At the age of 4, my parents took me and my four siblings to a day care centre and never came back to get us. I have spent a lifetime feeling disconnected and searching for answers. This is my story. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 I went to the garden, and I made two little graves. One was for my mum. One was for my dad. I used to pray to them. 'Dear, God, if my mummy and daddy are alive, please send them home. 'If they're dead, tell them I love them.' (TENSE MUSIC) The country was amazed, I think, and quite horrified. Are you their mother? No, I am not their mother, and I've answered that one before. Get out of the house! Jane really wanted to know from them, 'Why did you do this? Why did you leave us?' My sister rings me, and she says, 'Jane, they've found a body in our mother's backyard.' I said, 'It's our father.' She said, 'Yeah, I know.' (TAPE REEL REWINDS) I was born in Bristol in 1965. I was about 3 years old when we arrived in New Zealand. In my family, there's five children. I am second-youngest. My memories of my family life are very minimal. I have little bits and pieces ` one being my mother throwing a teapot at my father and him taking us for a walk, and living in Point Chev... in a blue house. (OMINOUS MUSIC) I remember my brother Marty and I had both seen bags packed at the house. We knew we were going somewhere, and they were going away, so we hid under the bed. Our parents took us to a private day care centre. They were going away for a week. I remember being very hysterical ` crying and not wanting to stay. From the day that our parents dropped us off, there was never any contact. We never saw them again. (EERIE MUSIC) (HOPEFUL MUSIC) Mrs Ayers ran Bambino Lodge. There was the five of us. There were four of her children. There were two Down's syndrome children. Then she took on a boy that had, I think, spina bifida. So it was quite a large household. She was a bubbly, amazing woman. Mrs Ayers continued to look after us without any financial assistance. After about a year, I think, or a year and a half, she sought help from what was then the Department of Social Welfare. Around that time, it came out in the newspapers that five children had been abandoned with a lady, and there's a picture of me and my younger sister. And then the police began searching for our parents. '...according to NZPA messages from Sydney.' My mother stated that they had gone over there for a singing contract, and it had fallen through, and they did not have the money to return home. ...she told reporters. My mother was just saying anything to get rid of the police, probably. And, um,... They did leave us children. And... we continued to wait. (POIGNANT VIOLIN MUSIC) When I started school, other children did know. They would constantly say, 'Your mummy and daddy don't love you.' I would defend my parents and say they hadn't left us. 'They're coming back. 'They're making lots of money, 'and they'll be back soon.' I got into a lot of squabbles over it. (CHUCKLES) I'm a very angry little girl. I want to know where they are. I want them to come home. (CHUCKLES) I want to be like every other child and have Mum and Dad there, and I have no answers. But we never lost hope that, you know, they were coming back for us. (SLOW PIANO MUSIC) I remember that whenever me and Marty, walking home from school, we saw a taxi or an aeroplane going anywhere near the vicinity of where we lived, we would run so fast thinking it was our parents coming back. What I started to do was I'd go out to the garden, and I made two little graves. One was for my mum. One was for my dad. I would put two little crosses,... and that became quite a ritual of mine. I used to pray to them, and I'd say, 'Dear God,... 'if my mummy and daddy are alive, please send them home. 'If they're dead, tell them I love them.' (GENTLE MUSIC) Mrs Ayers was an amazing lady. Really amazing. I don't know how she did it. But she still took time for us kids. And she would play the piano, and we'd sing. And she always had cuddles. She was always making sago for breakfast, which we called 'frog's eyes'. And she'd make cupcakes, and she'd play cards with us. She still found the time to do that. I think I was about 7. Mrs Ayers' health was getting really bad, and she was feeling the pressure of having so many children to look after. She did explain to us that we were all going to move on to another place, that she could no longer look after all of us. We were all sent to different places. We knew that we were going to... all move back into a home together somewhere. Where? We didn't know. And when? We weren't too sure. We just went where we were told. * When I was about 7, a purpose-built family home was made for us, and... we all came together and moved into that house with a set of parents that were chosen for us by the Department of Social Welfare. There was absolutely no connection with those first lot of parents, whatsoever. It was being fed, cleaned, put to bed. It felt like they were just doing their job. They didn't like their job, because they only lasted 10 months, anyway. In the '70s and '80s, children being in care was about a roof over their head, three meals a day and being loved. There was not the knowledge and the information that we have now about the impact of trauma on children, and foster parents sometimes weren't encouraged to actually attach to the child and love the child, because then the child would lose the foster parent. Second set of foster parents that we had were twice as bad. The foster father ruled the house with fear, intimidation. For any little reason, we would receive the bamboo, the jug cord or the macrame belt. We were made to exert punishment on one another. Marty would be saying, 'Leave my sister alone. Stop it.' And next minute, he would be told, 'Well, you do it then. Otherwise, I'm going to do it even harder.' Marty and I were thrown around quite a bit. And this particular time, he got home, and before we knew it, I was down one end of the hall, head first into the wall, and Marty was down the other end, head first. I remember we both wet our pants. We just flew cos of the way he threw us. And then we called ourselves Batman and Robin. (CHUCKLES) When children are being physically abused, many of them will try and protect the younger siblings, and sometimes they'll actually take the abuse and get in the way. Marty was a softie, and he constantly saved me. 'Jane, just be quiet.' But what was happening was wrong. What was happening was so wrong. The child's response is about the internal working model. 'What do I learn from the abuse that's happened to me?' So if children think that the world's a scary place, they will withdraw. But if children's learning is 'relationships are about fighting', then the child will fight back. I was a good table tennis player and a pool player. I bet him at pool one day. That was a mistake. Smash. Pool cue right across my face. And the social workers never saw us, so they never saw that. That's actually stated in notes that I have received from the department as well. We had pet mice. I had a white one, and Marty had a brown one. They stayed in his room. Any little bit of pocket money, we'd buy the little thing they twirled around on and balls they played with in their cage. We were told by this foster father to put them outside one day. He gave us a hammer each, and he told us to kill them. My brother` I was screaming so much. My brother took my hammer and killed them for me. (GIRL SCREAMS) I've never had a pet since. (CHUCKLES) I can still see Marty's face. That was soul-destroying for him. During this time, I became more angry at my parents. I found myself just looking into the mirror, just wanting to rip my face, just being so angry, asking my parents ` why don't they come back. 'Why have you subjected us to this?' You've put us in this world and told us, basically, to survive. Then, after a while, his abuse progressed to something else. There were three girls in the house. We all slept in the same room. I would hear him come into our room and get into one of the beds of the girls. This one particular night, he got one of the girls out of bed, and she went to his room. I knew what was going on. What I did was get our three jackets. I got the girls out the window, and we ran away to the police station. We explained to the police what was going on, and we were sent to another home for the evening. Social welfare workers interviewed us, and after numerous talks and discussions,... the girl said she had made up what was going on. I was told I was defaming the character of good people, and I was put in Bollard Girls' Home. I was angry that they didn't believe me, but in my heart, I knew it was the truth. And in my heart, I knew what I did was right. I was 13. On entering Bollard, you are told you are going to have a bath. You are to put nit shampoo in your hair. You're to rub yourself down with scabie ointment, and you're put in a cell. And the cell only has a toilet, and you spend your time in the secure unit for three to five days before going in with the rest of the girls. You're allowed out for one hour a day in a locked courtyard. And then you're made to undergo an internal examination to determine whether you have any STDs or are sexually active. And then you are put into mainstream. I ran away straightaway. And I kept running away. I ended up in and out of Bollard for the next three years, I think it was. I felt I didn't fit in at Bollard, but then it didn't matter who they put me with, where I went. I always said, 'I don't fit in.' The difficulty with being placed in multiple homes is the message that the child takes from that. 'Does that mean there's something wrong with me? 'Does that mean people don't like me and don't accept me?' And so the child may give up. The child may think, 'Well, what's the point? Why would I try? I'm just going to get moved.' I was not liking what was happening in care, and they told me, well, I could be discharged. And I said, 'But then I would have no one.' I was 19 when I was finally discharged as a state ward, and I was dropped at the Auckland City Mission in town. I didn't go in. Over the years, Marty and I have stayed in contact. It happened one morning, I gave him a ring and asked him what he was doing for the day, and he said, 'I'm meeting our parents today.' I laughed, and I says, 'Not!' And he said, 'Yeah, I am.' I said, 'Well, if that's the case, you better come pick me up.' Replump your skin in seven days. New Revitalift Filler seven-day treatment. Tap, crack. With hyaluronic acid inside, day by day skin is replumped with moisture. New Revitalift Filler replumping ampoules by L'Oreal. Because we're worth it. You're still numbing sensitive teeth? It's the way. There's a better way. Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief actually helps repair the openings to exposed nerves. That's, uh...that's... A better way. (GROANS) Ohh! VOICEOVER: Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief. * When my parents finally turned up after 15 years, I didn't know what to think. Lots is rushing through my head. Where did they live? What do they do? Maybe my life's gonna be different now. I felt excited. I remember them giving us a hug, and I kept smiling. (CHUCKLES) It was like meeting somebody new for the first time. They could never know how much I had waited for this day. They said they were just purchasing a house in Titirangi, and all of us children were welcome to come and live there. I looked at it as my saving grace. I moved in. We started telling them about things that had happened while in care, and we're asking questions, and my mother's words were, 'We don't feel we owe you an explanation.' That created some anger. It didn't take long, and I was asked to leave the family home. The news media contacted me and asked me about our parents being back. The country was amazed, I think, and quite horrified that this could happen. They didn't want us from the start, did they? I mean, like, well, I feel like I've never had a real sense of belonging, and I may as well carry on. Everybody deserves to know who their parents are. Everybody needs a place to call home. These children never had that. And I was just so impressed with how articulate Jane was as a young woman who'd grown up under very difficult circumstances. Well, if they don't want us, then it's hard luck for us. As the story developed, more and more details came out. You know, the fact was that they abandoned the five little children ` dropped them off, never to appear. We discovered that they had then gone to Australia because Anne Sabine, the mother, dreamed of being a cabaret singer, and she was over there for a while ` apparently, was not successful. And at some point, they had come back to New Zealand and were showing dogs up and down the country. 'Yesterday the paper published a report claiming...' 'They had a very marked impact on the English springer spaniels 'because they prepared their dogs so, so well.' I should've been a dog. (SNIFFLES) At that time, when they are breeding and showing these dogs, there is abuse I can't even talk about on this programme. But we were hanging in there, waiting for them to come and get us that probably would've saved us from having to endure that. And to read that they were looking after,... pampering... and parading... dogs,... when us little children were waiting for them is heartbreaking. (INHALES SHARPLY) That's real heartbreaking. That makes me mad. Who does that? Jane really wanted to know from them, 'Why did you do this? Why did you leave us? 'How could you do this?' She wanted answers. So after the story broke, a reporter from Australia flew in one day and took the girls to the house... Anyone home? ...and encouraged them to break into the parents' house. Hi. Hi. Mr Sabine. (DOOR SLAMS, LOCK CLICKS) Because I wanted answers, it all just seemed OK to be doing. Will you please leave the house? No. Sir, we only wanna get` Get out of the house! People are saying that you are mental. Will you please go out of the house? 'That camera crew just wanted a story 'and should never have encouraged us to climb through that.' ...trying to cause trouble. No, we're not, sir. Why did you say` You're causing trouble between` We arrived at the house, and Jane was in tears. Jane, what's happening? They're charging me with assault. And he says` Apparently, she had gone into the house. There was quite an altercation with her parents. I was arrested, and during that time where I was remanded for two weeks to appear in court, my parents disappeared again. I mean, you could not dream this up in a Hollywood script writer's lair. My parents left for the UK, and Marty followed them. Good thing is that you're living with your parents, not relying on foster parents or anything, which they never really treated you the same as their own kids. It's just` It's just good to have your own parents. He's such a big softie. He just wanted a family, and he wanted everyone to be happy and live happily ever after. He just wanted what everybody else has. It was only a couple of months, and he was back. He refused to talk about anything. He said, 'Jane, they are just evil. You don't want to know them.' And he refused to ever speak about them. One of the reasons why we encourage children to have access and contact with their birth parents is to keep a bit of reality, seeing that their parent is their parent with their strengths and with their weaknesses. But if the parent disappears from the child's life, the child might hold on to a fantasy and a belief that, 'My parent is a wonderful person, and they will come back and rescue me.' So, often when we're doing therapy with adults, we really have to address that, and they may eventually realise, 'Actually, I'm never going to get what I want from these parents.' By this time, I'd met my first partner. It was a violent relationship,... and he became the father of my two children. I knew it wasn't right, and I knew that... I didn't want to be treated that way. But I saw no options. Where am I going to go? What am I gonna do? We bought a house in Awanui. It was like, 'Yes. Finally. 'A family, a home.' And I was really excited,... but the violence won out. He'd cracked my head open, like, three times in that last week or so. I took Nicole, my youngest daughter, and I left that night. Before I left Kaitaia, I did go to get Hayley as well, but he refused to hand her over, so I just left with Nicole. I went to Auckland, and then I met somebody else. I kind of went from the frying pan into the fire. He was really violent,... and he ended up doing two prison terms for the assaults on me. She attracts shit men. She pushes the good ones away and lets all the bad ones in. That's what she does. And I don't know if it's a sense of inadequacy or a fear of them going away eventually, the good ones ` which I suspect it might be. She prefers to let, yeah, the bad ones in, and then it doesn't matter when she loses them. I mean, you know, we all know what a mother's love and a father's` you know, that's instilled in you from birth kind of thing. But because she never had that,... I don't really know if she knows what it is. Two years into the relationship, I fell pregnant, and I had a son. His name was Jessie, and... he... died of cot death at 3 months old. I just wished that I'd had a mum to run home and hop on the couch and pull the blanket over my head and just cry, but I didn't have that privilege. During that time, I'm only in touch with Marty, out of all of us kids. He moves into his own flat. He's got a daughter, and he starts having her for weekends. And he seems to be doing really, really OK. He rings and tells me about a new mat he's just bought for his flat. And then... he commits suicide. He just wanted the whole package. He wanted the family and the mum and dad and the whole family unit. And what he wanted was never gonna be fulfilled. Marty was a huge person in Jane's life. Almost... Almost like a twin brother. Yeah. So that was a massive loss. I have screamed at different times saying, 'Why is it everyone just fucking goes?' No` There's no reason. They just go. * The day I found out Marty had died, the phone rings, and I pick it up, and it's my mother. She says, 'I just had two policemen come to my door, and they told me Marty had died.' I says, 'Yes, he has.' She says, 'Oh, I've got to tell you too ` you're father died a few years ago. 'He had a few thing wrong. He was sick for a while. I never really loved him. 'How did Marty die?' I says, 'He committed suicide,' and she said, 'Oh, why would he do that?' I was flabbergasted. I was standing over here, and Jane was on the phone. I was like... (MOUTHS) (CHUCKLES WHEEZILY) You know? Like... Like, well... 'Well, actually it's because of you that he's probably gone and done all this.' But Jane was really cool, calm, collected. I hung up. (SNICKERS) I can honestly say I've never heard Jane say that it was their fault ` that it was her parents' fault. I've never heard her say it. I've said it over and over again. Within the week that Marty had been buried, it was my birthday, and some friends said to come over and have some drinks and bring Nicole with me. Nicole was told she could jump on the couch and she'll be fine. Pick her up tomorrow. So we went off for the night. I went to pick her up the following day, and she'd already been picked up. So, I think it was a Sunday afternoon. Nicole was at our house. Nicole had told one of the girls in the room at my house what had happened. Nicole had disclosed to her that she had been assaulted while staying at the house overnight. You know when you find out something that you know is gonna be, you know, life-changing? At the time of the assault, my daughter was 12 years old. I then go home, and I call the police straightaway. I felt an absolute sense that I had failed her and that I was so wound up in my own grief, I had not looked out for her in the way that I should have. Because of the assault on Nicole, CYPS pulled my own social welfare file from many years ago and saw that I had unresolved issues of abuse that they felt that I needed to deal with, and the children would not be safe in my care until I did so. I'd lost everything... all at once. For having had no mother to be a role model to her, and having been brought up in that hideous system that she was brought up in,... she was an amazing mother. And as far as loving her children goes, there's no question. I decided I needed a job. I worked hard within that company, and I became the top national sales rep. I was just amazed at what she had done in that short time. There are things that I never believed I could do. Jane would take, you know, a beating for those children, and she did, and she has. I spent 18 months, hired a lawyer, did every programme they asked me to, and I finally got my daughter back. Oh, I haven't always made the best choices, but I do learn from them. Maybe not the first time, but I will. Many adults who've been in care do very well at parenting because they're very determined that what happened to them won't happen to their own children. So they work very hard at learning how to parent. But in other situations, it can be very difficult to be monitoring your child for safety because when you have been abused and not cared for, it's harder to recognise the signs that somebody might harm your own children. Nicole and I have always been really, really close. Um... As she got older, our relationship strengthened. And as she started developing her own family, she continuously wanted me to find mine. When Nicole had this big whanau, she wanted her mum to be part of it. And... And so that's what she did. She made sure Jane was part of it, you know? And Nicole gave her mum a sense of family... better than her own mother did, you know, better than anybody else on the planet did. And one day, she says, 'Mum, I think I found your mum,' and she forwarded me an address. So, I wrote a brief note, and I says, 'Hi, my name's Jane Sabine. 'I believe that you may be my mother. 'If so, I'd love to make contact. Regards, Jane.' About three to four weeks later, I receive a package, and I could tell it was from the UK, and I excitedly opened the parcel. Inside are three cards ` one for my oldest brother, one for my younger sister and one for me. All the cards were the same. 'Like the phoenix, I will arise from the ashes, 'and sleep will obey me and visit thee never, 'for my eyes are upon thee forever and ever. 'I have lived my life of blame and shame. 'Now it is your turn to do the same. 'Signed, your nemesis, your mother.' What the fuck? (SCOFFS) Who says that? (CHUCKLES) I actually laugh,... but I'm wanting to show somebody, and there's nobody there. (CHUCKLES) I rung, and I told Nicole, and she said, 'I'm writing back to her.' Nicole and I had a very close relationship. She... always made me feel part of her own family, I felt I kind of lost that when she passed. At the age of 27, she... died of an asthma attack. She left behind two small children ` an 8-year-old and an 11-month-old. Nicole passing away... (STAMMERS) (EXHALES) ...destroyed me. I miss her so much. (POIGNANT MUSIC) I get a phone call from my sister out of the blue. She tells me, 'Jane, I have been contacted by a lady in Wales that has been nursing our mother, 'and our mother has brain cancer and is going to die.' My sister is prepared to go over there. The nurse says that when she asked our mother if that was OK that her daughter come over and stay in her house as she would like to be with her in her final days, my mother went into shock and never spoke again. My mother's death was in October 2015. But then... there was more to come. (CHUCKLES) Meet the Roots family - a family with a serious root problem... Roots? ..and a magic solution. Let me show you something. Magic Retouch by L'Oreal Paris - three seconds to flawless roots. Done. Magic Retouch by L'Oreal - because you're worth it. * My sister rings me again, and she says, 'Jane, you're not gonna believe this.' They found a body (CHUCKLES) in our mother's backyard. I said, 'It's our father.' She said, 'Yeah, I know.' The body was vacuum-packed, mummified,... kept in the house for 18 years then put outside. He was still in his Marks & Spencer pyjamas. (SCOFFS) He'd had a glass of wine before he died. (CHUCKLES) I'm sorry. I just` Yeah, they could tell, because he was mummified. Blunt force trauma was the cause of death, and then it became about identifying the murder weapon. When asked how John is, my mother had made comments in years gone by to numerous people, 'I knocked him over the head with a frog and buried him in the garden.' So she'd actually told people that she'd done it, but nobody took her seriously. She'd kept the frog sat beside the bed for that 18 years. Most people get rid of the murder weapon, but she didn't. So they were able to... They were able to match up the frog to the actual injury and identify the eyeball with his` (CHUCKLES) ...as matching the injury. It's not the fairy tale ending I'd ever imagined. (CHUCKLES) It truly wasn't. Uh, 100% not surprised. (SCOFFS) Absolutely 100% not surprised. What do I think of her now? Wow. She must've been a busy woman. (SCOFFS) I don't know. I have sympathy for my father. I don't know what it is. I just have this` I know that he was a very kind man. I don't know why I know that. I just do. His only crime was loving her. (GENTLE MUSIC) And then with all the information that came out after that, that was so much to process. I learnt that my dad was in an orphanage. He had no family. But the sad thing is that... my mother's mother was abandoned. Then my mother was abandoned. Then my mother abandoned us. (AMBIENT MUSIC) That's scary. Many of us take for granted who we are and where we belong. Parents get out photo albums. They tell us about our past. Our grandparents talk about our parents' upbringing and the things they used to get up to. And so we have a coherent narrative. With children who go into care, a lot of that knowledge is lost. I've thought about this quite a lot over the years, um,... and I would often try to put myself into Jane's mother's shoes and think... in such a way where I could go and abandon my five children and never ever come back to see them. She must have been a complete narcissist with all of those traits. I think there's nine or something. Nine or 12 traits to a true narcissist. (CHUCKLES) She absolutely has to be` you know, tick every box because that's the only way a person could do that. You know, I don't even know if it'll ever` it'll ever sink in ` like, the gravity of it. Like... Because there's just nobody else in the whole wide world that it's... (CHUCKLES) that's ever this has happened to, you know? You couldn't even write about it. When she speaks about it,... she just shakes her head... like it's happening to somebody else, yeah, or, like, we have actually read about it. But, yeah, it's actually her and her family that it's happened to. I have a real issue with connecting, and it pisses me off, because the loyalty I held for my parents for so many years, I pushed away so many other people that possibly wanted to be part of my life, um, which at the end of the day, left me with nobody. That's been really sad. That's been a real` I've had to step back and really think how I got to that point. And... it's because I've shut everybody out. It's been my protection. It's been my protective mode, and... it no longer serves me. I hope that in our later years, now that we're in our later years, that her grandchildren develop a relationship with her. I see her wanting things that only a grandmother` only a grandmother knows ` the same things I want, you know, with my mokos. And I hear Jane talking about that, you know? And it's one of the few times in our friendship in all these years, that we do have something that is the same when it comes to family, you know? (CHUCKLES) Because I know she's feeling the same way as me as a nana, so it's nice. It's nice for her. There's a house. It's in the Far North. It's` It's pretty much a shack. But... my dream is to rebuild that little shack and make that home for my girls, so that they never have to... stay in a bad relationship. They can go home. Because one thing I've always missed is most girls run home when things get bad, and I wished that many a times I could, and I need to do that for them. That's seven girls. And I will. I am Jane Sabine, and I am a survivor. (GENTLE PIANO MUSIC) Captions by Kristin Williams. Edited by Glenna Casalme. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 ('NZ ON AIR' THEME MUSIC)