82. 24.01.68 Letter to Governor of NCH Harpenden from NCH London.

Thank you for your letter. We enclose a report on discussion with our clinic and the mother, which took place prior to the receipt of your letter.

We note your comments about the advisability of Philip’s return to his mother and agree that she should be visited again, with the suggestion that she might have Philip home soon, possibly at half term. As you will see from the report, this may depend on her landlord’s agreement to Philip being in the house. The mother is in a state of indecision and a definite step on our part might help her. 

MY ANSWER. The NCH have the idea that asking my mother to take me back, will help her decide over the matter of my staying in the Home or returning to her.  

83. 01.02.68 Letter to Clinic at St Albans from Child Care Officer.

Further to our recent telephone conversation, I have visited the mother twice. She is still uncertain of her plans for moving, but as soon as we know her next address we will inform you.

It will be a great help if Philip’s name can be transferred to a clinic in the area in which he will be living.

We are encouraging the mother to have Philip with her as soon as possible.  

84.  01.02.68 Report of Child Officer.

I called to see the mother to discuss the Governor of Harpenden suggestion that Philip should return to his mother as soon as possible.

This was not difficult, as the mother had said on my previous visit that she had wondered if she ought to keep him at home. However, she still does not feel that it will be possible to ask her landlord for permission to have Philip, as they are living from week to week now, wondering when they will be told to leave.

The mother wondered why Philip should be anxious to come home now, as he has always seemed so happy at Harpenden. She also wondered what his behaviour difficulties were, as he is no more troublesome than usual at home, except that when he was told off by his uncle at the weekend he shrieked in a very unusual way. We discussed all these things.

The mother said that she has already replied to an advertisement offering a job and accommodation in South Wales. Her only fear is, that if she does anything to upset her family, there is no one who would stand by her if she were ill.

It appears the mother’s brothers and sisters (she is one of a family of five) all rely on her to take the responsibility for her mother. I suggested that it may help her to be able to tell them that we are now asking for Philip’s return home.

The grandmother is still very unwell and I suggested that it might also help the mother to see the Medical Social Worker to find out what kind of plans need to be made, in the event of her mother’s discharge from hospital.

When the mother does leave the present flat there will be a great deal of clearing up to do. However at the moment there does not seem to be any definite steps she can take.

She assured me that she wants Philip with her as soon as possible, but at present she is still unable to give a definite date.  

MY ANSWER. The Home decided to encourage my mother to make the decision to take me back; it was by the request that I should leave Highfield. If my mother had decided to keep me in London after my last holiday when I told her that I did not want to go back to the Home, the NCH could have demanded a penalty payment of £150 from her – almost a years wages. Their request that my mother took me back, allowed my quick departure. No questions were asked by her to the NCH as to the actual reasons over their request for me to leave.

I always allowed my mother to think I was happy in the Home. I knew that it would have been impossible for me to live in London for any length of time whilst she was looking after my grandparents. I did not want her to think I was unhappy.

Life before Christmas in the Home had just not been easy; during my Christmas holidays while I was in London, I think I let my mother know that I was unhappy in the Home. If I behaved in an odd manner when my uncle told me off, it was that he took hold of me. With the memory of the Houseparent grabbing me, and an earlier memory of being touched, I reacted in a totally different way to normal.

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85. 13.02.68 Report of Child Care Officer.

I called on the mother to find out exactly what the situation was as she had written to the Governor of Harpenden to say she would be having Philip permanently at the weekend (17/2/68).

The mother was obviously very worried, and the whole situation seemed very conflicting and uncertain.

The grandmother had come home from hospital the previous day, although she was not fully recovered and was obviously in mild heart failure, so the mother was back nursing her again. However her G.P. and the hospital have both said that she must return to hospital straight away if her condition worsens.

The mother did not get the job in South Wales, and although she is anxious to find a post like that where she can have Philip with her, she has no time to apply or attend interviews now her mother is on her hands again.

It seems that the house/shop in Wiltshire being negotiated by the sister and her brother in law will now not be available until 30th March, and the mother is very worried that the landlord will not continue to allow them to remain for another six weeks, as they were meant to be out by last October. She was awaiting confirmation of the moving date from her sister on Friday.

Despite all these problems, the mother was very cheerful, and quite determined to have Philip home at the weekend.

I assured her that he could of course remain at Harpenden until she moved to Wiltshire, and that this was probably the most practicable idea, but the mother was adamant that if he was unhappy at Harpenden he should come home, and that she would manage. She said that after all six weeks was only a bit longer than the summer holidays, and she had coped with him and her mother then, and as Philip had now been told he was coming home she would not go back on her word.

She was making arrangements for him to attend the local school where he went before going to Harpenden, but felt she would have to postpone the Child Guidance plans until they were settled.

Apparently she was not even certain that she would remain with her sister and brother in law in Wiltshire, but thought she might find another residential job where she could be alone with Philip, which of course would be possible if she managed to leave her mother in her sister’s care for a change. I gather that the sister took very little interest in Philip, and she was worried that he might not settle with them.

The mother had obviously made up her mind to have Philip home, and said several times he was the most important person as far as she was concerned, and the sooner they were on their own together, the better. She did promise to contact us if things became too difficult during the next few weeks.

She hoped that the other sister and brother in law that lived in Harpenden would be able to bring Philip home by car at the weekend, and I promised to call soon to see how they were managing.  

MY ANSWER. At the visit to London at the beginning of February, it was hinted by my mother that I would soon be leaving the Home. If I had only been allowed to stay in London, life would have been great, but due to my grandmother needing a lot of extra care from my mother, I could not stay in the flat at that moment: it was the return to the Home to get ready for leaving that was the worst part of it all.

The final weeks were however odd. School had now become much better and even at the Home things seemed easier. As I was now regarded as an older one, having reached eleven, extra pocket money and the permission to go and visit a new school friend who was not at the Home was allowed once tea was over; this meant that the confines of the Home became less.

As to my forced activities, cubs was no longer obligatory, having fallen out with this activity a short while earlier, when a couple of us who by age were each due to be made Sixers, were told we were to remain Seconders whilst others were promoted in front of us. There were endless requests for me to remain in the Cubs, but I had stuck to my guns and said to the Houseparent that I no longer wanted to go; even talks with the Sister who ran the pack did little good to change my mind.

Eventually the Houseparent confirmed my leaving the Home. The others in the flat were not told until a couple of days before I left, over the plans for me to leave the Home. At school during the last week, only the teachers knew. On the last day, I told a couple of my friends that I would not be returning to school.

There was always the thought in my mind that, at the last moment, I would be informed that I would be remaining at the Home. I knew that until I actually left the grounds it would not have actually happened and even then, there was the possibility that I could always be sent back. 

At the time I left the Home my mother questioned me as to why they had asked me to leave, but there was nothing I thought I had done wrong any more than usual to get this request made by the Home. In later years if I had been able to show her the documents of the time, it might have put her mind at rest over the final month or so of my life at Highfield.

Continued

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