The story I’m working on right now explores law enforcement in Britain, so I picked up Iain Donnelly’s book Tango Juliet Foxtrot. I wouldn’t give it an unqualified recommendation; Donnelly has a more humanist approach to policing than some other opinion-havers in the field, but shows a lot of unexamined preconceptions and biases that lead him to recommend some really questionable policies. Overall, though, Tango Juliet Foxtrot did a lot to help me understand how police in Britain see themselves and their role in society.
But at one point in the book, Donnelly gets into his work on a project tackling the issue of child sexual exploitation. He lists off the project’s partners, which include the NHS, the Department of Education, the NSPCC, and—this one gave me pause—Barnardo’s.
Some personal context: my great-grandfather, Harry Walker, was one of the Barnardo Home Boys. Harry and his brother Syd were surrendered to Dr. Thomas Barnardo’s charity as children; they weren’t orphans, but their family just couldn’t afford to take care of them anymore. Barnardo sent Harry and Syd to Canada. They were promised they would be adopted by a loving family, and that they could stay together.
They were lied to, twice.
Harry and Syd were forcibly separated and only saw each other again by sheer chance a decade later, during the war. Harry was not adopted by a loving family; he was sold into forced servitude, exploited for cheap farm labour and frequently abused until he finally managed to run away and survive on his own.
One might argue that what happened to Harry was not the intended or desired outcome of Barnardo’s program, but his experience was far from uncommon. So, presumably, Barnardos’ role on Donnelly’s task force was to present the “for” argument in the child exploitation debate.
I don’t think a lot of people in Britain know about what happened to the Home Boys. As far as their historical record is concerned, these kids ceased to exist the moment they left the country. But Harry Walker had a whole life after Barnardo’s was done with him: he was a rum-runner, a soldier, a policeman. He married a devastated widow who’d lost her husband to the Great War and adopted her daughter—my grandmother—as his own. He was far from a perfect man, but he was a human being. And what Barnardo’s did to him, and so many other children like him, should not be ignored.
Summer/Winter Sale
Smashwords’ End of Year sale has come around once again. All my books are at least 50% off, and you can get a bunch of them for free; sale prices are valid through to July 31.
You can also get The Casefile of Jay Moriarty on Kobo for $2.99 USD until the end of the month here!
Preorder: The Exploits of Jay Moriarty
The second collected anthology of The Casefile of Jay Moriarty comes out on September 14!
This Week’s Links
Hostile Architecture: Late Capitalism and Backrooms
We wiped out the passenger pigeon to build this, and it sucks. We forced the Cherokee Nation into reservations to make room for this, and it sucks. We sprayed Vietnam with Agent Orange and kids there are still being born with missing limbs to protect this, and it sucks, and we didn’t even bother to take care of it, and it’s falling apart, and no one is having a good time.
She won a religious exemption from using AI at work. The Pope’s remarks could fuel similar appeals.
“The funniest possible outcome of the AI mandate era is about to be HR departments discovering that ‘sincerely held religious belief’ under Title VII has a much lower bar than they assumed, and Pope Leo handed every Catholic employee a written excuse,” wrote Corey Quinn, a software-startup founder in San Francisco, on X.
Somehow, Jackass Really Was That Big A Deal
Key to appreciating Jackass is knowing that, had your life turned out a little differently, you would be this stupid. Or you are this stupid, just in ways that are more socially acceptable, or at least more commonplace.
I finally got around to watching Project Hail Mary. You people lied to me. Markiplier isn’t in that movie at all.
-K
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