A birth registration was found for Harold Boucher: Year of Registration: 1915; Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec; Mother's Maiden Name: Pearce; District: Wolverhampton; County: Shropshire, Staffordshire, West Midlands; Volume: 6b; Page: 919. Parents: Rueben Boucher and May Pearce, married 1908, Dudley, Staffordshire, England.

Harry Boucher told his story on the Coolgardie Gem & Mineral Club website (http://myweb.westnet.com.au/ausgold1/harry_boucher.htm and reproduced in part):
r n"My only memory of my mother was of her being loaded into an ambulance and nobody knows what happened to her after that – none of my living relatives seem to know!

My father married an Irish woman and I went to live with my aunt and was later put into an immigration centre in Birmingham. The boys and girls were separated. One day the matron came and asked which of us would like to go to Canada – I thought it was too cold so I didn’t put my hand up! Then she asked which of us would like to go to Australia? I had an uncle in the Northern Territory on Jindare Station and my aunty had told me stories about him so I was first to put my hand up! A party of 28 boys from different orphanages were all kitted out with new clothes, suites, overcoats and hats with peaks and a bit of pocket money ready to go. My father and aunty came to see me off and we first went to London where we all stayed at the YMCA for 3 days. The boat for Australia – The SS Benally [sic], left from Tilbury Docks in London and it took 6 weeks to reach Australia. We left London in 1928 in January and arrived in Fremantle on March 3. I was 12 years old and it was the biggest adventure in my life. The boat called in to different tropical islands on the way and islanders would row out to our ship selling all sorts of tropical fruit we had never seen before. Some of the boys stole books from the Masters cabin and sent them down on ropes to the small boats in exchange for fruit which was then hauled back up in baskets.

At Cape Town we stopped for three days while the ship loaded up with coal as it was a steamer and used the coal for fuel. The Africans carried the coal up in baskets on their heads in a continuous stream for 3 days! We went sightseeing in Cape Town and went up Table Mountain. Wherever we went we had Africans waiting on us and anything we asked for. We were treated like royalty.

After leaving Cape Town the seas became rough and the waves often towered above the ship but it was really exciting. One day we were having races on the deck and my hat blew off and that was the last I saw of it! The crew were good to us and the cook often brought out a big tray of plum pudding for us boys.

Our first glimpse of the Australian coast was disappointing; it looked so dry and desolate. After landing we stayed in the WMCA in Perth for a few days before catching a train to Pinjarra. All 28 of us were sent to the Fairbridge farm. I stayed in the Henry Hudson cottage but left school there at age 14 and started domestic work around the farm. They taught me a lot though.

First I worked in the kitchen with its huge stoves and coppers. The kitchen had to be swept and mopped out every day. Then I went to work in the huge bakehouse and learnt to bake bread. One day I was chopping wood for the oven and eating a crust of bread and the warden slapped me for eating the bread which I was entitled to have because I was working in the bakehouse at the time. I was so upset by this that I ran away and camped in the bush for three days. I actually enjoyed camping in the bush on my own and thought it was a great adventure but when I eventually returned I had to report to the colonel and he made me drop my strides and gave me a good caning. He then gave us all a lecture about going out in the bush and getting lost and how dangerous it was.

I was then sent to work in the piggery, then the market garden and then the orchard. In the dairy I learnt how to