Holmeleigh Horncastle Childrens Homesa Nd School Years

A Memory of Horncastle.

By Michael Savage
A reunion of the Horncastle Homes children and the staff was held at the Town Hall (Drill Hall) July 20 1989. Almost 400 people attended the event. “The atmosphere was really great - everyone was talking about the good old days, although some had painful memories to share.”

Generations of children were brought up in a group of houses, known as Holmeleigh, off Foundry Street. According to the reports from former residents, “It was a very Victorian set up. You were hardly allowed to talk to boys and you made your own entertainment as a group of children together.”

The site consisted of several semi-detached house. Each house, known as a cottage, was numbered 1 to 11. Each cottage accommodated approximately 14 to 16 children; there were 3 mixed sex cottages, 2 all girls and 6 all boys cottages, and each cottage was run by a house mother and house auntie. We the children slept in dormitories, and midnight feasts were inevitable. Once a group of them took a picnic out onto a field in the middle of the night. However, the house mother found out and put a stop to their nocturnal festivities. Daily routine in the House Cottages was extremely regimental, you always knew what the meal would be according to the day of the week. At the back of each cottage was a fence and small yard, no one really used the front, it wasn’t on the road side like at the back.

The home was run by a Superintendent and his wife, Mr and Mrs Vardy. The home in some ways was very strict, but there was nowhere else to go. The Home was not all bad, at Christmas time pantomimes were held in the assembly rooms which had a proper stage and dance floor, and black and white films which were screened there every Monday night and were enjoyed by the children.

The Holmeleigh children also looked after each other like any family, and if they were picked on there were plenty of older ‘brothers and sisters’ to help out. “At times we felt very much like outsiders. Even in the 1950s we had to wear a uniform, we did not have fashion clothes like the other children.”
The uniform requirement was later abolished in the 1960s. The youngsters all had their chores to complete before going to work, including scrubbing the floors and mending.

There was a hospital on site with just one nurse, Mrs Ashton; I was in Home One Cottage from 1954 to 1956 and then Home Nine Cottage, from 1956 to 1958.  In the summer, a school on the coast would be hired for a month and we would have a month’s holiday at Cleethorpes or Skegness. We would all sleep on camp beds in the classrooms.

Frequent after school fights, between the children of the home and the ‘other children’ (who were labelled as ‘townies’) would take place on The Wong. The children of the Homes always remained loyal to each other, through thick and thin. Some of the children at the home tried to run away. The story goes that two of the children actually reached London in the 1940s in an attempt to speak to King George VI to complain about the way some of the staff treated them.

I attended Cagthorpe Secondr School from September 1954 to July 1958 and was the Junior and Senior Boys Athletics Captain wining the 100 and 220 yards 3 years on the trot and victor ludorum in 1956/1958,  School friends in my form years being Peter Turner, Tim Bryant, Bernard Urry, Melvyn Meanwell, John (Tut) Burton, Zenith Stanley, Alan Roe, Keith (Chunky) Travers, John Edwards, Bas Blackburn, Doug Clarke, Peter Paige of the girls I remember Daphney Nundy, Maureen Thompson. Joyce Cashmore, Brenda McKee, Pauline Broddle, Mary Quincy. Mr Wainmouth then Mr Foster as Head Teacher - School Teachers Mr Cawthorpe, Mr Lyons, Mr Tayles, Mr Ashley, Mr Horrocks, Mr Christain, Mr Needham, Mr Whitaker, Mr Hargreaves, Mr Thorntin, Miss Skins, Miss Keys

In 1958 I left to attend Lincoln Engineering College full time for one year and lodge with a family in Lincoln under the supervision of the Mid Lindsey County Council. At 16½ I joined the Royal Air Force as a Boy Apprentice and left service life in December 1972.

The house mother from Home 9 who was much modernised in her approach to looking after children was 9 years older than me. She left to get married and offered all the children who came under her care a place to which they could call home, so during my time in the RAF I stayed many times and when I married, the house mother and John her husband acted as my parents at the wedding.

During the illness of my wife, Barbara, they supported me many times, and after losing Barbara they also looked after my daughter Helen on many occasions. John and my house mother (also called Barbara) fostered two brothers back in 1974, aged 5 and 4 at the time. Unfortunately time brings sorrow to us all and mother (as I always called her) passed away in November last year aged 73.

Holmeleigh ceased to be a children’s home in 1968 and the original Union Workhouse with its distinctive archway was demolished in the summer of 1986. The remainder of the buildings on the site were converted and became known as Horncastle College.