Join Chris Mapp in conversation with Leena Bachelor about his novel, 'Songs of Expectation', discussing the characters and storylines in the novel in the context of the events that inspired it.

From the late 1860s until 1939, around 100,000 orphan and destitute children were sent from Britain to Canada to work, mostly as agricultural labourers or domestic servants. The vast majority never returned, and more than 10% of Canada’s current population is said to be descended from them. Shipped across the Atlantic by an array of individuals and organisations, they often left behind parents and siblings that they would never see again. They are known as the ‘British Home Children’.

Chris is passionate about telling this story, partly because of the connection to his father (himself a ‘Home Child’), but also because these children have been largely forgotten (at least, in Britain), and they do not deserve to be. His aim is to bring these lost voices to life.