FOOD

My views on the food at the Home did get me into trouble at one point. Normally on the days Sister was on duty, we knew exactly what was on offer. With Sister’s years of experience, she knew what we liked and disliked and to balance a meal so that at least there was something that was liked by each of us. My comment to a friend as we walked back to the Home, was that tonight was a day when the relief was in charge of the meals, and on those nights the meals were not very good. A friend from the Home would have known not to let the comment go any further; he did not live at the Home but his mother worked part-time there. Within a couple of days, the Houseparent cornered me. It appeared that my comments had been mentioned to his mother, who in turn had passed them on to her. Now I was questioned as to what I did not like about the meals. I was more used to savoury tastes and the like. The meals here were designed for the average sweet-toothed child, and possibly were not for the likes of me. For my tea, if there had been cheese on toast, Welsh rarebit or more savoury items, I would have been far happier with that style of meal rather than something more elaborate. For the rest of the day it appeared I was not in favour and was set extra chores.  

None of us was allowed any food fads. Sister had a simple rule: if it was on your plate, you ate it. If she knew that there were certain items you did not like, then the portion size of the item was reduced, but it was very rare that an item was left off your plate simply because you did not like it

My main hate was parsnips; for some reason the taste really revolted me. During Sunday lunch, this hated vegetable often appeared at the best meal of the week. The only way I could find of eating this item was to cover it in salt and eat it with an item that took part of the taste away.

After the Houseparent took over from Sister, our meals changed slightly. There was a little more freedom of what was not eaten. That good food was going to waste was not so much of an ordeal. On occasions, the Houseparent demanded that something was finished. It could turn into a battle of wills.

With Sister, the offending item would be taken away to reappear at the following meal; once eaten the normal meal could continue. This was only bothered with if the uneaten item could remain fresh enough. Extra chores would be found for you over any item that could not be saved.

The Houseparent seemed to find that sitting at the table after the meal and looking at the item, often had the desired result. If you wanted to go out to play or watch television, then finishing the meal under her watchful eye was possible. It was mainly the younger ones who suffered this punishment. If you were on washing up, watching someone face a pile of cold cabbage, seemed to make your chore last even longer. If we did try to help in the odd moments when the Houseparent was distracted, it was to remove part of the pile from the plate. Had we thrown it in the bin, the crime would have been found out; mixing it in with some dirty washing-up water made it look as if it had come off several plates.

On the days we were not able to help, we often finished our chore before the offending plate was cleared. For the person sat at the table, making excuses that they had to visit the lavatory never worked. The only real solution after making this request was to be either sick or allow a puddle to form under the chair. Then the item did not have to be finished but the mess that was made had to be cleared up. If the washing up was still in progress, those were involved in that task were the ones to clear up the mess.

  Most of the time our food was perfectly fine for growing children. All our meals were well balanced; compared with our friends at school, we were probably better fed than they were. On the housekeeping side there was a budget to keep to, so it was not possible to follow all the requests of a child for the latest item that arrived on the food front.

The only food that really was poor was bread. Often during the warm summer, the sliced wrapped loaves could soon turn mouldy. When the Home had baked its own bread there had never been a problem. Often at the weekend, the modern style sliced bread could be found to have mould growing almost as fast as you looked at it, but once toasted it was fine. One thing I had already learnt was that any food having a minor amount of mould is fine to eat; if it’s too mouldy and walking faster than you, then possibly it’s too far gone.

One change was that there were far more sweet items served at meals than I was used to. The best pudding in my mind was trifle. If it was a day old and had been kept in the larder, the fruit had a slight tang to the taste, and this was when I enjoyed it best. Most of the others did not seem to share my taste over the fermenting fruit.

I was greedy only on one occasion; it was having an extra portion of a pink milk pudding. It was on Saturday lunchtime shortly before we were all taken on a shopping trip into town. Although I had not felt unwell when we set out, the walk so soon after lunch upset my stomach. It was just luck that when I was sick it was on the pavement; had it been inside a shop, there would have been a good chance that I never was allowed to eat another pudding.

Some of the food that did come our way was quite luxurious by our standards. The Home had an arrangement with one of the famous named supermarkets in town. On a Saturday afternoon, the van from the Home went down and collected any food that had reached the date marked on the packet. Once back at the Home the Sisters were allowed to make their selection from the wide assortment of items that would not appear in their normal food allocation. If I developed two favourites, it was for cheese and onion crisps plus sugar-coated jelly babies.

Several savoury items occasionally appeared in the selection, often disliked by the majority of the household; it was a nice treat when either Sister or the Houseparent brought back something where I became almost the only recipient other than the adults. Sometimes it was simply the name on the product that put the ­others off; if they had tried the cheesecake they might have found that it was not really like cheese as they knew it.

There was once an item I was pleased to see at the Home – real coffee. This was with us for only a very short perio­d; the Houseparent had acquired a couple of tins of ground coffee. Other than the Houseparent, ­I was the only one who ­liked the real coffee to drink. On a few days that I was thought to have been good, I was allowed a cup. A few simple luxuries like this and my life could have been wonderful.  

MEDICAL RESEARCH

Our regular visits for the Growth Study Tests every few months were welcomed by most of us. An entire morning off school was something of a treat. The tests took about two hours. There were not that many of us in the group, but as we were all seen individually, although there were several staff involved, much of the time was waiting to be seen. The tests took place in one part of the main hall; this part of the hall was kept locked, other than on the days of the medical tests, because of the specialised medical equipment used only for our measurement tests. Ordinary children might have been a little scared of having to strip down to their underwear and have parts of their bodies measured in size and density; we took it as fun. The growth studies became a major source of reference on child development.

As well as our measurements, photographs of our body stature and growth were taken from our front, back and side. These were done naked, and as there were no girls present, we did not find any reluctance at having such photographs taken.

If a few of us were embarrassed at times, it was when the staff might have touched certain parts of our body during the tests. When it came to standing up for the photographs, on occasions a few of us experienced erections. With the others occupied with their own part of the test, it was generally only the staff that witnessed our embarrassment. At our young age, we did not understand why things like this should happen. If this had been in front of the Sisters or a Houseparent we could have expected some form of punishment; the medical staff took little notice of us.

The only other activity was to be given several X-rays that took in various parts of the body. For safety reasons, instead of wearing our ordinary underpants during the X-rays we were provided with a special pair of thick plastic pants to put on; these apparently provided protection to our gonads from the X-rays. A trick that was played by various boys was at the very end of the x-ray session; leaving the plastic pants slightly damp was a joke for the next boy who came along to find when he put them on.

On most occasions when our tests were over, it was necessary to return to school for the rest of the day. On odd times it did become possible to get the entire day off if it was felt that you might miss your school lunch, or those that were taken to school by coach found that there was no transport available. We had a souvenir to show our friends that were not on the tests – odd ballpoint pen marks that were applied to our arms and other areas, that provided accurate reference points for measurements. If we were well behaved a souvenir photo came our way on a few occasions, but taken when we were fully dressed.  

MY TEMPER

It took only a few minor events to occur before I lost my temper. The Houseparent had the solution to my problem of needing to release my excess energy, by giving me the instruction to go and find an isolated spot in the grounds and to shout my head off. For a few occasions I tried this idea, but to me it did little good. When sent out on this exercise, I was not in a mood anymore, so did not really have any excess energy to use up.

I was not the studious type; however one of my main possessions were my comics and annuals. If I could be left alone then there were no problems. Interrupt me with minor chores, instructions to join in games with the others and matters that served no real purpose, then I did seem to cause a nuisance at some later point. At school, I was given the instructions by the teachers that if I was indoors and someone was upsetting me, instead of getting angry I should quietly leave the room and go for a walk along the corridor, and by the time I had completed the circuit of the corridor I should be calm enough to return to my work. 

BLAME

One game everyone played was to try to get someone else blamed when things went wrong. If you were seen to be good then life was easy; get blamed for problems and life at the Home could be awful.

One of the helpers tried to get us interested in modelling with clay. If we achieved a reasonable item, she knew someone who would be able to fire the work to preserve it. It was similar to school only there, the teacher in charge deemed few items suitable. To see an afternoon’s hard work rejected and thrown in the bin on regular occasions was a little disheartening. The efforts we achieved at the Home were worth firing for posterity. They were put safe in the utility room to dry out before transporting to the kiln when dry.

The following morning I was set upon by both the Houseparent and the Helper. Our work that had been put safe to dry out now had some new additions. Many of our items had been mugs or plates. Nearly all of them had comments engraved into the soft clay such as ‘poor work’, ‘must try harder’, ‘failure’ and similar comments. One item however had the words ‘Good achievement’ neatly engraved onto its flat surface.

My offering was the only item to get praise; to me it was clear that someone was trying to get the blame put on me. The adults could not see this; the work of the words had to have been done by me. I tried to argue that it was not me, but I was the one in line for punishment. If only the adults had realised that the engraving could not have been mine, the lettering was too neat, and a word like ‘achievement’ was one that although I might know, I would have never have attempted to spell. As a punishment, I was given four hits with the slipper. The items we had made were thrown away; the clay sessions never restarted.

 I was told that if there were any more problems of mischief at night, I would get the slipper again. Leaving my room at night after the Houseparent had gone to bed now became a risky business. If there were any problems caused by the others during the night, I was going to be in trouble and receive four hits with the slipper for any misdeeds that she found, or to accept two hits for a wet bed. 

As one of the youngest, it was quite easy for the others to put the blame on me for any bad behaviour. Two older ones blaming a younger one, it was easy to see which the Sister or Houseparent would believe.

As some point, some of the family group were acting out a scene from a film we had all been taken to, where an umbrella was used to make a person fly through the air. We did have enough common sense not to leap off our balcony using the younger girl’s umbrella in the hope it would allow us to fly. On the ground, the older boys had attempted to see if simply jumping up in the air would allow a moment of flight. The umbrella went inside out; during an attempt to put it back into shape it fell apart. The decision to give it to me ended their responsibility with it. The umbrella’s owner had seen it go inside out and was now upset. It was not long before the adults found out about the latest problem, as I was the last one having hold of it, I must have been the one to damage it.
If the girl had said it was the older ones that did the damage, I would have been believed when I said that I was not the one to break it. On questioning the older ones about who was responsible, all denied causing the breakage. As usual, I was in trouble. Once the hits from the slipper were over, I was informed that I would have to pay for a replacement. Pocket money for the next few weeks was reduced until the price of a new one was made up. A few things like this set me against almost every member of the family group.  

One matter that could cause me to become angry was when I was told that I was wrong and I thought I was right and often could even prove it. On returning from a visit to London, my mother might bring a few odd little items for the younger members of the family. They were never anything major, but just a small token gift.

On one occasion around Christmas, she brought a couple of novelty gift tubes. Slightly bigger than a cracker, when a metal ring was pulled at the bottom of the tube, several small toys were fired out of the other end. There was a clear warning not to look at the top as you fired the tube. To make sure everything went without any problem, my mother set the tube off in front of the younger ones, and allowed them to hunt for the odd little gifts and paper bits that were showered across the room. The tubes had come in packs of two so my mother handed the other tube to the Houseparent, as she might like to set it off when the entire family were around.

The tube was put safe by the Houseparent and forgotten about during the first few days of Christmas. When it was brought out, it was mentioned by the Houseparent that she had something else for us. At this moment, I did not get into a rage. What did set me off was when the Houseparent peeled away the paper covering the top and tipped the small selection of little toys onto the table. I spoke up saying that she was meant to have pulled the little ring at the base of the tube, to shower the gifts into the air. I now received a telling off for trying to tell an adult how to open something.

I sulked with rage until we left the table; the tube was left on the table and I retrieved it. Pointing it away from my face, I pulled the little ring. The tube now fired, and although, the toys were now gone, a small stream of paper objects came out. If I had waited until the Houseparent had completely left, everything would have been fine. Now I was told off for playing with the tube and sent to my room for a short while for my disobedience. This was another part of Christmas at the Home that I disliked. .

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Continued

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