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Record #8956
Name :
: Robert STEPHENS (1943 - )
  aka : Bob Stephens


Father
:
Mother
:
BMD and other details
Date of Birth
: 1943

Marriage (1)
:
Marriage (2)
:

Date of Death
:
Abode (1) : Place of BirthEngland
Abode (2) : Place of Death / Burial
Sailing Information
Date of Arrival
: Jul 1952
Country
: Australia

Ship
: - Unknown -

Placement Family
:
Homes / Agencys
Institution (GB)
:

Agency
: Fairbridge Homes
NotesAs an 11 year old child, in July, 1952, he was sent to Molong, a Fairbridge Farm School, Australia. He was placed in Goldsborough Cottage.

"WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE OUR FATHER?

From the Echo, first published Monday 6th Jun 2005.

MORE than half a century after being shipped out to an Australian orphanage, Robert Stephens will be returning to Bournemouth later this month in a desperate bid to trace his father.

The painstaking search for clues to their father's whereabouts has already taken the art gallery director and his sister Margaret more than four decades.

Robert, 62, who now lives in Canberra, has only fleeting memories of John S Harris, the man who had a five-year affair with their mother Mary Stephens in the 1940s.

If he is still alive, Mr Harris, who may be known as Sidney, is in his late 80s.

When Mary Stephens died in 1961 from heart failure she took the identity of her secret lover with her to the grave. Her husband Wallace Stephens died in 1994.

Mary's relationship with Mr Harris is believed to have begun while they were attending light engineering classes in the St Alban's area of Hertfordshire after Mary's husband went to war in 1942.

Robert was born a year later. Within weeks he was put into an orphanage in Havant, Portsmouth, where he stayed for the next six years before going to live with his mother and her husband in Peckham, London.

Records show that Mary left her husband in January 1946 to set up home in Bournemouth.

"While I was at the Havant orphanage quite often my mother would take me to stay with her in Bournemouth," Robert recalled. "My most vivid memory of my father is being taken for rides on his black motorbike.

"I understand that my mother used to run a dating agency in Bournemouth, quite an adventure in those times. She had various other jobs including secretarial work and took typing exams, possibly attending a local college.

"From what her brother and sister have told me the years she spent with my father, although brief, were the happiest of her life."

Robert and Margaret's exhaustive research has traced Mary Stephens to six addresses in Bournemouth in the late 1940s; Strathmore Road, Burnaby Road, Edifred Road, Lonsdale Road, Kimberley Road and Bellevue Road in Southbourne where Margaret was born in December 1947.

Margaret, 57, now lives in Battle, East Sussex, with her husband Andrew.

Robert was among ten child migrants sent to the Fairbridge Farm School, an orphanage in New South Wales, Australia, in July 1952.

"The one ambition I had from the day I arrived was to go home," said the father-of-seven. "Sadly this was never to be. Time is running out; if our father is still alive he's about 88. We are desperate to find him - before it is too late."

Robert and Margaret are planning to visit Bournemouth from June 18 until June 21 in the hope of being reunited with their father.

First published: June 6"

Bob did go to Bournemouth to search for his father, only to discover the truth. This was documented by BBC TV:

"In search of a childhood lost - Bob Stephens

Inside Out (BBC) follows Bob Stephens on an emotional search for his father - a quest that starts in rural Australia and ends with a mysterious death on a Dorset roadside.

Bob was one of thousands of unwanted children who were sent to Australia for new lives in the 1950's.

He was brought up at the Fairbridge Farm School in New South Wales from the age of seven.

But unlike many of his classmates at the orphanage, he still had parents living in England.

Bob's mother died before he had the chance to see her again and he never knew the name of his father.
Village hall
Fairbridge Farm School where Bob was brought up

When he asked for information about his dad, he was told that the Fairbridge Society didn't have any details in their records.

But decades later, Bob finally got to see his file and discovered that it had contained his father's name, John Harris, all along.

"It was one of the worst days of my life when I was given these files," Bob tells the programme.

"When I opened them the first thing that came out was my application. In that application, written in black ink by my mother's hand, was the name of my father.

"It was in the sixties that I had asked them and they had denied having the knowledge. So here we are years later with the information in front of me, that I could have had in 1964."

In the programme, Bob travels to Dorset to find the John Harris that he believes may have been his father.
Bob with his mum
Family photo - a rare shot of Bob with his mother

Unfortunately, he arrives too late. John Harris had been found dead on the roadside near Christchurch a year earlier.

The coroner doesn't know how he died, because his body was already a skeleton when it was discovered.

Bob discovers that John Harris has spent his final years sleeping rough in an underpass near Bournemouth train station.

"It's tragic to think that we have come this far only to miss out by 12 months or so," he says.

"Had they told us the information they had in 1964, I would have been much happier. But more importantly, we might have found my father and he wouldn't have led the tragic life he did, ending up a skeleton on the side of the road."

Bob and several other Fairbridge former inmates, including former managing director of the ABC, David Hill, faced the horrors they suffered at Molong by accusing a World War II hero, William Slim, revered in his homeland, Britain, for his leadership in war - especially in Burma during World War II, of unspeakable acts. William Slim rose from modest origins to achieve the highest military rank, that of field marshal. He became the Queen's representative in Australia at a time when governors-general were usually British. His tenure at Yarralumla was without controversy; indeed, historians regard him as one of Australia's best governors-general.

Slim - later to become a peer of the realm has been alleged to have groped pre-pubescent boys at Fairbridge Farm School at Molong, in the central west of NSW, when he visited in 1955.

The allegations have this week been supported by a number of former Fairbridge boys. Robert Stephens, told in a newspaper, The Australian: "Other boys spoke of fondling in the back of cars as he toured the farm," Stephens, 64, said. "In my case ... two of us were picked to go in his car as it was leaving."

Stephens was forced to sit on Slim's knee while another boy sat on the knee of a second adult, he said. As they drove 1km to the main road, Slim slid his hand up inside Stephens's shorts (apparently Fairbridge boys were not allowed to wear underpants).

"How do you explain it?" Stephens asked. "We were innocent kids. I guess we were vulnerable and in a position where no one could really speak out." Stephens did not speak to anyone about the incident until Hill's revelations at the weekend. A former student had told Hill, who was researching Fairbridge for a book, how he had been assaulted in the back of the vice-regal Rolls-Royce. In retirement, Slim became head of the Fairbridge Society.

"No adult would believe these things happened so you didn't talk about it. You think you are the only one. Like so many things that happened at Fairbridge, they don't go away. They live with you all your life."

But life was conquered by the strength and tenacity that makes up Robert Stephens inner core. He is now the owner of Aarwun Gallery in Gold Creek Village, Canberra, Australia. Open and down-to-earth, Bob is excited about the English garden he's recreated at his multi-acre property in Hall.His passion for his "relaxed, friendly gallery that has something for everyone" is palpable and heart-warming. 
ContributorsCreated : 2009-07-18 12:49:12 / From original database

Last Updated : 2009-07-18 12:50:54 /

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Surnames starting with:   A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z  7 Entries        
IDNameDOBPlace of birthArrivals & ShipsDest.AgencyFamily links
16558 STEPHENS, Alfred1892ENG,     Apr 1902 : Dominion CAN Barnardos  
23095 STEPHENS, Charles W.1895ENG,     Apr 1910 : Empress of Ireland CAN Fegan Homes for Boys  
20131 STEPHENS, Frances L1894ENG,     Jul 1910 : Virginian CAN Maria Rye  
27286 STEPHENS, Frederick Charles1923ENG,     Jul 1935 : Moreton Bay AUS Fairbridge Homes  
20040 STEPHENS, George1873ENG,     Jun 1886 : Lake Superior CAN Barnardos  
12806 STEPHENS, James1914ENG, LAN, Manchester May 1930 : Duchess of Bedford CAN Crusade of Rescue  
8956 STEPHENS, Robert1943ENG,     Jul 1952 : - Unknown - AUS Fairbridge Homes