A Battersea woman who was torn from her family and shipped to Australia as a child has returned home for an official apology from the Prime Minister.

Margaret Gallagher, 67, was taken into care and sent abroad as a “war orphan” because her mother was just 13 years old when she was born.

Last Wednesday she returned to London to witness Gordon Brown apologise for the "unrelenting hardship" an estimated 150,000 children sent abroad for resettlement more than 40 years ago.

She said: “The apology is long overdue but welcome. Britain got rid of us – we want to be welcomed back. I’m looking forward to being in my homeland. It’s running in my blood.

“I sometimes scream inside – I’m English and you gave me away.”

Mrs Gallagher lost touch with her mother when she went to Dr Bernados at just 18 months, and by the age of six she had lived in six homes.

At age 11, she was asked if she would like to go on holiday to Australia to stay with a loving family, and told it was a great opportunity.

But when she arrived in New South Wales one year later, she was thrown into a children's home where the food was terrible and the staff were uncaring.

At school, she became rebellious and withdrawn, and staff told her she had been abandoned by her parents because she was uncontrollable.

Carers at the home beat her up and shouted at her and at the age of 15 she tried to take her own life.

Mrs Gallagher, who is now married with three children, aged 37 to 45, was reunited with her mother and siblings in 2001 via The Child Migrants Trust.

Her brother died of cancer only 11 months later.

She later said: “The feelings of loss of all those years gone by were immense but I had to soldier on, as always... I feel so sad, so frightened and so angry with those that helped create my lost years.”