Pilgrims Way Childrens Home And St Patrick Open Air School

A Memory of Hayling Island.

I was in pilgrims way childrens home in bower mount road Maidstone from age 12-15.it was a very strict regime but I liked it there. however we were made to go to choir practice every Friday night at the Baptist church in knight riders street whether we could sing or not. there was only one outsider, a small boy in the choir. every Sunday at Sunday School Mr Loveland the head Sunday school teacher would say the Sunday School choir will now sing hymn number bla bla bla and as soon as we started signing the boys at the back would call out meow meow cats choir cats choir. Mr Loveland never stopped them and they behaved like hooligans, but one Sunday we went to morning church and every thing was normal, however when we got home the matron of the childrens home Joan Erskine was furious and told us that several female members of the church had phoned her and said that they could not tolerate us any more as we were nothing but a bunch of hooligans. well we was stunned there had not been any incident. I am sure we might have been a bit noisy walking along the road all children are especially when there are 26 of them but we were always quiet in church and it was a bit much when we were he heckled by the boys every week. that evening we were sent to the Methodist church and we were welcomed with open arms but as time went on a girl the same age as me asked me what crime I had commited to be put in a childrens home, she seemed to think that we were all criminals, this was obviously something her parents had told her. well considering the age range was 4-15 with two 17year olds who attended college you have to wonder at their sense of logic. when I was 15 Joan Erskine told me that because I was only 4ft 10 in and weighed only six and a half stone I was not strong enough to go to work but my grandmother was half Italian and of cause Italians are mostly small and I resented it as I was fit as a fiddle and hypoactive. so I was sent to St Patricks open air school Hayling Island. I hated it at first but I got used to it. the children at the childrens home and St Patrick were very nice but even at St Patricks some of the locals complained that we were hooligans when miss Hobart took us to the pictures or to the park so sister Bertha put all the smaller girls into groups and me and 5 other older girls had to take one group and keep them under control which was easy because they were all very well behaved. when I was 16 I was sent back to Maidstone to Howard House a hostel for girls for 15 -18 year olds in Lower Fant Road. in the summer the local business people would hire floats and dress up and of cause there was a beauty queens this happened in all the Medway towns. once Tommy Steele came to cinema in Chatham and Tommy kept jokingly asking to remain quiet so the teddy boys at the back kept shouting get on with it Tommy. there was plenty of factories in Maidstone so we were never out of work. I loved Maidstone