Who Do You Think You Are - Lesley Sharp 14th Aug

[Shona]

Originally Posted by kiterunner

Definitely sounds worth looking into, Shona. Let us know what you find out! And shout if you want help.

Will do. I'll post a new thread with the results.

[kiterunner]

I found this in the British Newspaper Archive:

The Evening Telegraph (Angus), Tuesday March 20, 1934
MOTORISTS IN COURT AT CUPAR
Norman Patient, first-class aircraftsman, Royal Air Force (Training) Base, Leuchars, was fined 20s for drivng a motor cycle without a license on the road between Dairsie and Balmullo on 25th February.

Wondering whether it is the same Norman Patient? I can't find one on Scotland's People, and the others who I can see on the GRO indexes would be too young.

It was a weird one. I did enjoy it though even with all the assumptions. I got a bit tearful at the beginning when her younger aunty was getting emotional. I can relate to hearing about a 'father' I never knew through the eyes of bystanders and the wreckage he left behind. I did feel this episode got to close to living people which is a big format change.

It might have been nice to do her dad Jack's family history instead!

I did think it was geared, and the whole stem of it around Lesley's personal history in terms of 'what happened to abandoned, orphaned and illegitimate children through the ages. It did give some insight into actually doing research but not nearly enough. I think that it was a mistake to focus on that theme but Minnie Drivers' one was the same but much more subtle regarding acting although a far more superior episode.

I dont think its a good idea. Has the producers and directors changed that much?

Do they think its more palatable for the general viewing population i.e. more 'reality' less facts and how to actually research bearing in mind they probably think that 90% percent of their viewers wouldn't do FH research they just want to watch 'something' on the box. I just wish they would go back to their old format of the earlier series!

Originally Posted by Shona

Will do. I'll post a new thread with the results.

Oh yes I would love to follow thread and perhaps help although with Merry and Kite on the case I will probably be left far behind

Originally Posted by Shona

This trailer for the Barnados Boy episode of the Trench Dectectives mentions the fact the children were often regarded as slaves.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFU_czqEdHo

There doesn't seem to be a download of be full episode, though.

It was bad that 'they' weren't more honest in this episode of WDYTYA about the fate of the children. Good if they struck lucky but most were bereft of love and support and worse. Cheap labour here and abroad but better than being 'destitute' they said.

[JBee]

I thought it a bit too close for comfort for her birth father's family especially with so many people probably still alive who knew him.

Also do wonder if the vicar demanded Charles marry the mother of his child - do the C of E have Kirk Sessions (they can make interesting reading). As he named Charles as his father on his wedding certificate even though he was using his mother's maiden name then I would have thought that would be the case.

Seems as though there was a steady supply of Barnardo's children for which they got 5/- each child which must have made it worth their while taking them in. I'm not sure that given Charles's age he had much input into the child's care or having spectacles - chances are the teacher at the school or the Barnardo's visitor supplied them Barnard's case notes might be enlightening.

When they went to Canada it really showed how desolate and isolated these farms were with few houses. OH's father was sent to Ontario as a 15 year old city boy by the Salvation Army. He spent 3 years (only records they had) working on different farms and we visited the places named in his case notes. Those wide open roads with nothing around was typical of what we saw driving for miles without seeing another car and that was 2 years ago, OH's dad came back after 13 years but where he was for the last 10 we have no idea as he died OH was small.

[Nell]

A programme which again highlights that you can find the facts but you can interpret them any way you choose!

I like Lesley Sharp and enjoyed her talking to her aunts and her half-siblings, but I didn't like the manipulation of "you were adopted by nice people and it's lovely that your blood ancestor also was a nice adopter, which cancels out the fact that your birth father wanted nothing to do with you".

Maybe we are too exposed to child abuse stories now, but I couldn't help wondering about the fate of many Barnado's children. Left to fend for yourself on the streets was grim, but being separated from your siblings, used as cheap labour, farmed out to people old enough to be your great-grandparents whose motives may be very murky was not a bed of roses either.

I wish the programme would be less "this MUST be true because I want it to be" and more "we don't know" but I suppose that doesn't make for good tv.

[Olde Crone]

Nell

I think the fate of many British Home children is now well documented and it certainly was a very flawed scheme. Dr Barnardo started with good intention but as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and towards the end of his career DB was virtually kidnapping poor children from the streets simply because he saw poverty.

All that happened to BH children was unforgiveable but SORT OF understandable in the climate of the times. What I think is completely unforgiveable is how siblings were actively blocked from finding each other even when they were adults. That is sheer malice.

This programme missed a good opportunity to address the subject of BH children and the policy of forced migration. Many viewers will be totally unaware of this and of just how many children were affected.

OC

[JBee]

It carried on right into the 1960's too didn't it?

I was lucky not to have been sent too.

[Ann from Sussex]

"Many viewers will be totally unaware of this and of just how many children were affected."

You only have to look at postings on the BBC's message board about this programme to see how this is the case. There are posters who say they found the story heart-warming and don't seem to want to believe what others are telling them about the part Barnardo's played in sending children to their fate in Canada. I wouldn't have known about it except for the fact that we had always been lead to believe that my grandfather was Canadian (he turned out to be American) and my search for him lead me into reading about British Home children, just in case he had been one.