A birth registration was found for Leonard R Magee: Mother's Maiden Surname: Hopper; Date of Registration: Jul Aug Sep 1947; Registration district: W Ham; Registration county: Greater London, Middlesex; Volume Number: 5a; Page Number: 1160. Parents: James R. L. Magee and Daisy H. Read, married 1946, West Ham, London, England.

In 1954, Leonard R. Magee, 7, arrived at Melbourne, Australia. The manifest stated his residence in England had been 2, Roding Street, E. 7.

Leonard was interviewed on ABC Australia for the 7:30 Report on May 1, 2007, by Deborah Cornwall. He joined others from the Fairbridge Farm to discuss their experiences.

DEBORAH CORNWALL: It's more than three decades since Fairbridge Farm finally closed its corridors. This derelict estate in country NSW, once home to more than 1,000 British children, shipped out on the promise of a new life and a place in the sun.

LENNIE MAGEE, FORMER FAIRBRIDGE WARD: I cried till I felt I was going to break inside. I'd curl up in a foetal position. I can remember curling up in the corner and just wanting to die as a child.

DEBORAH CORNWALL: Lennie Magee remembers as a small boy trying to make the best of it at Fairbridge, but his cottage mother was just as frightening.

LENNIE MAGEE: She should never have been on the farm school. She was an elderly lady, she was an alcoholic, and she used to beat the children and we were very mistreated. I had no mother, no father, no one to complain to and we were being brutalised by this awful woman.

LENNIE MAGEE: I was, I was never encouraged. We were always demeaned. We were constantly told we were there because we were guttersnipes, we were slum children. We would never ever make anything of ourselves.