Christmas was meant to be a happy time for all. It was true I did like most of the activities, but I might have wished that I could have returned to my mother and there were just two of us. In the Home, there were plenty of activities organised and whatever age we were, we had to show that we all believed in Father Christmas. Had an older child tried to convince a younger child that he did not exist, there could have been two unhappy children for the holidays. Presents were well organised; on Christmas Eve we had a visit from Father Christmas who presented us with a main present each. The following morning we had a selection of other presents. These might come from relatives, friends or to a few children that had few close relatives, simply from the Home.

There was no child that really had more than any other due to family circumstances. With a number of aunts and uncles, on odd occasions, I seemed to get more than the others did, but as soon as they saw that with my Christmas presents, I also received a selection of Birthday cards, any jealousy ended at that moment. If they divided my pile in half to make up for the two events, what I was actually getting for Christmas was often far less than they were receiving. One matter that kept me occupied for some time after Christmas was writing thank-you letters.

During my stay in the Home, I continued to keep a diary. At Christmas, I always received a small pocket diary from one of my aunts. The first one had been when I was almost seven; from then on a pocket diary always arrived at Christmas. There was always a small amount of money tucked into the first page. As the diary was quite small and my writing was not that neat, little could be put in each day’s entry. Although I did not add something every day, most weeks I could add a few words.

At the start of the diary it was mainly on the presents I had received. By the time school started, it was listing those that I disliked at school and what the punishments had been that week. This I wrote in a coded form to stop either Sister or others working out how bad I had been at school. Their punishments could also be recorded. When the holidays came and I was allowed to stay in London, a list of the films that I had seen took up most of the entries. To the others in the flat, my diary was of little interest. With me not writing about them or my friends, they could not see the point of keeping a diary in the Home. Every      year the diary was slightly different in the theme; the only item that was the same each year, was the London Underground map, which I slowly memorised.

The other three had various toy guns, footballs and types of toys that to me were very uninteresting. It was one matter I was never bullied over, or found any of my possessions had been taken by them. There were continual arguments over missing toys. It could take a small object that was part of a larger toy to become mislaid, before either a squabble or fight started. On occasions, some of the arguments could result in very childish behaviour. At these times I was not involved. During Christmas, the two older boys were bought identical compendium games sets. Toys like these took co-operation from at least two of you to have any fun. I was the only boy to like solitaire; I could often end up with one ball, but never managed to get it to end up in the centre. Sister tried to treat these two boys identically whenever possible, and as they were the same age and had spent most of their time in the Home together, they had grown up more like brothers.

It took only one odd item in one of the games to become missing before the argument started between them. Each now decided to attack the other’s game to make them identical with an item missing. Cards from the sets were ripped in half, counters snapped, small models damaged. It took some time for two games sets to be reduced to useless mess. As the boys were older than me, there was little I could have done to make them see sense. If one had merely accepted part way through the destruction that they might be wrong, then some of the sections in each set could have been saved. When Sister eventually found out what was going on, life for all of us for some time was under a cloud.

The only other disappointment during Christmas was at Sunday school. A few of us had thrown a few small bibles to each other for fun. The resulting punishment was two strokes of the cane on our hands. The punishment was given by the deputy governor, the same man who a week later dressed up as Father Christmas and asked us all if we had been good this year.

One of my aunts as part of my Christmas presents had provided me with a selection of obsolete blank paper from her office. Multiple carbon sets and the like were to me fun to play with. For the other boys as I was happy with such items, it proved to them that I was odd. At one point I exceeded this by getting an office typewriter for my birthday. This had also come from my aunt, when her office had changed over to electric typewriters; the old heavy manual machines were no longer required. The object stayed at the Home only until the first visit to London where it could be kept safe. With some encouragement, I might have been taught to type in the correct fashion, but my style soon evolved with one finger doing all the work. I had fun with the typewriter: with a two-colour ribbon in the machine and time, a picture could be created.

One of my birthday presents was a simple camera. Not really a toy, having basic features, it was possible to get fair results if subjects stayed still and there was enough light. Returning to the Home I brought it back with me. I managed to use up one roll of film outdoors during the snowy weather. It was put away ready to take back to London on my next visit. The roll of exposed film stayed safe in the locker but the camera did not. As it did not have any film in it, some of the others now thought of it as a plaything. It was not long before the small plastic lever that you pressed to take the picture was broken. If the adults wondered why I became upset at certain times, it was over these types of matters. On a later holiday in London I managed to buy another camera which was not taken to the Home.

 I could be mean. At one point I returned from London with part of a bar of Ex-Lax chocolate. Knowing full well what it was for, I removed the outer wrapper and left the few squares of chocolate wrapped in the silver foil slightly hidden in my locker. Within a few days it was gone. I never did find out who had stolen it.

Comics were sent to me every fortnight. My mother purchased a few cheap comics, rolled them into a small bundle and then sent them by post to me at the Home. The other boys in the flat were quite friendly for the period of getting to read the comics.

The ideas I had for play could at times annoy the adults. In the day room, there was a doll’s house; this was something for the girls to play with. With only one girl of suitable age, the doll’s house sat on the top of the boy’s lockers without much use. Over the years any furniture inside had disappeared; the girl not having any dolls that fitted inside showed little interest in it. Only on close inspection did I find that originally, this had been a doll’s house from the luxury end of the market. In each room was a small bulb fitting to give the illusion of electric light. In part of the house there was a battery compartment and at the side of the house several switches to turn the lights in each room on and off.

The bulbs had gone missing and the switches had become broken. This was down more to the design rather than rough play, and parts of the wiring were also missing. Repairing it for the girl was something I would have been quite happy to do, providing I had been given the parts, but as I would have to provide my own bits to get the house to light up again, there was a little reluctance on my part to repair the doll’s house.

I experimented on an idea of my own, to insert a small switch into the front of the house. In the normal way you would have set it to turn the light on when the front of the house was open. I changed the idea to make the light come on only when the front of the house was closed. It was worth sacrificing an almost dud battery, just to cause annoyance.

In the tidy life of Sister, if the front of the doll’s house were even slightly open, it would cause annoyance. I rigged the house so that during the day the light was out. Only when we all went to bed and Sister made her final check of the room to see that everything was in order, would my plan come into action. She would simply close the front of the house; at first the light going on was probably not noticed. Only when the main light to the day room was turned out would the light in the doll’s house glow and then flash when the bulb had been on for a few seconds. I only had to set the trap once; the following day I found the wires pulled away from the battery, my small switch having been missed.

In my experimentation to find out how things were made, I decided to find out how a golf ball was constructed. I knew that just under the outer white coating was a long length of fine elastic. The quietest place I could find to take a ball apart was in the bathroom. To speed up the removal of the outer coating I had selected a fork to pick the white pieces off the outside. Within a few minutes, the ball was in a state for the elastic to be unwound. Soon I became bored of the slow process of unwinding the elastic, as it did not come off in one length but in annoying short lengths. To speed the process up of getting to the end of the elastic, I sunk the prongs of the fork into what remained of the ball. Without warning, the ball suddenly leapt out of my fingers and appeared to attack me, spraying a fine sticky substance into my eyes and over my hair. The ball then set off around the bathroom at great speed, showering the entire area with a mixture of bits of elastic and a whitish spider’s web.

I made a retreat from the bathroom as the ball was still in full flight. My eyes stung. I made my way to the kitchen to seek help. One of the older girls attended to my face, washed my eyes clean, and generally tidied me up. Eventually I returned to the bathroom. Apparently, I was not the first to find that the centre of a golf ball may have a small amount of liquid rubber solution. Having pierced it with the fork, the rubber solution was under great pressure as it still had elastic wrapped tightly around it. My face was the first point for the solution to hit. It took quite a while to clean the bathroom up. Surprisingly I did not get in any real trouble; it appeared that I had learnt a lesson over such activities. It was thought that I had managed to make the worst mess in experimentation of undoing a golf ball than anyone else had achieved.

 
For most of our free time in the flat we got on with each other. There were a few squabbles and fights, but there was nothing very serious. If there had been a falling out, by the following day everything was back to normal.

Some of my activities might have seemed to be nasty, but in the main, I was allowed a little freedom. My room-mate who was slightly older than me, had a slight problem with one of his first teeth. His second front teeth were all in place; he always had a happy grinning smile. One of his minor first teeth was loose. In time it would fall out, but it was in such a position that when he ate it hurt. The Sister suggested that if it did not fall out in the next couple of days, he would be off to the dentist; this was something that he was dreading.

Alone in the dayroom with him, I looked at the tooth. It was quite loose; I offered to pull it out. At first there was a bit of reluctance, but my suggestions that it might save a visit to the dentist and that if he handed the tooth over to Sister there might be a reward, made him agree. I announced that on the count of three I would pull the tooth out. Having lost most of my first teeth, I knew how easily they came out. I started the slow count, and I pulled out the tooth just as I was saying two, and surprised him over my action. There did not appear to be any pain. The tooth was later presented to Sister. I don’t think it was mentioned that I had helped it out, otherwise I could bet that I would have been in some form of trouble.

On occasions, I was thought to be responsible outside the Home. Having gone swimming quite often, at some point I picked up a verruca on my foot and was sent over to the nurse. I was given a note with an address of where I should go for treatment. At the age of eight, I was thought old enough to go there on my own. After reminding Sister I was going to be late home, I made my visit after school. After a few sessions, the verruca was finally removed and I went back to swimming again.

The other matter when it was thought that I was old enough at the age of eight to look after myself was on trips to the dentist. I made one first trip escorted all the way; from that point on other than one visit where it was necessary to give me gas when a tooth was taken out, I made my own journey to and from the dentist. There was not any fear, other than knowing that at some point there might be some pain and discomfort. The only part that I really disliked was having a rubber bung put between my teeth to stop me closing my jaw whilst the dentist’s fingers were too close. Once over, I returned to school. In a way I was reasonably happy with a trip to the dentist, as it got me away from the Home and trouble at school.

  A few items in the flat were part of another era. The soap that was used at the washbasins or in the bath was a basic type. Normally designed for the washing of clothes, it was thought good enough for our use. The triple green block of soap had the word ‘IBCOL’ impressed across its length. Once broken up, it showed only part of its origins. The smell was not off putting; I can vouch for it simply having a soap-type flavour, when a chunk was inserted into my mouth by one of the staff for swearing. It could have been a worse punishment if we had used carbolic soap, but the taste of this green block was enough to stop my indoor use of certain words.

Toilet paper was similar to the type found in most public conveniences of the time. I had originally been used to a quality Izal hard paper or even the newer soft toilet tissue. Sister however managed to supply us with paper that seemed to be polished on both sides; we found it more use for putting over a comb and blowing through. It was a partial failure for the intended use. It was not that soft toilet tissue was an unknown product in the flat. A roll was kept under Sister’s close watch in the end corridor cabinet. This was for our use when we had a cold, and not for us to use for the original intended purpose. None of us dared sneak a few extra sheets for comfort or cleanliness.

Until coming to the Home, bath time had generally been uneventful. Getting into the bath, getting rid of any dirt, and out again had really been the limit to the actual event. I had learnt that if I did not remove any dirt within a few seconds of getting into a bath, my mother holding the flannel could also remove dirt in seconds.

Sister did not really have the time to supervise the baths for everyone. The youngest girl could generally be looked after by her older sister; the two oldest boys were old enough to be sensible without making too much of a mess, and until I came, only the boy slightly older than myself had needed any supervision at bath time. All knew that if Sister was busy in the bathroom, more freedom existed for everyone in the flat.

My arrival seemed to spoil this event for them. We could now watch out for each other; if one of us did manage to drown the other, then it would be quite easy to find the culprit. If there was any mess of spilt water then we would be equally guilty. The idea that Sister had was whilst one was undressing the other could be in the bath. When he was out of the bath and drying off the second one of us could be in the bath. Once finished, the scum line could be removed and everything left clean for the older two boys.

Spending any length of time in the bath had never been something I had ever been used to. When I was very young I might have seen the odd plaything to keep me happy, but from the age of four, a bath was simply there for getting clean. My mother had no additional time for creating any fun. Any recent dislike of going for a bath was down to my mother supervising my baths in cold water after I had wet the bed at the age of seven.

At odd moments, Sister even made our baths more fun by adding a foam mix to our bath water. It was not something that she would have ever bought, but as each flat had been given several bottles of a new play bubble mix for children, we were all allowed to try it out; she supervised the amounts that went into our baths. Other than that, we were generally left alone once it was thought we would behave. Once the bottles of foam were finished, we went back to the green blocks of soap and the never-ending scum lines around the bath.

Two small boys can have odd ideas of fun, most of which neither Sister nor my mother would have approved of. In my mind it would be difficult to work out which would bring the worst form of punishment. With Sister it would be a telling off, followed by either the slipper or extra chores: for my mother it would be the plimsoll and cold baths. ­

At our age we knew there were two ways of spelling the word ‘bath’ one had four letters – and the other had a silent ‘p’ in it. We each took it as a competition of who could do the most; when we had finished our bath and were allowing the water to run away, was normally the point of any competition. It was everything from climbing onto the laundry basket and seeing how far across the bath you could reach, to lying in a drained bath and how far in the air you could achieve. Both of these games took courage on our part; our bath area was behind a door, but the door was never locked; Sister passing could come in at any moment, and if not Sister than even the helper might be around to catch us.

  Since Sister’s original arrival, there had been a few modern additions to the flat. In the dayroom, there was a television for our use. Squabbling over which channel to watch, was not allowed. Normally the older ones would choose the programme to watch. Once switched to that station, the set tended to remain like that for the entire evening, unless a good reason to turn over to the other side was agreed upon, often only then with Sister’s approval.

The other modern device was the telephone. Normally only ever used by Sister or other members of the staff, it remained quiet for most of the time. When it did ring, it was often due to someone’s misdeed that had now been found out by one of the other Sisters, who was ringing to make a complaint. The use by us of the phone was rare. For us to receive or make a telephone call something very urgent had to have occurred; talking to relatives or friends on the telephone was simply never done by us.