Boy 11963: Don’t prejudge this book – you’ll be pleasantly surprised

Boy 11963: An Irish Industrial School Childhood and an Extraordinary Search for Home

Author: John Cameron with Kathryn Rogers

ISBN-13: 978-1529346343

Publisher: Hachette Books Ireland

Guideline Price: €16.99

The story of a childhood spent in the notorious Artane industrial school mightn’t be top of everyone’s reading list. We know this awful story already and we’re looking for escapism, frivolity even, rather than dark reality in these difficult times. Boy 11963, however, teaches a sharp lesson: never prejudge a book. This one proved to be one of the biggest and most pleasant surprises of my reading life.

It is a book of two halves, both written in novel form. Part one tells the tale of Johnny Cameron up to the point of first contact with a member of his family of origin, when he’s in his 60s. Fostered in Stepaside by the Mulligan family, young Johnny is neglected and abused by the violent drunk that is Mr Mulligan, the indifferent Mrs Mulligan and their wilfully cruel adult daughter. Dinner, if provided at all, is bread and dripping served at the back door and bedding is straw and sacking in a shed.

Even by 1930s standards, this is a hard life for a small boy. But Johnny’s days are brightened by the attentions of Miss French, a genteel neighbour who notices the boy’s plight and remains a lifelong friend and supporter. Then, at the age of eight Johnny is wrenched away from Miss French and the Mulligans, the only family he’s ever known, and delivered into the hell that is Artane.

In the useful notes at the end of most of the chapters, the author provides context and clarifications. These notes allow the narrative to flow rather than get bogged down in a splurge of details. Innocent children, abandoned, orphaned or just poor, were convicted of offences they, in the main, hadn’t committed and were detained in institutions where they were sexually, physically and mentally abused for the entirety of their childhoods. And this was a satisfactory state of affairs for church and State.

“The system of detention suited the government and the Christian Brothers. The more children the Brothers had in their care, the more payment they received from the government. For the Christian Brothers, every boy in their institution meant another ‘headage payment’…”

Finding his roots

While the author doesn’t shy away from the cruelty and suffering, there is no overdramatisation: “In a place where terror and violence were the fabric of life, only the worst episodes of savagery stuck in his mind.” Johnny Cameron’s records showed that he had been found guilty of the offence of begging on Eccles Street and was sentenced by a judge to be detained in Artane. The boy had never been on Eccles Street (other than as a baby in an orphanage) and he had never seen the inside of a courtroom.

Surprisingly, the years in Artane account for a tiny fraction of this story. Helped by Miss French and others, post-Artane John Cameron becomes a carpenter and later a scholarship student at a teacher training college. While there, he meets Treasa, the love of his life, who will become the driving force behind the search for John’s origins. The shocking tale that is revealed once John does find his roots is worthy of Hollywood.

Remarkable characters

The second half of the book is then given over to the story of how John Cameron came to be. Involving a passionate extramarital affair, multiple abandoned children, scandalous court cases, the first paternity blood tests used in court in the UK or Ireland, land disputes, dangerous interference from priests, glamorous outfits and a fake premature baby, this reads like a romantic thriller.

Were it not for the fact that much of this story is a matter of public record and the rest a matter of witness testimony, I’d say it was too far-fetched for a tale of 1930s Granard. Imagine The Field with more sex and Protestants. It features a cast of remarkable characters, only a couple of them fictitious. Through their actions, the author’s mother Lizzie Major, her husband Hugh, her lover William Cameron and her parents Michael and Julia Farrell – all strikingly unusual people for their time – set in train a series of events that would see John Cameron and three of his siblings spend their childhoods in various State and church-run institutions.

“How much heartbreak and agony could have been avoided if my mother and father had never met? But they did, and they battled an equally unyielding force of nature in my mother’s husband.”

John Cameron’s is a truly unique life story. He is a man of great courage who clearly has a huge capacity for love and acceptance. Although he is troubled now by Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia, I hope he gets to enjoy the success of this well-written, well-paced account of his exceptional life. And I hope the film rights are being fought over as I write.