Name Ann Thompson
Hometown Ōtautahi Christchurch, now Whangārei
Age when entered care Baby – 2 ½ months old
Year of birth 1941
Time in care 1941–1965
Type of care facility Orphanages – St Joseph’s Girls’ Orphanage in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Nazareth House in Ōtautahi Christchurch.
Ethnicity Pākehā
Whānau background Ann was taken without her mother agreeing. Her mum fought for Ann but was made to give her up. Ann reconnected with her brother in 1993 when she was 52 years old, but has not reconnected with her mother and other siblings. She has four sisters and two brothers.
Currently Ann has a daughter. Her husband died and their son died when he was 27 years old.

My mother was raped when she was 15 years old, and I was the product of that assault. I was just 2 ½ months old when I was taken from my mother’s arms and sent to St Joseph’s Girls' Orphanage, a Catholic orphanage in Christchurch. I only ever saw my mother once more in my lifetime. I was at St Joseph’s until the age of 10. In 1951 I was moved to Nazareth House, another orphanage where I lived full time until the age of 19. I lived on and off at Nazareth House until I was 24 years old. I was so frightened of everything and everybody, right from the start at St Joseph’s.

On my 15th birthday two ladies I didn’t know came to see me. They gave me my first ever birthday cake, a pair of shoes and a beautiful jersey. When they left, I asked Sister Blandina, a nun at the orphanage, who they were. She told me one was my fairy godmother. That night Sister Blandina cut the cake up and told me to give everyone a piece. There was none left for me, and I couldn’t ask anyone for a taste for fear that Sister Blandina would hit me. When I was 52 years old I reconnected with my brother, John, and he showed me a photo of our mother and her sister. I recognised them both as the two ladies who came to see me. The nuns knew about my mother and didn’t tell me that I had a family – they told me I was an orphan. 

I owned one toy the entire time I was in care – a doll. I later found out my mother had bought it for me. The nuns would give it to me every Christmas, then take it away on my birthday until the following Christmas. One day a nun took the doll and ripped off its arms and legs in front of everybody. I picked up the pieces and sat on the stage and cried, then I had to put it all in the rubbish. I knew right then that nobody cared about me, and nobody wanted me. 

Over and over I was shown that I didn’t deserve to enjoy anything or experience happiness.

At St Joseph’s, the children who had no parents were lined up each Sunday morning outside the front door for adoption. The adults would look us over, and the feelings we had when no one picked us are something I will never be able to explain, but I felt it all over again when I accessed my records and found out I was put up for adoption four times. Once at St Joseph’s Orphanage and three times at Nazareth House. I felt like a little girl again, going through the abuse again but, this time, it was different – it was heart-wrenching. 

I was 10 years old when I went to Nazareth House from St Joseph’s. While I was there they cut my beautiful long hair short, stripped us down and made us bath in Jeyes fluid. We were given a number, which we had to put on all our clothes. I was number 99.

The nuns physically and verbally abused all sense of self-worth out of me. They said I was born in the gutter and would go back there if they didn’t punish me. They kept telling me the punishment was for my own good, so I didn’t turn out to be like my mother. They told me that I had the sins of my mother in me, and that was why they had to punish me. At one point I got chickenpox and the nuns said it was the devil coming out of me. 

I was constantly cold, all the time, day and night, and I used to get so hungry I would eat the ice that formed on top of puddles, as well as grass. I left school at the age of 12 years old to work and earn my keep at the orphanage. I didn’t have much schooling and couldn’t read or write very well.

If you’ve ever heard about clothing being so dirty that it could stand up by itself, my underpants were. Our clothes were changed once a month. My underpants were hard and stiff in the crotch. I was sore and had a rash, which bled a lot. Sometimes I couldn’t walk, because the stiff knickers would cut into the tops of my thighs and my crotch. I could only wash them at night, but if I left them to dry, they would be stolen, so I would lie on top of them at night. 

I would try to hide from the nuns, but Mother Euphrasia would drag me out by my hair, put me in a sack, tie the top of it and tell me that the pig man was going to come and take me away. It was so dark and I was terrified. She would hit me with a stick. I could hear her talking to a man and then she opened up the sack, and told me she had to punish me for what my mother had done.

I never knew when or where Mother Euphrasia was going to sneak up behind me. I was always looking back to see if she was there – she’d come from nowhere. The nuns would come up behind me and pinch me on my arm with the tips of their fingernails, taking skin off. It was painful and bled. We called them “fly pinches”. I hated it – when the nuns got a good hold of my skin, they’d walk around while I was screaming and begging them to let me go. 

You had to sleep on your back with your arms crossed over your chest, so the devil couldn’t come and take you away. If you didn’t, the nuns would beat you with a cane. 

At night, the nuns would strip my clothes off, tie me to the bed face-down, and thrash me with a belt with the buckle. It cut into my skin until I bled and I couldn’t sit down afterwards for weeks. While they were hitting me, they would say” “We have to get the devil out of you, you are like your mother.” 

One of the nuns would lock me in the cellar, sometimes by myself, sometimes with others. We couldn’t get out and we had nothing to eat or drink while we were down there. The cellar was cold, dark and it leaked. We had no blankets to keep warm, all we could do was curl up in a ball. It was infested with rats and we had to go to the toilet on the floor. 

We were taken to the swimming pool each day, not to swim but for punishment because we wet our beds. They would throw us in the deep end and a big girl would push us down. Each time we came up, the girl would push us down again. 

I was taken to a grotto where the nuns had wild rams. They would chase me while Mother Euphrasia watched. I would run away and fall over, and if I tried to climb over the fence, Mother Euphrasia would push me onto the barbed wire and slap me across the face. My hands would be covered in blood. 

Sister Blandina frequently put my head down the toilet and flushed it. When I wet the bed, she would make me get down on my knees and put my hands behind my back, and she would rub my head in the wet sheets. 

Verbal, sarcastic attacks by the nuns and older girls were an everyday occurrence, resulting in a lifetime of low self-esteem. Each time the nuns did these horrid things to me, I would ask Mary and Jesus to take me away.

There were some older girls who would come to my bed, strip me, then one of them would sit on my face while the other one pushed my legs apart and touched my vagina. They would put things up me. I hated it, I knew that it was dirty. They’d lock me in the broom cupboard afterwards. I couldn’t make any noise or they’d sit on me harder. I was so scared. 

The older girls would make me lick their genitals in the bathroom. I was too afraid to go to the toilet, because that’s where they would be waiting for me, so I started wetting my pants. 

From the classroom to the toilets was a stairway that led up to the attic. The older girls were always up there and it was a place I ran past if I was alone. One day I was by myself and they dragged me up there by my hair. They made me drink their urine, then they took their pants off and pushed me onto my knees while pulling me around by my hair to get me to lick them. I felt trapped – if I stayed in the classroom I would get slapped for wetting my pants, but the girls were waiting for me outside as well. I couldn’t see any way out. I had no one to go to for help. Once, I went to the police. They gave me hot cocoa and took me back to the orphanage. They did this every time I went to them for help. I was just another girl with no one to turn to.

I cannot overstate how much my time in care has ruined my life. It has been over 50 years since I left Christchurch, but the fear I have is still so strong, and it will not weaken in this lifetime. 

My physical ailments are the least of my problems. These include spinal arthritis, partial deafness, and respiratory issues, as well as difficulties carrying children due to an injured uterus. I have miscarried eight times. I get severe migraines, due to what I suspect was a fractured skull. 

But it is the mental and emotional health issues that do not relent. I suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and anxiety. A registered psychologist recorded me as having all 21 recognised symptoms of PTSD. I struggle to sleep, and I get night terrors so violent my husband and I slept apart for 30 years, because I used to hit him in my sleep.

One of my deepest sadnesses is that I had no idea how to love and nurture my children, and they suffered, probably as I suffered with the nun. The person I am is trapped by my first 24 years in the hands of the nuns and the Catholic Church. 

The fear is still with me today. I’m like a mouse in a field, trying to hide from a bird circling around overhead. The nuns have taken so much away from me, besides my freedom. They took my innocence, laughter and love. The nuns have got every part of my life and my being. 

I took action against mistreatment at St Josephs and received a modest settlement. 

The action I took against the Nazareth nuns led to me being listened to by Sister Clare and Mary from the Order with great care and that was a first. There was again a modest settlement. Part of it was a fund (“the Commitment”) the nuns would establish to be available to the 28 claimants then present. This was to be replenished every year while we lived but it did not work out. It created disappointment and felt like the old humiliation. I understand the Order plan to cancel it, which breaches our settlement agreement.

I’ve written two books about my experiences and lots of poetry. I always thought I had no rights as a person. I was told day after day that I was stupid, dumb, good for nothing, bad and had the devil in me. I believed it, because I never knew anything else.

I want awareness for what I went through. I want remorse. I want accountability, and I want thorough oversight of care institutions.