My childhood abuse in the orphanage, is New Zealand's shameful, dirty secret of physical, mental and sexual abuse of innocent children by nuns, lay staff, the older girls and the priest and bullying at two orphanages in Christchurch New Zealand. From the age of five to ten old I was made to work on their farm and laundry at Mount Magdala — St. Joseph Girls Orphanage then from ten to nineteen years old I worked in the Nazareth house kitchen and laundry.

I was conceived out of wedlock, because of my mother being raped at fifteen years old. I was just two and a half months old when I was snatched from my mother's arms, by the catholic church then placed in the care of one of their Catholic orphanage. From the beginning, I was taught that my mother was sinful and that I would be too unless the devil was beaten from my soul. I was sexually abused in the nursery from a tiny young girl of eighteen months old by three lady workers for four years.

At night times three nuns would ritual attack me by taking my clothes off, tying me to both ends of the bed and savagely attacking me with the buckle of her belt, hula hoop cut in half and a large whip as they tried to suppress my will and to break my spirit.

They Promised Heaven But Led Me To Hell is also about my fight with the catholic church to accept responsibility for the past institutionalized abuse of children and young people while in their care and to admit — unconditionally — that there was wrong doing by the two orders of nuns and the priest. It is a story which needs to be heard and to read, I have told of the horrific upbringing in two catholic orphanages.

Whilst unbelievable that such acts of cruelty happened in New Zealand by nuns, They Promised Heaven, But Led me to Hell… also portrays my great strength of spirit and determination. I am a mother of four, a grandmother and a great grandmother and I have lived in Whangarei for the past fifty-two years, 1966 to 2018 with my husband Brian.

My story is one story of many worldwide…

Ann Thompson