Return Of The Native
A Memory of Holbrook.
I am now 63 but it wasn't till a couple of years ago that looking at my BC I actually took in that I was born at the Holbrook Maternity Home June 30th 1947. I'd always put down Belper as my place of birth as I'd only glanced at the BC which showed Belper Road as the address of the Maternity Home, which throughout my adult life had been good enough for me...until now that is. So last year I made up my mind that I was going to go to this Holbrook, the place which I had never heard of nor as said had it previously registered with me but where in fact I was born.
I currently live in Kent so it was not going to be a 30-min drive away but curiosity meant that a diversion was called for on my next trip north.
Holbrook is one of those places which are a cross between a small town and a large village, a Villown or a Towvill I think they should be called. Anyway. the Maternity Home is on the periphery of the Villown. It's not actually on Belper Road but is at the junction between Pond Road and Makeney Road with the main entrance on Makeney Road, Belper Road being a continuation of Makeney Road going north. Needless to say it no longer is in the hands of the NHS but has been sold off as a private desirable residence, the current occupants being a family of South Asians, Indian Hindu I think rather than Moslem.
I say this because on going to the front gate of the old Maternity Home, the electronic gate perchance opened whilst we were there and out of the Merc emerged the family. A young woman of a confident and independent nature approached us at the gate and I told her that I had been born there and asked if I could come in and take a photo. She was very helpful and said come on in. She remained with my wife whilst I went down to take photos from the grounds. Not a minute had gone by when loud shouts were heard from the window of the house asking me what I was doing. It's OK I said, I was born here and your daughter has said it's OK to take photos. He did not seem too pleased with this response and looked extremely agitated and if looks could kill they would, but I saw the daughter's visage and body language, she was not worried at all about him shouting out and could tell this meant that she could handle Dad without any problem when he told her off when she got back in the house. Anyway daughter of the house thank you very much for being so helpful. I asked her if she gets many people like me turning up and she nodded her head. Not quite sure how many but I know I am not alone.
There is wasteland close by down Pond Road where you can get shots of the place though it's not brilliant and you need a decent camera to get a decent shot. There is a parking spot on Pond Lane with seats just by the grounds with a path leading on to waste ground.
A overhead shot
http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-488227-brook-house-holbrook/bingmap
of Brook House will give you an idea of the geography of the place.
I'm glad I visited my birthplace and had the luck to get a closer look. On showing my 90-year old mother a photo she said she didn't remember it. I know I certainly didn't!
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I have visited since on my own but my wife Ann Penelope who accompanied me that day and who it was who encouraged me to ask the young lady mentioned above who lived in the house with her Dad and family to go into the grounds and take photos is no longer with me having tragically died of cancer.in April 2011 and who unbeknownst to me was in the last year of her life when I wrote the piece above about my (our) visit so now the visit also has another sadder meaning than the "Return of the Native".
Although the photo above is circa 1965 and I was born there in June 1947 I don't really think much had changed except the cars which brought the expectant mothers to the then Maternity Home.
I purchased the Francis Frith print of my birthplace and it now hangs proudly from a wall in my house, a reminder of the time of my complete innocence and complete dependence on others to survive so I think of both my life and my mother who gave birth to me and the loss of one who became the most dearest to me.
Any ex-Holbrookian visiting this site should be aware of a video on You Tube which gives you an idea of the village you were born in if you look at the video below which was the exact route we followed in our entry into the village.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnaT7fLIpgg
Holbrook, Derbyshire by car. Travel around this village near Belper
uploaded by comedyhunter
Uploaded on 12 Jun 2007
Holbrook is a picturesque hilltop village between the A6 and A61, 5½ miles N.E. of Derby, 3 S.E. of Belper, and 2 N.E. of the Duffield railway station.
So look at a photo of the house where my outside into the world life started and thank that my daughter Sequoia brought in 2017 despite much trauma a healthy granddaughter into the world and did a re-spin of the Holbrook tour video on YouTube referred to in an earlier post and think of my companion of that visit which meant so much my late wife Ann.