the Higgins sisters would endure more upheaval...
0:19:22 > 0:19:24..for the sin of being born too poor.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29Four decades later,
0:19:29 > 0:19:33Hugh McGowan arrived in care for the sin of being born...
0:19:33 > 0:19:34illegitimate.
0:19:36 > 0:19:38He lived with his mother
0:19:38 > 0:19:41in a Salvation Army hostel for unmarried women
0:19:41 > 0:19:43in Glasgow's Southside.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48Hugh was not allowed to stay in a hostel beyond his second birthday.
0:19:49 > 0:19:52His mother's family didn't want to know.
0:19:52 > 0:19:55And so, in 1949,
0:19:55 > 0:19:58the Salvation Army looked to find Hugh a place at Quarrier's,
0:19:58 > 0:20:02Scotland's largest children's home.
0:20:02 > 0:20:04Over now to Renfrewshire in Scotland
0:20:04 > 0:20:07where between Bridge Of Weir and Kilmacolm is a children's village,
0:20:07 > 0:20:11complete with its own school, church and shops.
0:20:11 > 0:20:15The Salvation Army wrote to Quarriers
0:20:15 > 0:20:19and they said that they had
0:20:19 > 0:20:24a child here and would they take me
0:20:24 > 0:20:26into Quarriers.
0:20:28 > 0:20:33They described my mother as being a "useless, dirty type,"
0:20:33 > 0:20:35which I found quite offensive.
0:20:38 > 0:20:40So they asked if I would be...
0:20:40 > 0:20:43They asked Quarriers if they would take me in.
0:20:45 > 0:20:49The children's home had been founded in 1873 by the Glasgow
0:20:49 > 0:20:51philanthropist William Quarrier.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56As a boy, Quarrier had known desperate poverty.
0:20:58 > 0:21:01The village he built near Bridge of Weir renounced the large
0:21:01 > 0:21:04dormitories of old.
0:21:04 > 0:21:09Instead, he created a self-contained community of cottages with
0:21:09 > 0:21:12the children looked after by so-called cottage mothers.
0:21:12 > 0:21:17At its peak, Quarriers housed up to 1,500 children.
0:21:21 > 0:21:24There were times when...
0:21:26 > 0:21:31..I enjoyed myself. There's no doubt about that.
0:21:38 > 0:21:43But there were times when I was scared out of my wits.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50Step out of line, bang!
0:21:50 > 0:21:55The cottage parent, the cottage mother, the teachers,
0:21:55 > 0:21:58some of them they had their own strap and they used to do things
0:21:58 > 0:22:02to it, like dip it in saltwater, so that it gets really hard
0:22:02 > 0:22:09and, you know, that was the way, that was the way that Quarriers was.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15Their religion was the hellfire stuff, you know,
0:22:15 > 0:22:18all hell and damnation.
0:22:18 > 0:22:22You know, the love of God was secondary.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28Hugh arrived at Quarriers at a time of huge upheaval in the way Scotland
0:22:28 > 0:22:32cared for her most vulnerable children.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36The Clyde Report of 1946, commissioned by the Scottish
0:22:36 > 0:22:41Office, called for children's homes to be less regimented, less
0:22:41 > 0:22:45religious and to pay more attention to the needs of individual children.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51Where possible, the report recommended that children in
0:22:51 > 0:22:53care should remain with their family
0:22:53 > 0:22:57or be boarded out to reputable foster carers.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04The post-war focus on childhood extended into child health,
0:23:04 > 0:23:08an area that had steadily been improving throughout the 1930s.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13But it was the arrival of the National Health Service that
0:23:13 > 0:23:17would truly revolutionise the health of Scotland's children.
0:23:19 > 0:23:23This leaflet is coming through your letterbox one day soon,
0:23:23 > 0:23:27or maybe you have already had your copy. Read it carefully.
0:23:27 > 0:23:32The NHS came into being in the summer of 1948.
0:23:39 > 0:23:43Seven months later, in the Aberdeenshire village
0:23:43 > 0:23:46of Laurencekirk, John Callander was born.
0:23:48 > 0:23:50At the age of five,
0:23:50 > 0:23:54he fell seriously ill playing in the fields around his home.
0:23:56 > 0:24:01My mum put me to my bed and the doctor was called and he had a
0:24:01 > 0:24:06look and decided quite quickly that I should be taken to City Hospital
0:24:06 > 0:24:09and I remember the ambulance came from the
0:24:09 > 0:24:12central garage, which was next door to the smithy where my dad worked,
0:24:12 > 0:24:16and I can still smell the sort of carbolic soap that must have
0:24:16 > 0:24:19been used to scrub it out and then it was
0:24:19 > 0:24:20a case of up to Aberdeen,
0:24:20 > 0:24:24then it was into City Hospital and into isolation.
0:24:27 > 0:24:32Diagnosed with polio and paralysed from the neck down, John's
0:24:32 > 0:24:37only hope for survival was treatment in a new and expensive device.
0:24:40 > 0:24:44The iron lung does artificially what his paralysed chest muscles cannot.
0:24:44 > 0:24:47And through it all he's game and cheerful.
0:24:47 > 0:24:50The best way that you could experience it would be if
0:24:50 > 0:24:55you're down at the beach and you got completely covered in sand,
0:24:55 > 0:24:57only your head sticking out, you can't move.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00You literally can move nothing and your world then
0:25:00 > 0:25:03becomes a piece of glass in front of you,
0:25:03 > 0:25:08that's all you see and then you have the noise obviously of
0:25:08 > 0:25:11the lung working as the pressure increases and decreases to
0:25:11 > 0:25:14force you to breathe.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17You could... I could see my mum and my dad at the window,
0:25:17 > 0:25:21that's as far as, you know, you could get.
0:25:24 > 0:25:29John's father was a blacksmith, not poor but far from wealthy.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32The National Health Service promised
0:25:32 > 0:25:34the best of care regardless of income.
0:25:34 > 0:25:38If my parents had had to pay for, you know, the treatment,
0:25:38 > 0:25:41it would've been extremely difficult,
0:25:41 > 0:25:44but without the iron lung, I wouldn't be here today.
0:25:48 > 0:25:51John's father documented his son's recovery.
0:25:51 > 0:25:56A home movie enthusiast, he captured family days out in the hills
0:25:56 > 0:25:59and on the beaches of Aberdeenshire.
0:26:03 > 0:26:08You can see the right leg is a lot thinner than the left leg and
0:26:08 > 0:26:11that I had a tendency to walk on the ball of my foot.
0:26:13 > 0:26:16The new NHS, together with improvements in water
0:26:16 > 0:26:20supplies and housing, began to conquer diseases that had
0:26:20 > 0:26:24previously blighted Scottish childhood.
0:26:24 > 0:26:28By 1962, the number of deaths from polio,
0:26:28 > 0:26:32diphtheria and tetanus had fallen to zero.
0:26:32 > 0:26:35The silent film is winter up the Garvock.
0:26:38 > 0:26:40Getting down was fine.
0:26:43 > 0:26:46But getting a back up for me was quite a difficult job.
0:26:48 > 0:26:52When the century began, almost 150 of every 1,000
0:26:52 > 0:26:55children would not live to see their first birthday.
0:26:58 > 0:27:02By 1968, 20 years after the introduction of the NHS,
0:27:02 > 0:27:05that figure had fallen to seven.
0:27:08 > 0:27:11The power of the post-war state revolutionised the health of
0:27:11 > 0:27:12Scottish children.
0:27:15 > 0:27:21And as it did, other aspects of childhood came under the microscope,
0:27:21 > 0:27:25and in particular how best to deal with children
0:27:25 > 0:27:26in trouble with the law.
0:27:26 > 0:27:31The work of war makes it a hard job to keep children out of mischief.
0:27:31 > 0:27:35One in every ten crimes and offences in Scotland is committed by
0:27:35 > 0:27:37boys and girls under 17.
0:27:37 > 0:27:41It was felt that this was a result of wartime conditions, that
0:27:41 > 0:27:46it was linked into the dislocations that were caused by evacuation,
0:27:46 > 0:27:50it was also linked to the absence of fathers who were serving in
0:27:50 > 0:27:53the military and were seen as important authority figures
0:27:53 > 0:27:54within the family.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58It was also linked by commentators to working mothers.
0:28:00 > 0:28:07Those same issues were addressed in the 1944 film Children Of The City.
0:28:07 > 0:28:10Commissioned by the Scottish Office and made for an international
0:28:10 > 0:28:13audience by the pioneering left-wing director
0:28:13 > 0:28:15Bridget, or "Budge", Cooper,
0:28:15 > 0:28:18it was filmed entirely in Dundee.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26Well, the film opens with three lads breaking into
0:28:26 > 0:28:32a pawnbroker's shop and having great fun playing with the clothing
0:28:32 > 0:28:37until, of course, they're discovered by a police officer.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40One of the things that is very apparent from the film
0:28:40 > 0:28:44actually is the issue of where blame was placed, because
0:28:44 > 0:28:47Budge Cooper was very clear in her mind that it was actually
0:28:47 > 0:28:52poverty and poor environments that were responsible for children
0:28:52 > 0:28:55misbehaving in Scotland.
0:28:56 > 0:29:01In the film, the three children and their parents are ordered
0:29:01 > 0:29:04to appear before a juvenile court.
0:29:04 > 0:29:07Children weren't considered when these towns were built.
0:29:07 > 0:29:11They are shut in by factories, warehouses and tenements.
0:29:11 > 0:29:13They are lost among granite streets
0:29:13 > 0:29:17and pavements, courts, winds and closes.
0:29:17 > 0:29:21Where can they play? Where can children go in a city?
0:29:23 > 0:29:28Established in 1908, juvenile courts were operated by regular sheriffs
0:29:28 > 0:29:32and magistrates, but away from the formality of the court room.
0:29:34 > 0:29:36And now these three children
0:29:36 > 0:29:39must answer to the law for what they have done.
0:29:39 > 0:29:45So this is the hearing before the juvenile court magistrates.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48It is interesting I think that the proceedings are much more
0:29:48 > 0:29:51informal than they would be in an adult court,
0:29:51 > 0:29:54so they're all sitting around a large table.
0:29:54 > 0:29:58The youngest of the three boys is sent to one of Scotland's new
0:29:58 > 0:30:03guidance clinics, his behaviour blamed in part on his squint.
0:30:03 > 0:30:07The middle child's father is serving abroad and his mother is
0:30:07 > 0:30:11struggling to cope. The boy is sentenced to 12 months probation.
0:30:14 > 0:30:16Distributed around the world,
0:30:16 > 0:30:19Budge Cooper's film offered a rose-tinted vision of Scottish
0:30:19 > 0:30:22child justice, where punishment
0:30:22 > 0:30:25could be replaced by welfare and education.
0:30:25 > 0:30:31Clearly what was emphasised were the more progressive interventions
0:30:31 > 0:30:33that were being used.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37In fact, probably around three quarters of the cases that
0:30:37 > 0:30:41came before the juvenile courts simply lead to fines or
0:30:41 > 0:30:45admonitions, a kind of stern telling off.
0:30:46 > 0:30:49But even in the liberal leaning world of Cooper's film,
0:30:49 > 0:30:52there were some children who needed a firmer hand.
0:30:55 > 0:30:59The oldest of the three boys, Alec, had been in trouble before.
0:30:59 > 0:31:02His mother is apathetic and feckless.
0:31:02 > 0:31:05The only chance for Alec to improve
0:31:05 > 0:31:07is for him to be taken away from his family.
0:31:10 > 0:31:14What we find out is that his home surroundings are deemed to be
0:31:14 > 0:31:18far from adequate, I think his mother is...is...
0:31:18 > 0:31:22There isn't a polite word about this now.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26Alec must be sent to an approved school.
0:31:26 > 0:31:27Alec's mother raises no objections.
0:31:27 > 0:31:32The system that sent young Alec to approved school, or Borstal,
0:31:32 > 0:31:35endured from 1908 to 1970.
0:31:40 > 0:31:43What replaced it, children's hearings,
0:31:43 > 0:31:48was the subject of this 1971 film made by Aberdeen University.
0:31:50 > 0:31:53He's just arrogant, this one. You kind of get it into him and say that
0:31:53 > 0:31:56if he's getting a fair day's wage, it's to do a fair day's work.
0:31:56 > 0:32:01- He thinks everything should fall at him and nothing in this world's free.- Shut up.
0:32:01 > 0:32:05Children's hearings replaced magistrates with trained
0:32:05 > 0:32:08members of the public who would decide the fate of both
0:32:08 > 0:32:11children in care and those in trouble with the law.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14Do you really think this will help the problems?
0:32:14 > 0:32:17I'm quite well aware of the step and I hope you don't take the attitude
0:32:17 > 0:32:19that I'm a bad mother, because I'm far from it.
0:32:19 > 0:32:22I just can't cope, it's impossible.
0:32:26 > 0:32:29Both films end with a boy being sent to an approved school.
0:32:32 > 0:32:36Traditionally it was a place like this -
0:32:36 > 0:32:40grim, oppressive, the last resort.
0:32:44 > 0:32:46But times have changed.
0:32:48 > 0:32:53Yesterday's approved school is today's education and care centre.
0:32:54 > 0:32:59This is the secure residential area at Kibble in Paisley,
0:32:59 > 0:33:02home to some of Scotland's most serious child offenders.
0:33:03 > 0:33:08Each unit has six young people, accommodation for six young people.
0:33:08 > 0:33:15Registration is from 12 to 18. They come from all over Scotland.
0:33:15 > 0:33:19The change in approach from hard labour to soft furnishings
0:33:19 > 0:33:24was heralded by the Social Work (Scotland) Act of 1968.
0:33:24 > 0:33:28Incarceration is now a last resort.
0:33:28 > 0:33:32For the last six years, the number of young Scots in secure
0:33:32 > 0:33:36residential care has never exceeded 100.
0:33:36 > 0:33:38So this is your bedroom.
0:33:38 > 0:33:42Bedroom ensuite facility and we promote this as their space,
0:33:42 > 0:33:46their safe space to have their thoughts and their activities.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49You have their television, their Xbox, their computers, PCs,
0:33:49 > 0:33:52whatever's deemed appropriate for them.
0:33:55 > 0:34:01Matt McMini - his real name - took a room at Kibble in 1974.
0:34:03 > 0:34:06I didn't like school because my passion was for cars.
0:34:08 > 0:34:10Sometimes other people's.
0:34:12 > 0:34:15Well, most of the time other people's,
0:34:15 > 0:34:18and for the time that I had it, I would take care of it.
0:34:18 > 0:34:20On many occasions I would take cars home,
0:34:20 > 0:34:27give them a wash and then make it look a wee bit nicer, because after,
0:34:27 > 0:34:31at the end of the day, it's me who's going to be driving about in it.
0:34:31 > 0:34:35Matt's "hobby" attracted the attention of the authorities.
0:34:35 > 0:34:41Aged 14, a children's panel decided he should spend two years at Kibble.
0:34:41 > 0:34:45Much of that time he spent in the workshop.
0:34:45 > 0:34:51We'd be tinkering about with cars and servicing the school
0:34:51 > 0:34:55transport at the time. Couldn't wait to get to that class.
0:34:55 > 0:34:57Just work your pedal back and forward, side to side,
0:34:57 > 0:34:59give it a wee shake.
0:34:59 > 0:35:02That training served him well.
0:35:02 > 0:35:06Matt's now back at Kibble as a fully qualified teacher.
0:35:09 > 0:35:12Kibble is now a charitable enterprise.
0:35:12 > 0:35:17It makes money from donations and payments from local authorities.
0:35:17 > 0:35:22These go-karts both raise money and teach young people about mechanics.
0:35:22 > 0:35:27Don't mind telling them what my past is and everything else and
0:35:27 > 0:35:30how I became where I am today.
0:35:34 > 0:35:36It's a reward for me.
0:35:36 > 0:35:40When I see a young person progressing from coming in first,
0:35:40 > 0:35:43sitting down at a table with a hoodie up,
0:35:43 > 0:35:46on their phone, until maybe two or three weeks later, they're
0:35:46 > 0:35:50walking into the workshop and saying, "Right, what we doing today, Matt?"
0:35:50 > 0:35:53And then I'll just give myself a wee tap on the back.
0:35:53 > 0:35:55The final one...
0:35:55 > 0:35:59Poacher turned gamekeeper, Matt is a living endorsement of the
0:35:59 > 0:36:05child welfare reforms of the '40s, '50s and '60s. A time of revolution.
0:36:05 > 0:36:09A whole new approach that prioritised listening
0:36:09 > 0:36:11to the needs of the child.
0:36:15 > 0:36:19But there remains the last vestiges of an older and crueller world.
0:36:21 > 0:36:25In 1911, the desperate plight of Maggie and Isabella Higgins
0:36:25 > 0:36:28had been discovered by the cruelty man.
0:36:28 > 0:36:34They'd been taken to Winnwell children's home and then in 1915,
0:36:34 > 0:36:35dispatched to Canada.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41Astonishingly, the practice of sending vulnerable children
0:36:41 > 0:36:44abroad continued into the late 1960s.
0:36:48 > 0:36:51In January 1961,
0:36:51 > 0:36:5612-year-old Hugh McGowan was living at Quarriers children's home.
0:36:56 > 0:37:00Quarriers asked if he'd like to go to a home in Australia and wrote
0:37:00 > 0:37:05to Hugh's mother - then living in England - asking for her permission.
0:37:05 > 0:37:07That letter was sent to her,
0:37:07 > 0:37:12it arrived in Surrey and...
0:37:12 > 0:37:16they had said, "Return to sender," it's stamped there,
0:37:16 > 0:37:21that shows that my mother never received that letter
0:37:21 > 0:37:25and so Quarriers sent me anyway.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31Hugh was initially delighted to leave Quarriers.
0:37:31 > 0:37:35He arrived in Australia in September 1961.
0:37:38 > 0:37:42100 miles north of Melbourne, Hugh's new home was to be
0:37:42 > 0:37:45a 68-roomed mansion.
0:37:45 > 0:37:51In 1961, it was the Dhurringile Training Farm for Boys.
0:37:51 > 0:37:57Today, it's part of a prison. To Hugh it always was.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01We were basically incarcerated here.
0:38:02 > 0:38:07Because we weren't allowed to just...
0:38:07 > 0:38:10"Hi, Mum, I'm going down to see Joe."
0:38:10 > 0:38:11That didn't happen.
0:38:14 > 0:38:17I'm grateful that I had somewhere to live.
0:38:17 > 0:38:23I had food to eat, I had a bed to sleep in, I had clothes to wear.
0:38:24 > 0:38:28When it came to...love,
0:38:28 > 0:38:30it was non-existent.
0:38:32 > 0:38:37We...are known as child migrants.
0:38:39 > 0:38:41We weren't.
0:38:41 > 0:38:43We were child deportees.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47Because we came to Australia,
0:38:47 > 0:38:53I did not have a birth certificate and I did not have a passport.
0:38:53 > 0:38:59So we were sent here by the British Government at the behest of
0:38:59 > 0:39:02the Australian Government and put here.
0:39:22 > 0:39:25This is the first time I've been back in this room.
0:39:29 > 0:39:31And frankly it's hurting.
0:39:34 > 0:39:37I just remember this room too well.
0:39:37 > 0:39:39Sorry.
0:39:43 > 0:39:46It's where I was sexually abused...
0:39:48 > 0:39:51..by the superintendent at the time.
0:39:51 > 0:39:53In here.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02What happened in this unremarkable room,
0:40:02 > 0:40:07Hugh would keep to himself for 40 years.
0:40:07 > 0:40:09I'm one of the survivors.
0:40:09 > 0:40:14I know of others. I know that three of the, erm...
0:40:14 > 0:40:21of the people, the guys that came to Australia from Quarriers,
0:40:21 > 0:40:25are...are dead.
0:40:25 > 0:40:27One suicided,
0:40:27 > 0:40:32another one died of alcohol problems.
0:40:32 > 0:40:34And another one died of drug problems.
0:40:41 > 0:40:44They don't even know how many kids came to Australia.
0:40:50 > 0:40:52They say there were 7,000 of us.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57I don't believe that. I believe it's many more.
0:40:57 > 0:40:59I know... I think it's up to 15,000.
0:41:01 > 0:41:05Both British and Australian prime ministers have apologised for
0:41:05 > 0:41:08their countries' part in child migration.
0:41:10 > 0:41:14We look back with shame that many of these little ones,
0:41:14 > 0:41:17who were entrusted to institutions and foster homes,
0:41:17 > 0:41:21instead were abused physically,
0:41:21 > 0:41:24humiliated cruelly,
0:41:24 > 0:41:27violated sexually...
0:41:27 > 0:41:29These wounds will never fully heal,
0:41:29 > 0:41:32and for too long the survivors have been all but ignored.
0:41:34 > 0:41:36The governments allowed it to happen.
0:41:36 > 0:41:38They... They just...
0:41:38 > 0:41:42They just wiped their hands of us and they still do it.
0:41:44 > 0:41:50We've had two apologies and, quite frankly, they don't mean much
0:41:50 > 0:41:55when they don't face what they have done to so many kids.
0:41:57 > 0:42:01Hugh's journey into care had begun with two Scottish charities,
0:42:01 > 0:42:06the Salvation Army and Quarriers,
0:42:06 > 0:42:11but by the 1960s they were being replaced by a new generation of
0:42:11 > 0:42:15professional carers - social workers.
0:42:15 > 0:42:17Among them, Anne Black,
0:42:17 > 0:42:22who was inspired at university to help those most in need.
0:42:22 > 0:42:26It was quite unusual to be a social worker in those days.
0:42:26 > 0:42:28People didn't really know what you did.
0:42:28 > 0:42:32It was a stressful job, and it was emotionally draining.
0:42:34 > 0:42:38In the 1960s, Anne's focus was on Pilton,
0:42:38 > 0:42:40a housing estate in the north of Edinburgh.
0:42:40 > 0:42:43It's strange when you come back down here, though.
0:42:43 > 0:42:45You can't remember the person you've just met,
0:42:45 > 0:42:47but you can remember the name of the family that lived at
0:42:47 > 0:42:50that particular house. It's ridiculous.
0:42:53 > 0:42:57Social workers of the period were taught to keep families
0:42:57 > 0:42:59together whenever possible,
0:42:59 > 0:43:04but one family, both parents alcoholics, forced Anne to make
0:43:04 > 0:43:10a tough decision and place their two-year-old son Alec in care.
0:43:10 > 0:43:1350 years on, they're still in touch.
0:43:16 > 0:43:18This was a little card that we had.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21That shows where you went and that you, Alec,
0:43:21 > 0:43:22- went off to St Helen's... - St Helen's.
0:43:22 > 0:43:25- ..which was the nursery along at West Coates...- Yeah.
0:43:25 > 0:43:28..with a Miss McIntosh who used to run it with a rod of iron.
0:43:31 > 0:43:35My parents, it was a marriage made in hell.
0:43:36 > 0:43:41My father took absolutely no responsibility
0:43:41 > 0:43:44for his children whatsoever.
0:43:44 > 0:43:48And my mother was just...
0:43:48 > 0:43:51She had so many problems, it was, erm...
0:43:53 > 0:43:56She couldn't look after herself, it was as simple as that.
0:43:59 > 0:44:03It always is, for me, as a social worker, is, you know,
0:44:03 > 0:44:07did we do enough to try to keep your family together?
0:44:07 > 0:44:12- If you looked at where I came from, my family home...- Yes.
0:44:12 > 0:44:16..I was much happier in care.
0:44:16 > 0:44:18- Yes. You were more settled and... - Yeah, yeah.
0:44:18 > 0:44:20- ..it was more predictable, I suppose.- Yes.
0:44:20 > 0:44:22- I knew what was happening.- Yeah.
0:44:22 > 0:44:29- So, for me, I mean, care was a very, very positive experience.- Mm-hm.
0:44:29 > 0:44:31Well, I have a huge family,
0:44:31 > 0:44:34and one of my siblings,
0:44:34 > 0:44:38Tam, his kids are...
0:44:38 > 0:44:41It's Tam and I when we were kids. It's what we should have been.
0:44:45 > 0:44:50It's what we should have been, and it's fantastic to see where
0:44:50 > 0:44:53that cycle has actually been broken.
0:44:59 > 0:45:01The quiet victories of Scotland's social workers
0:45:01 > 0:45:06received scant publicity,
0:45:06 > 0:45:10but by the 1970s and '80s, their failures to recognise
0:45:10 > 0:45:13child abuse were rarely out of the headlines.
0:45:18 > 0:45:21At the age of four, Helen Holland was sent to
0:45:21 > 0:45:25the Nazareth House children's home in Kilmarnock,
0:45:25 > 0:45:28run by a Roman Catholic order.
0:45:28 > 0:45:32Helen was placed in the care of a nun called Sister Kevin.
0:45:32 > 0:45:36From the very beginning, she told me the devil was inside of me -
0:45:36 > 0:45:38that I was the spawn of the devil.
0:45:38 > 0:45:41"Hell" was in my name, and that's why I was called Helen.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44And every day I was told that I was...
0:45:44 > 0:45:47the devil was inside of me.
0:45:47 > 0:45:52At the age of eight, Helen was abused by Sister Kevin -
0:45:52 > 0:45:58at first physically, then, she alleges, sexually.
0:45:58 > 0:46:00It meant nothing to her at all.
0:46:00 > 0:46:04It was just another form of punishment,
0:46:04 > 0:46:07and that's what sexual abuse became.
0:46:07 > 0:46:09Somebody that could do that to you...
0:46:11 > 0:46:15..I don't know how they can say they represent God.
0:46:17 > 0:46:19Helen tried to raise an alarm on what was happening
0:46:19 > 0:46:21at Nazareth House.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26She confided in a Kilmarnock social worker,
0:46:26 > 0:46:28who simply returned her to the children's home.
0:46:31 > 0:46:35Scottish social workers were poorly prepared and poorly trained
0:46:35 > 0:46:37for the tragedies that lay ahead.
0:46:40 > 0:46:41When I look back,
0:46:41 > 0:46:44I can see some children that were being emotionally abused,
0:46:44 > 0:46:46or possibly sexually abused,
0:46:46 > 0:46:50but, in fact, I did some checking for another reason,
0:46:50 > 0:46:55and sexual abuse wasn't mentioned in textbooks until the 1980s.
0:46:55 > 0:46:58So, I was 20 years into my career when, in fact,
0:46:58 > 0:47:03it became something that people were aware of, would take notice of,
0:47:03 > 0:47:05and got some help with dealing with.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14Faced with growing evidence of child sexual abuse,
0:47:14 > 0:47:17Scottish social workers rushed to react.
0:47:19 > 0:47:24In early 1991, on the Orkney island of South Ronaldsay,
0:47:24 > 0:47:29a single confirmed case of child sexual abuse mushroomed into
0:47:29 > 0:47:34suspicions that four families were involved in ritualised abuse.
0:47:37 > 0:47:42In a series of dawn raids on 27 February, nine children were
0:47:42 > 0:47:45taken from the arms of their parents by social workers.
0:47:45 > 0:47:47They said to us that,
0:47:47 > 0:47:50"We have reason to believe they've been sexually abused."
0:47:50 > 0:47:51And that was it.
0:47:51 > 0:47:55They didn't say who was supposed to have abused them,
0:47:55 > 0:47:58why, when, how or anything.
0:48:00 > 0:48:02That was the only thing that they said.
0:48:04 > 0:48:06I went up to get the children,
0:48:06 > 0:48:09and they locked themselves in the bathroom.
0:48:09 > 0:48:12Well, we eventually got the children out of the bathroom,
0:48:12 > 0:48:14and then they went.
0:48:14 > 0:48:17They got their shoes on and they got their coats and they went.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20- SHE SOBS - I'm sorry...
0:48:22 > 0:48:24The children were flown to places of safety
0:48:24 > 0:48:27on the Scottish mainland,
0:48:27 > 0:48:30where they were held for 36 days,
0:48:30 > 0:48:34until a sheriff ruled that the decision to remove the children
0:48:34 > 0:48:37had been fatally flawed and incompetent.
0:48:37 > 0:48:41- Give it in for that!- Hear, hear! - Here, now!
0:48:41 > 0:48:42Make a statement...
0:48:42 > 0:48:47On 4 April, parents stormed the Kirkwall social work office,
0:48:47 > 0:48:50demanding the immediate return of their children.
0:48:50 > 0:48:55You have made innocent children and families suffer.
0:48:55 > 0:48:57What are you going to do about it?
0:48:57 > 0:49:02If you are a little bit frightened, Madam, it won't nearly be enough.
0:49:02 > 0:49:06- Can I ask that we see...? - Nobody's listening to you any more.
0:49:06 > 0:49:08- We've heard what the sheriff had to say.- Please, calm down.
0:49:08 > 0:49:11Yeah, we want the children home. What are you going to do about it?
0:49:11 > 0:49:14Calm down?! You took our children!
0:49:14 > 0:49:17You took our children!
0:49:17 > 0:49:19You made them suffer! You made us...
0:49:27 > 0:49:29CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:49:29 > 0:49:33That same evening, the children came home.
0:49:42 > 0:49:46The social workers were universally condemned.
0:49:46 > 0:49:51Anne Black worked on the 1992 Clyde Report into what had gone wrong.
0:49:53 > 0:49:59It was a very black period in social work and social work services,
0:49:59 > 0:50:04because people couldn't understand how children were
0:50:04 > 0:50:05whipped away so quickly,
0:50:05 > 0:50:11and without necessarily all that much evidence at that point.
0:50:11 > 0:50:14People, when they saw behaviour that worried them,
0:50:14 > 0:50:17perhaps jumped to conclusions and acted very quickly,
0:50:17 > 0:50:21and I think that was public pressure, media pressure...
0:50:21 > 0:50:23You know, we can't let children suffer.
0:50:25 > 0:50:27The sins of Scotland's past -
0:50:27 > 0:50:31Orkney, Nazareth House, and boarding out.
0:50:31 > 0:50:36Every week, it seems, new tragedies are unearthed,
0:50:36 > 0:50:40and there are still many haunted by decisions taken in their
0:50:40 > 0:50:43childhood by the men and women trusted to look after them.
0:50:46 > 0:50:49Boarded out to Tiree in 1969,
0:50:49 > 0:50:52Glasgow Corporation social workers
0:50:52 > 0:50:56had told Stewart Wilson that he was an only child.
0:50:56 > 0:50:59He'd been given no details of his biological mother.
0:50:59 > 0:51:04As an infant, Stewart had been adopted by his grandparents.
0:51:04 > 0:51:07When he recovered his adoption paperwork,
0:51:07 > 0:51:11he discovered startling new information.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14They pulled out an A3-sized envelope with a big court seal
0:51:14 > 0:51:16on the front of it.
0:51:16 > 0:51:18"Sealed on this day, 10 December 1965,
0:51:18 > 0:51:20"by order of the Glasgow Sheriff Court."
0:51:20 > 0:51:21For the attention of me.
0:51:24 > 0:51:26I got it photocopied, took it home,
0:51:26 > 0:51:29and I found out I had five sisters and a brother,
0:51:29 > 0:51:30at the age of 40.
0:51:32 > 0:51:35To say I was shocked was an understatement.
0:51:36 > 0:51:42It then took me possibly three years to track the first one down,
0:51:42 > 0:51:45so I was trying to trace my brother.
0:51:47 > 0:51:50I went on Friends Reunited,
0:51:50 > 0:51:56and then his widow contacted me to say he'd died three months earlier.
0:51:56 > 0:51:59He'd had a brain tumour, and spent the last six years of his life
0:51:59 > 0:52:01trying to find me.
0:52:05 > 0:52:07But because the records were sealed on me,
0:52:07 > 0:52:10my own brother couldn't find me.
0:52:11 > 0:52:13I thought that was it,
0:52:13 > 0:52:16and then when I was 50,
0:52:16 > 0:52:20while still trying to trace my mother,
0:52:20 > 0:52:25I found out she had died in Glasgow in 1983 at the age of 36.
0:52:27 > 0:52:29Again, nobody had told me.
0:52:32 > 0:52:34Such is life.
0:52:35 > 0:52:38Yeah, I'm angry I wasn't given the information,
0:52:38 > 0:52:41because I could have made so much of that, and formed a relationship
0:52:41 > 0:52:43with my brother and my mother,
0:52:43 > 0:52:46and got to know their kids as they were growing up.
0:52:46 > 0:52:50Somebody in authority decided that I shouldn't have to know.
0:52:50 > 0:52:53Erm...
0:52:53 > 0:52:57And they obviously got it wrong, but I...
0:52:57 > 0:52:59I wasn't the only person in Scotland that happened to.
0:52:59 > 0:53:03It happened to thousands of children,
0:53:03 > 0:53:05because the authorities at the time had too much power.
0:53:08 > 0:53:11Physically abused and shut off from his family,
0:53:11 > 0:53:14Stewart Wilson could be a blueprint for
0:53:14 > 0:53:16where Scottish childcare went wrong.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21Much effort has been placed in getting it right.
0:53:23 > 0:53:27In 2003, a young girl from Lanarkshire had grown up to
0:53:27 > 0:53:31be appointed Scotland's first Commissioner for Children.
0:53:34 > 0:53:36Well, I spent the first six years of my life
0:53:36 > 0:53:39in an interesting street in Hamilton.
0:53:39 > 0:53:42You know, I remember one family who just disappeared,
0:53:42 > 0:53:46and we were told that the children had been taken away by the cruelty -
0:53:46 > 0:53:50the youngest one first and then two older boys -
0:53:50 > 0:53:53and I used to think, you know, what that was like.
0:53:53 > 0:53:57I had this vision of the cruelty as looking like a burglar,
0:53:57 > 0:54:00you know, with a sack, swag sack on it...
0:54:00 > 0:54:02But there were a family where,
0:54:02 > 0:54:05you know, we used to see the children sitting out on the step.
0:54:09 > 0:54:12- I'm sorry.- That's all right. - I know, really, I just...
0:54:12 > 0:54:16- Sorry. Aye. - These wee kids were just hungry.
0:54:25 > 0:54:30But we just have to keep reminding ourselves that there are
0:54:30 > 0:54:33children whose basic needs are not being met,
0:54:33 > 0:54:35and that we have to find ways of doing that,
0:54:35 > 0:54:40and making sure that children have their basic needs met,
0:54:40 > 0:54:43and are able to have a happy and fulfilled life,
0:54:43 > 0:54:46and I think happiness is an important word.
0:54:48 > 0:54:53So, in 2017, are Scotland's most vulnerable children
0:54:53 > 0:54:55any closer to happiness?
0:54:56 > 0:55:0019-year-old Adam came into care in 2012.
0:55:02 > 0:55:06He now lives with Colin, a full-time foster carer.
0:55:06 > 0:55:11Since 2003, Colin's looked after 17 children.
0:55:13 > 0:55:17I really wouldn't be who I am or where I am or what I am
0:55:17 > 0:55:18without fostering.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21It's just so fundamental to my life.
0:55:21 > 0:55:23But it's not who I am.
0:55:23 > 0:55:25I often speak to kind of my friends
0:55:25 > 0:55:28and I actually find that I can speak to my friends now...
0:55:28 > 0:55:30Occasionally, cos I tend to call Colin "Dad",
0:55:30 > 0:55:32but I'll occasionally call him my foster carer,
0:55:32 > 0:55:33and people will be like...
0:55:33 > 0:55:36Be honest, you've done the Star Wars thing recently, "Father".
0:55:36 > 0:55:39- I did call you Father. I did. - It's all about Star Wars.
0:55:39 > 0:55:41Yeah, I didn't know how to go about it.
0:55:41 > 0:55:44And I speak to one of my friends about it and they don't think
0:55:44 > 0:55:46I'm in care, they don't attribute it with anything,
0:55:46 > 0:55:50so I think that that's a sign of how good fostering has been for me.
0:55:50 > 0:55:52I think there are stigmas attached to care,
0:55:52 > 0:55:56I think people see children in care as, you know...
0:55:56 > 0:55:58One of the youngest, he always says to me, whenever he tells
0:55:58 > 0:56:01people he's in care, the first thing they say is, "Oh, sorry."
0:56:01 > 0:56:04- Yeah.- As if... You know, apologising for where he is.
0:56:06 > 0:56:10Today, of the 15,000 Scots now labelled "looked after",
0:56:10 > 0:56:14only a tenth are in residential care -
0:56:14 > 0:56:16a quarter live with their parents,
0:56:16 > 0:56:20and more than a third are with foster carers like Colin.
0:56:20 > 0:56:26And since 1995, young Scots can remain in care until the age of six,
0:56:26 > 0:56:31a policy designed to increase their stability and prospects.
0:56:33 > 0:56:39In 2016, Adam began his third year at Edinburgh University.
0:56:39 > 0:56:42I am massively proud watching Adam kind of wander through the
0:56:42 > 0:56:44world of university and just fitting in and being part of it
0:56:44 > 0:56:47and having a great social set and good friends and that lovely
0:56:47 > 0:56:50moment where people say, "Oh, I didn't realise you were in care."
0:56:52 > 0:56:55The vulnerable children of the 21st century are far better
0:56:55 > 0:56:58protected than the children of 100 years ago.
0:57:00 > 0:57:04But even today, government statistics reported that
0:57:04 > 0:57:06one in five Scottish children live in poverty...
0:57:08 > 0:57:12..and the country's neediest children face new dangers,
0:57:12 > 0:57:15just as serious as those faced by their predecessors.
0:57:17 > 0:57:19I sometimes think that,
0:57:19 > 0:57:22despite all the advances in children's rights,
0:57:22 > 0:57:26if you go away back to 1924, the first Declaration of the Rights
0:57:26 > 0:57:30of the Child by Eglantyne Jebb, who got the UN to accept it,
0:57:30 > 0:57:35it said that mankind owed to the child the best it had to give.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42It said that the child that is hungry must be fed and that
0:57:42 > 0:57:46the child must be the first to receive relief in times of distress.
0:57:50 > 0:57:54And sometimes I think we have to go back to that and ask
0:57:54 > 0:57:57ourselves whether, in spite of all of the developments we've had
0:57:57 > 0:58:01in children's rights, we are actually fulfilling these very
0:58:01 > 0:58:04basic standards that were set out in 1924.
0:58:08 > 0:58:12Are we giving children the best we have to give?
0:58:12 > 0:58:14Are they first to receive relief in times of distress,
0:58:14 > 0:58:17including economic distress?
0:58:19 > 0:58:21And are hungry children being fed?
0:58:22 > 0:58:25And sometimes I think the answer is no.