JOHN Hennessy, 72, a former child migrant from Sydney, told the Evening Post his story:

"The nuns stole me from my mum when I was a few weeks old. I was born out of wedlock and she had no way to support me.

I went into an orphanage run by the Sisters of Nazareth. My mum visited the orphanage for four years.

Then they said 'don't come here again because Michael John (my real name) has been adopted by a good English family'.

I did not see my mum again for 54 years. When I first met her, when I came home, she said to me, 'Michael John, where have you been all these years?'

A mother never forgets her child. It was bad enough for us, the children, but it was bad for the parents too.

Before we left, the Christian Brothers came from Australia to the orphanage.

They told us stories about how the kangaroos would take us to school and there was fruit everywhere.

We were vulnerable little children and just accepted it.

I was on the second ship to take child migrants to Australia. It left from Bristol and landed at Freemantle in Western Australia in November 1947.

We were greeted with great fanfare. The Archbishop gave a speech.

I went to a place called Boys' Town, Bindoon, 16 miles north of Perth. It was run by the Christian Brothers. They were single men. The majority of them were paedophiles. They sexually, physically and mentally abused us. They gave us a terrible time.

There was nothing there. We had to build our own dormitories, kitchens and toilets.

Most of us, after the first three days, walked around crying our eyes out until all the tears had gone.

My poor mother was thinking I was with a 'good English family'. It was only the hope of survival that kept us going.

I left Bindoon when I was 17. I think most normal people would have ended up in a lunatic asylum but something told me to keep going.

I cannot thank Margaret Humphreys enough. Without her I would not have met my mother again."