Jim's interest in the British Home Children derived from his grandmother who was one of these deserted children. Her name was Alice Carney and she came to Canada in August 1872, under the auspices of Maria Rye from a Kensington Workhouse, in St. Mary Abbot's Parish, London, England. Jim's search for information about Alice introduced him to the Marchmont Home. What he discovered was much critical opinion about the British Home Children. In light of many positive stories about Home Children, Jim was convinced the truth lay not in the opinion of the critics but in the stories and letters of the Home Children themselves. This book, then, is written solely to provide information from research on those who experienced Marchmont firsthand, those who faced bleak and terrible times in England but, in coming to Canada, altered those odds drastically to become the successes they were.