I Hate Reedham

A Memory of Purley.

The day after our trip to London, I woke in the morning and was told to immediately get dressed and put on my new shoes and overcoat by mother. We dropped Bernard at Aldersbrook School and then caught a bus into Wanstead Tube Station, from here by train we went south of the Thames exactly where I do not remember, but from a South London station we walked on to a very large house near a large lake. It turned out to be an orphanage. Again I had no idea where I was and again I guessed it was some orphanage. At last I did ask grumpy mother where we were, and she said, “You are staying here for some time to help you get better, it’s a convalescent home.” Today, probably for good reason, I have forgotten the name of the place. Again I was never told what was happening to me.

As we arrived at the front door of the large imposing house after traversing the long driveway, Mother stepped forward with my small suitcase in hand and rang the bell. I wondered what awaited me there as I stood in the doorway with my oversized coat and shoes. Some nurse or servant opened the door and allowed us entry to a panelled entrance hall with a wide decorative staircase extending out of sight on the left. Mother pulled my cub cap from my head as I was in awe of the moment I had forgotten my manners. This movement jolted me to life again and I wondered what I coming here for and if this was truly the long awaited adoption place Mother had often threatened me with?

She said, “This is a wonderful place and it is thanks to Winston Churchill that you managed to get in.” who she knew well from her years with John Logie Baird, Winston Churchill had often called watching the development of television. It was always Mother who greeted him and who fed him tea and biscuits while she found her boss John Logie Baird.

Eventually a well-spoken woman and a small girl descended the staircase into the hallway, they were full of their own importance, looking at me and mother, as if we were dog dirt on a shoe.

The woman said something to mother who replied, with this the very ugly small daughter alongside, who had accompanied her mother down the stairs rushed up to me and yanked and pulled my hair, which hurt! I understand now that she was jealous of all new people coming into her home, and taking her mother’s time away from her. This was a great start; I still did not understand why I was here and least of all why I was accosted. The girl’s mother totally ignored the incident and my mother just did not care, as she just wanted to get away. I had been taught that you never hit a woman or girl but this one needed a smack. I wonder where she is today and what she is doing as I still would love to pull her hair.

I was taken with mother up stairs shown my bed, which was a small iron framed bed, much lower than the ones in hospital but again directly from Dickens. It was set in the middle of the floor among a hundred other beds, at the side was a night stand with a small drawer and cupboard, the woman said “Put your teddy in the cupboard and follow me, as we are just in time for tea”, adding the dreaded “You will like that won’t you.” Still I was not told where I was and why, I just hoped that if I was on offer to a family that needed a boy I hope I was chosen, as I knew I looked so smart in the new overcoat even though my hands had disappeared up the sleeves. Seeing an opening as the lady took me downstairs to the dining room mother shot off and left for home, without a second look at me, without even saying goodbye, maybe the great Dr Watters had told her that it was bad to say goodbye.

It would be a full year or more before we would meet again. I so wanted to cry because I was, so alone. I did not cry as there was nobody to give a damn about me, or care in the slightest, I was truly alone.

The rest is so bad I have wiped it from my memory apart from the walking around the lake. At the evening meal we all sat at long tables singing songs like “My bonnie lies over the ocean” until matron showed up, then we could all sit and eat our cold food or slop, in silence.

Once the boy on my left was sick, all over my dinner plate, I don’t know his name as at all times it was forbidden for us to talk at all, and it seems that the whole year I was there was spent in silence. Still he was sick on my plate and over my carrots, the attendant or nurse came up to attend to the boy, when I pointed out the sick on my plate she angrily just pushed it aside with my fork and pointing to the rest said “There eat that, there is no sick there”. Silence and hunger was the order of that night and to this day I cannot eat carrots. Then the nurse told me that I must sit there until I had eaten my dinner. I had sat alone at the dining table with this plate of cold sick in front of me for hour after hour, Stanley’s training helped as I did not cry or say anything to the rare passer-by. I was told that I would not leave the dining room until I had cleaned my plate, I guess I was to eat the sick as well as the carrots. Again the next shift nurse told me that I would not leave the dining room until I had cleaned my plate, the kid who was sick was now cosily tucked up in bed.

As I realized that I had just been left there, and forgotten, then I wanted to cry, as again, I was totally alone. I decided to wait until I was in bed to cry then nobody would see me, and it was childish to cry anyway. Later that night a passing nurse was stunned to see me still sat at the table with a cold plate of sick in front of me, “Why on earth are you still sat here?” she said. I did not reply as we never said anything ever to any nurse unless we were told to, I was half asleep anyway. She took my arm and took me to the bedroom where everyone else was fast asleep, “Get into your bed and not a sound,” I was told, quickly I undressed and climbed silently into bed, now I could at last cry. I was so, so sad, because of the bad first day. I just started to whimper as I knew that nobody loved me or even wanted me, only the ward in Whipps Cross had shown me love and I was so depressed in this horrible place, I just gulped when suddenly I was thumped hard in my back, “Don’t lay on your left side, it’s bad for your heart,” whispered another ugly nurse, disturbing everyone around me, “Look how nice it is with everyone on their right side”. Quickly I turned over and she left. Strangely I could not cry now and discovered again that I did not need Mother, I was better alone.

I soon learnt to live in my head again as I had with the Mays.

After many months of being totally alone and not understanding why I am there, running totally on autopilot, I was called out of the dining hall, I was stunned to hear my name as I had not heard it for many months. A woman in uniform collected me from the dining room door and escorted me to the entrance, standing there, with a huge smile was my wonderful Uncle Greg, who had managed to find me and was visiting yet again. This time I did remember him from the hospital, and was stunned and so pleased at his sudden appearance. He had the same smile and some comics with him, and as he left gave me a hug. It was the first touch for many months, I was allowed only three minutes with my uncle. Everything was taken from us until we left the home as it was run like a prison. Being shocked at the poor condition I was in Uncle Greg promised to tell mother and get me parole. Again I did not understand, I was not sure if this was an orphanage and someday I would be adopted. Or if this was some sort of prison that all bad boys went to. I do remember people coming to inspect or select us as we were taken into the big office and there would be people sat with cups of tea waiting. One woman was fascinated by my blond hair and stroked me a lot but then a pretty girl entered and she forgot I was there. Nothing was said while I was in the room, and nobody talked so I never understood until Uncle Greg said that nobody would want me the way I looked. I was totally in the dark. I would see Uncle Greg a few more times, before I was rescued, he seemed quite agitated with mother for leaving me there but I knew deep down, I deserved it, she had so often told me everything was my fault. I could blank everything out of my mind. I never could recall what we did in the daytime, certainly not lessons; I could never recall any names. It was so unlike the hospital, it was so hard. Uncle Greg was my only contact with the outside world, and I was always called to go and meet him as he came to visit, every visit would be held in the entry hall where we had first entered on arrival and very brief as matron or a nurse would hover in the background waiting to take me back to the crowd of children waiting for their walk, around the large cold grey lake. My companion in the shape of teddy was taken from me, and I was told, “Grow up you are a boy not a sissy,” it would be only be returned to me as I left the establishment. It was around a year before mother came, she had at last responded to Uncle Greg’s pleas to come and save me. I was stunned to see her as I had guessed, rightly so, that I was left there forever, I was just running on automatic pilot, just existing, desperately trying not to be noticed, knowing I had been put there for life, for being so stupid, and bad as Stanley said.

As I was at last reunited with Mother there were no hugs or kisses but just a very cross mother as she had been lumbered, against her will, with me again and with worn shoes! She was mad as these worn out shoes had cost a lot of money. She blamed them for my shoes being in such a sad state, forgetting the time that they had been on my feet. This again, she remembered all her life and would forget that she had tried to dump me, or pass me on for adoption and tell the story to friends of how she saved me! I do vaguely remember that the other boys would boast that their parents would come for them some day, I kept quite as I knew mother just did not want me, I knew I was totally unwanted. I had not complained as I had been taught that complaining just got you attention and that got you hit, really good and hard, besides the main complaint was that I always had wet feet, and at home the shoes from Bernard were no better.

So with some screaming and shouting and being dragged around by my arm like a rag doll I was collected, along with my small case and Teddy Brown. Mother had her say to the nurses and to the matron about the state of my new clothes, it was just fantastic as at last all these horrible women got their deserved comeuppance. They all soon disappeared into the panelled walls and I was dragged by one arm again, shoes soles flopping, covered in dirty worn clothes back to this strange house 107 Wanstead Park Ave.

I was very silent as I remembered the torture and those bad things happened here. I knew that they would be very cross because I had not been sold at the home? When Stanley arrived home from work and I saw him I soon remembering the violence and I was again very afraid. Curled up and cowering in a chair in the corner of the kitchen, I was quickly sent out of the way, by mother to bed. Within days I had again been beaten by Stanley, and the rows started between him and mother. From then I was always in bed when Stanley came home from work, and out before him on my milk round, so he never saw me.

As I look back I must admit that Stanley was under great pressure, and I most likely, would have reacted to the situation as he did. Soon the arrival of an added guest would ease the situation, the guest my small baby half-sister Elizabeth Anne Kathleen Mays, who over the wonderful years with her, I grew to love her so much, as she became my companion and helpmate in life, only to have to learn to live without her again when she died aged 47.

With her death I truly entered the Sad Zone.


Added 16 May 2011

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Comments & Feedback

Hallo.....my gosh I was totally glued to your incredibly sad story. No child should have to go through what you did in that awful adoption home. Your mother may have been pressured to have had you sent away. I really do hope that regardless of this stage of your childhood, that you have had a happy life. I would encourage you to think of writing a book. I could have read so much more. Carole.
I thank you for giving me enough renewed enthusiasm to retrieve my writing from the bin.
I think I have managed to find an editor at last.
Please keep your eyes open as they should become more readable.
Thank you again
Gordon

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