A Dunedin man is one of three New Zealanders who left Britain after World War 2 as part of a notorious child migrant scheme returning to London to receive a public apology next week.
Trish Pawsey of Ashburton, Pat Brown of Nelson and John McGory of Dunedin will be flown to Britain as guests of the British Government this weekend.
The apology, by the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, will be made to the thousands of often homeless British children that were sent to Australia, Canada, Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia), South Africa and New Zealand after the war.
In New Zealand's case more than 540 children arrived in the years after 1948, where they were monitored by the Social Welfare agencies.
More than 7000 children were sent to Australia and many have since complained of physical and sexual abuse.
The New Zealand Government has maintained that child migrants to this country were largely treated well.
The British Government will continue to fund the Child Migrants' Trust operations around the world so they can continue reuniting former child migrants with their families.
Mrs Brown, 70, said some child migrants were given wonderful homes, and others were treated badly with sexual and physical abuse.
She said the New Zealand Government, which has not followed Australia's lead in making an apology, ought to also say "sorry".
She told the Nelson Mail that she could recall vividly the last words her father said to her as he gave her a cuddle and said farewell.
As the tears began to flow, he told his frightened 11-year-old daughter: "Come on, Pat; big girls don't cry".
After his wife left the family just after World War 2, Mrs Brown's father, a timberyard foreman, was left to look after six children alone in Southall, Middlesex.
Mrs Brown, her brother Bill, 14, and younger sisters Sheila, 10, and Alma, seven, were sent to Nelson, after their father was told he had to send four children to New Zealand, or to an orphanage, Mrs Brown said.
