My Sister Worked There

A Memory of Pallotti Hall.

We lived in Macclesfield. My sister worked there with the children. I suppose she was some sort of aide or nanny. She was a live in anyway. She came home on weekends. My cousin would drive her back on a Sunday night. Sometimes I went with them. It was the most God awful forsaken place. Especially at night. Some old priest had a lodge at the top of the driveway. Not that there was anything around it for miles anyway. The driveway was long, long, long. Or it seemed so then and thick impenetrable woods on either side.
It was a shocker in winter when any living sound was deadened by the snow. You couldn't drive down the driveway. It was too narrow for a car. We would walk my sister down to the main hall, but there was another small lodge quite a long way further on through fields basically. It was for sleeping arrangements for the assistants as I remember. I was 15 then. What a scary place it was in winter, pitch black with the snow falling. Not a soul around. Run by nuns. In hindsight probably not the kindest place for little children. My sister would sometimes bring a little boy with her when she came home on weekends. I remember his name was David. Whenever he was asked what he'd like to eat, he always said a boiled egg. It didn't matter what meal it was. The answer was always a boiled egg. I wonder what happened to him.