The Forgotten Child: A little boy abandoned at birth. His fight for survival. A powerful true story.
I wasn’t immune. Sometimes I did get into minor trouble, possibly for over-eating – I did a lot of that! Or maybe I didn’t come when I was called. I have to admit that there were occasions when I ignored the call because I wanted a bit of extra time – I suppose all children do that. It was usually when I was in the garden. I used to love it so much that I was often in a dream, but when they called us, we had to toe the line, we had to go in. If they wanted to wash me down, there was no messing about: it was soap and water time and that was that.
As I approached four, I became more aware of the beauty of Field House, both inside and out. It was a classical design – Georgian, I think. Through the elegant porch and the huge front door was a beautiful hallway that stretched so far ahead, it seemed to me to go on for ever. There was oak panelling along the left-hand side and an old oak sideboard. A huge chandelier reflected the light in the centre of the hall and to the right was a grand oak staircase with beautiful carved banisters and turned finials, polished to a high sheen. In fact, it was the sweet smell of beeswax polish that pervaded the whole house. When I stood at the bottom of the stairs and craned my neck, I could see all the way up the staircase as it curved round and round the squares of space, through each floor, creating a pyramid effect, at the top of which was a beautiful painted ceiling. Every landing was surrounded by huge oak doors and the only light flooded down from skylights at the very top.
‘You must never go up those stairs,’ I remember Matron telling us one day. It was an order. But, on one occasion, looking upwards, I began to wonder what was on the upper floors. It was just curiosity, but almost involuntarily, I found myself climbing up the first flight of stairs. Halfway up, I realised what I had done and looked over the banisters, but there was nobody in sight, just distant sounds from the kitchens. Everybody else seemed to be outside, so I tiptoed on up the polished treads to the first landing. There were doors everywhere, all of them closed. I was desperate to go and see what was inside one of the rooms, but I didn’t dare – somebody might be lurking behind, ready to pounce on me. I dreaded to think what my punishment would be. I turned to go back down, but it was too late.
One of the doors opened and Matron herself came out.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in her sternest voice as she towered over me.
I could barely get the words out. ‘S-s-sorry Matron …’
‘You know you’re not supposed to be up here?’
‘Yes, Matron.’ I hung my head, expecting the worst.
‘Well, go straight back down those stairs and never come up here again. Do you understand?’
‘Y-y-yes Matron. I’m sorry.’
She was pointing at the stairs, so I began to clamber down them as quickly as I dared, until my housemother arrived and took my hand to help me down the rest and sent me out to play with the others on the grass.
Later, at bedtime, she kindly reinforced the message, as Matron had probably asked her to do. But she said it with a tolerant smile.
‘I’m sure you were just curious,’ she said.
‘Yes, I only wanted to see …’
‘There’s nothing much up there,’ she explained. ‘Just offices, staff bedrooms and lots of cupboards, where we keep the clothes and sheets and things.’
I nodded. I couldn’t help being inquisitive and adventurous, which did lead me into other tricky situations from time to time, but I never ventured up the stairs again.
The sleeping arrangements at Field House were very straightforward. Being such a grand house, all the downstairs rooms were very large, with high ceilings and long sash windows, letting in generous beams of light. The babies were all in a room beyond the staircase, in their cots.
The first door to the left of the front door led into the girls’ dormitory, which I never saw inside. The boys’ dormitory was the same but opposite, to the right of the front door and looking out over the front lawns. There were usually about 10 to 12 of us in there, our little metal-framed beds placed at intervals around the walls of the room, with tables and chairs in the centre for us to play at if the weather was bad, though in my memories it hardly ever was. The room itself had been stripped bare of its grandeur and painted white, but it still had its wooden floors and the ceiling’s decorative cornices. There were full-length curtains at every window.
My bed was by the window at the far side of the room, so I had a remarkable view in the daylight, but there were no lights outside, which made it so dark at night that it seemed almost haunted. I was glad then that I wasn’t alone.
Although most of the staff slept on the upper floors, they were always alert for any problems with the children – I suppose some of them might have been on night duty. I know they were there for us because one night the rain was pouring down in torrents, beating against the windows so hard that it kept us all awake for a while. Finally, I must have dozed off, perhaps for an hour or two. Suddenly I awoke to a great flash of lightning, followed immediately by loud thunder cracks that must have struck very close by. At first, I feared it had broken our windows, but they were still intact. I grabbed hold of my scruffy old second-hand teddy bear, Jeffrey, and hugged him tight. The lightning lit up the room again and again with crashing roars, which terrified us all. I hid myself and Jeffrey under the covers. Only moments after this crescendo, my housemother and two of the others rushed into our room and straight away, comforted us all, gathering us together in little groups and calming us down.
Sometimes, on more peaceful nights, I would hear the sounds of animals outside, such as badgers or foxes making their way round to the back of the building, where the hens were kept, but I don’t remember them ever catching any, though the staff probably wouldn’t have told us if they had. Often, I used to wake early and peep out to watch the stately deer or the rabbits and hares scampering across the lawns.
Any toys or games we had were donated by well-wishers, so they had often been well used. As well as Jeffrey, I also had two toy cars. I used to play with them a lot, pushing and spinning them round while making the noise of a car, and I would park them under my bed every night.
When the weather was bad, we played in our dormitories, the girls in theirs and we boys in ours. We had a big bag of little blocks of wood and I used to piece them together to make shapes and patterns. Sometimes we built towers. I remember going upwards as far as I could before they all crashed to the floor.
We also had colouring books and crayons, which we enjoyed. On Sundays we set out all the little Formica-topped tables and chairs in the middle of the room and were given watercolour paints in little tins, one each. We had to get the water to wet the paints with our brushes to colour in the pictures or make our own. I loved that. The staff would come round and say things like: ‘Oh, that’s very good’, or ‘What colour are you going to paint this?’
I used to love our painting on Sundays – I’m sure that’s what started my love of art growing up.
As you have probably guessed by now, mealtimes were always my favourite time of the day. We sometimes ate breakfasts and teas in our dormitories, but we always had our lunch in the big dining room at the back of the house, all seated at long refectory tables – the boys at one and the girls at the other, with a housemother at each end. We had to say Grace at the beginning of every meal:
‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.’
We were encouraged to eat everything on our plates, but I didn’t need much encouragement – the food was so good, I don’t think I ever left anything! We were allowed second helpings if there were any and I always had them.
Next to our dormitory there was a bathroom, with a black and white tiled floor. I remember there was one bath in it – a big white iron affair. That was on one side and along the opposite wall was a row of wash basins. We would line up and wash our hands before every meal, then at bedtime we would brush our teeth, wash our faces and hands. The housemothers watched us to make sure we did this thoroughly before we got into bed. As there was only the one bath, we had to take turns every two or three days.
We each had a small cupboard next to our bed for our clothes – it was a tiny cupboard with a drawer above it, where I kept my treasures. We didn’t have many clothes but if we needed something else, there was a store of second- or third-hand clothes upstairs, so one of the housemothers would go and get it for us. In fact, none of them were our own clothes. One of the other boys might wear a pair of shorts one day and I would be wearing them the next, but none of us minded.
In the winters, although the building was so large, it was hardly ever cold as we had huge iron radiators, probably Victorian, and they kept us snug. At night, we all had hot water bottles, just to make sure. If ever we still felt cold at night, we only had to say and someone would bring us an extra blanket.
Field House was good in so many ways. One of these was the way we were taught to mix and play with any disabled children we had with us. Whatever their disability, we always included them in our games and talked with them. Nobody ever made fun of them or left them out. Sometimes, their disability might have been the reason why they were put in care, but we all played together. There was one boy who couldn’t eat properly or use his hands and he used to dribble, but nobody said anything, he was just part of the group. If he couldn’t join in a game, one of us would always sit out with him to keep him company – it was the normal thing to do.
Every night, one of the housemothers would sit on my bed and read me a short story. It was a lovely part of bedtime. Some of them were very short stories, like Jack and the Beanstalk or Rumpelstiltskin, but often I wouldn’t hear the end of it because I had already fallen asleep. I suppose that was the idea! It certainly worked.
CHAPTER 3
The Monkey Man
September 1958 (nearly 4) – Grown into a fine boy – sturdy, adventurous and agile. There has been a very marked improvement in this child. Much happier. Laughs and plays and sings. Speech quite fluent. Has a lot of imagination. Co-operative and gets on well with other children. Plays very well by himself.
Field House progress report
There was always so much to do in the gardens of Field House that often we didn’t have any extra entertainments organised, though I do remember one occasion when a big van arrived and out jumped a man in multicolour clothes. He built a sort of booth out of wood and striped fabric on the lawn. We all gathered round and the housemothers organised us into rows on the grass.
‘We’re going to see a puppet show,’ one of them announced. ‘It’s called Punch and Judy.’
None of us knew what a puppet show was, but as soon as it got under way we were all laughing and shouting out at the puppets’ antics. We had a wonderful time and talked about it for days afterwards.
‘I liked the policeman best,’ said the boy next to me in my dormitory as we were getting ready for bed that evening.
‘I liked it when they threw the string of sausages,’ I replied.
I often took myself for walks around the gardens or to the vegetable gardens at the back of the house. One very still day, sitting in the cedar tree to the left of the house, I could hear the sound of trickling water. When I craned my head in that direction, I couldn’t see much, except for an ornamental gate in a wall, which hid what lay beyond. I had never been down that side of the house, so I clambered down and set off to find out what it was. A few days earlier, my housemother had read me a story about an explorer. I had asked her what an explorer was and she explained, ‘An explorer is someone who goes to new places and finds out what animals live there and what flowers grow there.’
‘Could I do that?’ I asked.
‘You could, if you want to, when you grow up.’
Well, I knew I wasn’t grown up yet, but now I felt just like an explorer, walking alone into an unknown place to see what might be there. I was so excited at the thought that I didn’t even consider whether I was allowed to go there.
When I reached the gate, it was closed, but I gave it a little push and, much to my surprise, it swung open, revealing a magical place, a beautiful garden so different from everywhere else. I walked in and looked around. It was a fascinating place. Everywhere I looked there was something new and different – things I’d never seen before. I could hardly believe it.
‘I went to a beautiful garden today,’ I told my housemother at bedtime that evening.
‘Did you really?’ she said with a smile, as if she wasn’t sure whether I was just imagining it.
‘Yes, I went through the gate in the wall and saw such beautiful things.’
She put her head on one side. ‘Tell me what you saw.’
‘I saw red trees and places where water was running and jumping up in the air. I saw strange flowers and lots of butterflies.’
‘Ah, that must have been the Japanese garden,’ she explained. ‘The red trees are called acers and the jumping water was a fountain. I think there are quite a few pools and small fountains in the Japanese garden.’
‘What does Japanese mean?’ I asked her.
‘It means from Japan. We live in a country called England, but right the way across the other side of the world there is a country called Japan.’
I don’t suppose I really understood what the world was, let alone places so far away, but the next day she brought me a round thing she called a globe to look at and she showed me where England was on the globe, and then she turned it and pointed at Japan.
‘You are allowed to go in the Japanese garden as long as you’re careful,’ she told me.
In the days and weeks that followed, I returned to the garden repeatedly. I walked around its carefully raked paths, between the ornamental cherry blossom trees, and watched the little waterfalls and fountains. I noticed different butterflies and caterpillars and several types of insects there too.
Against the background of trickling water, I heard the familiar buzzing of bees and a strange new sound. I followed where it came from and found a very peculiar-looking creature. I had never seen frogs before, let alone a toad, so I watched it closely, as it sat and watched me, like a staring match. This now became my favourite place. I suppose I could have brought some of the other children to see it, but I liked having it to myself for a little while.
Many years later, I found out that this was a very special Japanese water garden, designed by a famous woman called Gertrude Jekyll, so I suppose we were very honoured as small children to have that as part of our playground.
In the autumn at Field House there was a special treat – conker trees, as we called them. I loved running out in the mornings to inspect the newly fallen conkers from the chestnut trees. I would pick up the most beautiful ones I could find and polish them with my shirt or my woolly jumper, before putting them into my pocket. The housemothers made holes in some of the chestnuts for us and threaded lengths of string through them, so that we could play conkers.
‘Be careful,’ one of them warned. ‘Don’t swing them around or you might hurt each other.’ The housemothers showed us how to use them: ‘Take turns to try to hit the other person’s conker, like this.’ They stayed out with us to make sure we did it the right way.
I liked playing conkers with all the others, but what I liked best of all was polishing the ones in my pocket and taking them out at night to put in the little drawer in my bedside cupboard as additions to my collection. I was just learning to count, so the conkers were ideal and I counted them every night before I got into bed, like a miser counting his gold sovereigns.
From my earliest memories, I loved looking from the lawn, across the fields and up to the Clent Hills, so it was a great excitement every summer, for those of us who could walk far enough – a four-mile round trip – to have regular outings to those very hills. Sadly, my friend with the callipers couldn’t come on those days, but I know he had special treats at Field House while we were out and he was always as excited to tell us about his day as we were to tell him about ours.
On sunny days, almost every week, the kitchen staff would pack up sandwiches and drinks for us and put them in bags, which the housemothers carried. Straight after breakfast, we were lined up and counted, before setting off in a line down the long drive, past the lodge at the bottom, through the gate and out onto the country lane.
We must have looked a strange sight, a long crocodile of small children, walking two by two, dressed in a motley collection of hand-me-downs. Years later, when I saw The Sound of Music, with Maria making curtains into clothes for the children, it reminded me of our ‘make-do-and-mend’ outfits. But we were young and we knew no different, so it didn’t matter.
As we walked, the housemothers started us off singing jolly songs, like ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’, ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’ and Ten Green Bottles’. We learnt a lot of songs on those walks. Sometimes we crossed fields and the grown-ups told us what crops the farmer was growing and how to look after the countryside, by walking round the edges and making sure we shut the gates behind us. In some of the fields the crops were taller than we were! As we walked along the lanes, they told us about the hedgerows, the wild flowers and the birds.
Every time we approached Clent village, the excitement rose and, sure enough, there leaning on his gate was an old gentleman with long grey hair and a weathered look, smoking a wonderful, ivory-coloured pipe carved into a man’s face. I now know that it must have been a Meerschaum pipe. There was something about the smell of that pipe – even out in the fresh air, it had an alluring, aromatic scent. But it wasn’t just the man that fascinated me, it was the monkey sitting on his shoulder. I think this gentleman must have lived on his own in his little old cottage with just the monkey for company. He always seemed to wear the same scruffy clothes, with holes in his shirt – he even made us look smart!
Small and brown with darting eyes, the monkey sat on the man’s shoulder, its arms round his neck, its eyes following us as we passed by. We weren’t allowed to touch the monkey, but we could stop and watch it if it was moving about, which it often did, coming alive and showing off when it saw us approaching. It would twitch its fingers as if playing an instrument, then clamber around, doing somersaults. Sometimes it made a chattering sound, as if saying hello to us. This monkey was one of the highlights of our outings. Perhaps we were also a highlight of the monkey’s day, watching this straggly troupe of small children walk past, waving and calling out jolly greetings as we went by.
Finally, we climbed the lane to the top of the hills and there we could run free and play for hours, punctuated by sandwich breaks. The adults organised ball games for us to join in, but we didn’t have to, so I used to wander round looking for insects and rabbit holes.
At the end of the day, we packed everything up and set off on the long walk back to Field House, where we could look forward to a hot meal on our return, before a quick wash-down. We were so tired those evenings that we’d go straight to bed and lights out, then followed the deep sleep of exhaustion after a long, happy day.
The only other trip we ever went on while I was at Field House was quite a surprise. I must have been about four and a half when my housemother told me one morning to dress quickly because we were going on a special outing.
‘It’s just for the older ones,’ she explained. ‘We’re taking you to Hagley railway station to see a steam train coming through.’
‘What’s a steam train?’ I asked. I had heard of trains, but didn’t know what steam had to do with it and I was quite excited to find out.
There were just a few of us on this trip and we set off straight after breakfast, walking along the lanes to the station. As we approached, the road widened and we saw cars and other vehicles passing by. I had always loved playing with my little toy cars, so this was a fascination for me. Soon I started to recognise some of them from the models I and my friends played with. We saw a bus too – it was bigger than I expected and had a lovely chugging sort of sound.
Looking back, I suppose that was the purpose of the day for us, to experience noisier, busier surroundings, as the staff knew that one day soon, most of us would live in more urban surroundings and we would almost certainly need to take buses and trains and learn how to cross roads. Indeed, we were all lined up along the edge of the pavement and told to look right, left, right. Most of us had problems with that, so the staff came along and patted us all on our right shoulders. Then we had to practise crossing the road.
We walked through the station building and were introduced to the station master, who took us all out onto the platform.
‘Stand back,’ he said. ‘It’s very important, don’t go any nearer than this.’
So, we spread out in a line along the back of the platform and waited. I don’t think any of us children knew what was going to happen, so there was a lot of nervous anticipation. We listened to the announcement the station master made with his megaphone. That fascinated me in itself – the way it made his voice louder.
‘Look,’ said my housemother, pointing along the track into the distance. ‘Can you see the steam?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, peering in that direction and seeing the white and grey cloud that seemed to be moving towards us. I was mystified that I couldn’t see the train itself, but that soon changed as it drew closer. Small at first, it grew bigger and bigger, turning into a roaring, snorting monster. The giant engine emerged from its steamy shroud as it pulled into the station with a squeal of brakes. I stood back with a gaping mouth, in awe of the noise, the steam and the pungent smell of burning coal in its fiery furnace. I remember being frightened of it – fascinated, but fearful. The whole station seemed to shake.
Once the train had stopped and people started to get out, I was able to see that it was painted in a dark green colour, very shiny with gold writing on it. From where I was standing, I was lucky enough to be able to see into the driver’s cab, where the train driver operated some shiny brass knobs and levers, while another man shovelled coal into the hungry furnace. I must have taken a step forward to get a better look, but my housemother immediately yet gently pulled me back.
New passengers boarded the train and settled into their carriages while the guard walked up and down, closing doors. Then he waved his flag, the engine fired up and the train began to move away, creeping slowly along the track, snorting bursts of steam as it went. The driver and his assistant leaned out of their cab and waved cheerily at us, followed by some of the passengers as their carriages moved past us. Of course, we all waved back like mad, which was great fun, waving and waving until the train had disappeared round a bend up the track.
That was an incredible day and I can still almost taste the coal dust, but I was glad at last to get back to the peace and quiet of Field House.
A day or two later, one of the housemothers brought in some second-hand model trains for us to play with and a book about steam trains that we gathered round to look at. Now we had not just the humming of car engines to make, but also the steam and roar, the squealing brakes and clanking noises of that amazing train as we shunted our new toy steam engines across the floor of our dormitory. It didn’t stop there either: for days afterwards, the lawn became our station and we became the trains.