David Hill (3) (1946–)

In December 2022, I published a book called SURVIVING MIDAS, a fictional story about enslaved children growing drugs on an illegal marijuana farm. The story is fraught with stories of abuse, adults turning blind eyes, and straight-up disregard and cruelty to minors.

This is a real-life SURVIVING MIDAS.

I did not read this book before writing my novel. I stumbled on this story after watching a Call the Midwife Episode where this migration program was mentioned. I picked up the book, expecting to hear some stories about bad experiences, some neglect, that sort of thing. I did not expect to read about a system that enslaved thousands of children on a farm by the ‘good people of society.’ I did not expect to read tales of rotted food and nutritionless rations. Of sexual and physical abuse openly inflicted on children as young as six. And I did not expect to read about repeated investigations about such things that led to nowhere.

Told in a straightforward, evidence-based manner, the book documents the horrors faced by the children of the Britain to Australia Migration Program that operated over fifty years. The author personally lived at the Fairbridge Farm School, so the account is written from first-hand experience. He also shares the stories of his fellow residents, many of whom are still living and still recovering from the evils they faced.

Everyone should read this story.

Everyone should see how something intended to be ‘good,’ became evil from the moment of its inception. How blind-eyes and excuses can lead to such atrocities. This book made my blood boil, and I’m sure it will make yours too.… (more)

Great book. It reminded me of everything I learned at school, like most Aussies of my generation I suppose, about the Gold Rush, plus a lot more they didnt tell us. Apart from the well-trodden path of Hargreaves, Ballarat and Bendigo, the Eureka Stockade and the anti-Chinese riots, this covers a lot of less well-known material, including gold discoveries in Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, as well as a whole chapter on how gold discovered at Gympie saved Queensland from bankruptcy and the wild and hazardous Palmer River strikes, where hostile natives not only speared diggers, but were reputed to eat them. The book tries to cover a lot of territory in one volume, so always feels a bit rushed, but overall this is an informative and entertaining read that really takes you back to the time when daring, endurance and a bit of luck could set a man up for life with one stroke of a pick. I loved it.… (more)