Picking NZ was my 'best decision'

Retired Masterton man Colin Morgan has no regrets about fleeing war-torn Britain 60 years ago as a child migrant.
Mr Morgan, speaking on Monday in the wake of weekend headlines about the abuse of British war orphans in Australia, said he has lived well in Wairarapa since deciding in 1949 to lighten the load for his struggling parents in Somerset, England.
"I was 11 and my class had just done New Zealand in geography when I saw an advert in the paper that the Government would pay for a one-way ticket out here.
"My parents weren't poor but they weren't wealthy either and they had me late in their lives. I applied to come to New Zealand and was successful. It was the best decision I could have made and I've never looked back."
Mr Morgan said he shipped out with about 22 other British child migrants and war orphans aboard the SS Rangitoto on its maiden voyage to the Antipodes.
The trip lasted a month to the day and he arrived in Wellington clutching a small bag and carrying a cabin trunk full of "kid's treasures" and clothing, he said.
He had been matched with a childless Featherston couple, who were then both "getting on a bit" but were still milking a herd of about 45 cows on their South Wairarapa farm.
The couple, who have since died, were his legal guardians. They provided him with a home and all the basics of a comfortable childhood, he said.
He was enrolled at Featherston School and was just as quickly put to work at his new home, sweating out up to 40 hours of slog on the farm while also attending school each day.
"When I turned 12 my birthday present was putting the milking cups on a cow for the first time," he said.
"I milked twice a day. I was up at 4.30 seven days a week through the milking season before school, and milked again when I got home. There was also all the other work at weekends," he said.
"When I turned 18 my old man said he couldn't afford to keep paying me so I found other work."
Mr Morgan has not contacted any of his original migrant group, who had been "scattered" throughout the country upon arrival, but he does recall a long ago Saturday about a year after making port when Rotary members gathered together a handful of his child compatriots for a party.
"At least four of us in that group stayed on in Wairarapa that I know about. I've lost touch with them since but it was a good day out, very enjoyable."
Mr Morgan carried on to work several different agricultural jobs in South Wairarapa along with a short stint as a builder in Martinborough before he married Marian Oakly in Masterton in 1961.
The couple had two sons after settling in Masterton, where Mr Morgan worked for 30 years as a soil conservation overseer before his retirement in 2002, he said.
"Looking back, the worst part of it all was the workload when I was a kid. I was cheap labour, very cheap actually. Not that it struck me as that back then. It was just the life I had chosen and accepted," he said.
Mr Morgan wrote home often to his parents before their deaths and stayed in touch with his older brother before he died about five years ago, he said. He still communicates with his sister-in-law in Britain.
"My life here has been good. I'm 72 next week, I'm still happy and I'm still here. And I'm a bona fide Kiwi - I even have the ticket to prove it."