The Lawrence Children's Home, Situated In King Harry Lane

A Memory of St Albans.

From the age of 2 in November 1949 until December 1953, due to my mother's very early death, I found myself enrolled as a resident at The Lawrence Children's Home in King Harry Lane, St Albans. The Home is no longer in existence as it was closed in the 1970's, and subsequently demolished. I can well remember being walked to school in Spicer Street each day by one of the nurses from the Home, alongside the Roman Wall and down past the lake. I do have some very positive, if rather hazy, memories of my time in the Lawrence Home.

After leaving the Home I was then taken to live in south London, but I was regularly brought back to St Albans to visit my grandparents living in Napsbury Lane, who then subsequently moved in 1955 to Oakwood Drive. I can well remember getting off the 84 bus from Barnet at the Milehouse, and walking down what was in those days a very quiet country road to their bungalow in Napsbury Lane. Later, after my grandparents had moved to their bungalow in Oakwood Drive I can remember getting the green London Country double-decker bus all the way through Fleetville to visit them both.

Happy days, and very happy memories! I still visit St Albans from Devon at least once each year and tend the family grave in the local cemetery. My grandparents had at one time owned a confectionery shop in the Hatfield Road, but they sold the business in about 1946, prior to their retirement.