Happy Times At Delamere

A Memory of Delamere.

Hi, I attended Delamere Forest, a Jewish special needs school,from 1956 until 1961. My name back then was David Reeve and; I will always be gratefull for the love,tenderness and caring that the nurses and teachers showed me. I never experienced abuse that other children reported just unconditional love nor do I remember any child at Delamere being abused,if someone had,they would have talked about it as we were a 40 strong family,half boys and half girls . My home life was abusive,physically,mentally and verbally,going to Delamere showed me that the world was not like my life at home and gave balance to a young child who felt abandoned yet came to love Delamere,a place where I learned to open my heart in safety,without fear of being ridiculed. Others have written of the lack of a formal education at Delamere,we were educated in the three 'R's yet there was a library that delighted me and allowed me to travel the world,experience different cultures and read the children's classics. I learned vocabulary,grammar,history,geography,maths and literature from my reading,when I returned home at aged 9 no school would take me because I did not have a formal primary education. Finally a school accepted me,with reservations, yet at my 11+ exam I failed Grammar School by 3%age points and went to a technical high school as opposed to a secondary modern school.
While I was there at Delamere we had 2 deaths,both were twins,one male twin and a separate set of girl twins,both sets of twins were called Levy. The female Levy twin banged her head on on of the louvered,heavy wooden shutters that was folded open whilst chasing each other outside the classrooms and died,(probably your sister Marlilyn), in the other set of male twins,Anthony, died later from his condition,which was polio as I remember. Everything that I know about nature I learned the basics of in Delamere forest on our daily walks, I remember well Mrs Lichenstein,(I believe that was her name) and her 'sausage dog' which would accompany us on our treks through the forest. Everyone at Delamere had 2 3' by 6' gardening plots,one to grow vegetables and one for flowers,I even got an award from the Lord Mayor of Northwich one year for my 2 plots,I was so proud. My happiest memory is of the playroom that would rotate 360o when pushed and pushing the playhouse round and around was great fun for everyone even those inside who would go dizzy as the room spun lol. My mother visited me twice in the 5 years I was there,in the summer holidays I was sent away to another home near Hastings for 2 months and during the Xmas break I was sent to another home at Lyme. If not for Delamere,my life would have been vastly different,for the worst.