BEFORE THE HOME
Before my arrival at the Home I might have been thought of as a rather bad tempered lonely boy. A few might have thought that I was a loner simply for not been able to make friends. I was quite happy on my own.
Until the age of six I had not been able to make any contact with other children to play with, for the next two years until the age of eight, having other children around was simply odd in my mind. I was quite outgoing in my activities, this might result in a few more scrapes than other children, but I was reasonably happy.
When I arrived at the Home I found my life so regulated to what I did and how I should act that I did change. Sister could see I was nervous, until that time I had never shown any such signs and was probably more adventurous than most other children. When I joined the Home I was put with three boys who had spent all their lives in care, they knew the system. Their main aim was survival. It was fully known by them the amount of effort they needed to put into any request by an adult to conform.
With my seven years of freedom of the outside world, in my mind I wanted to rebel against matters that I did not think were right. I did not go out of my way to be disruptive, however many of my actions made it seem as if I was always causing trouble. I did not want to think of spending my entire life in the Home, although we were well cared for, I was longing for the freedoms that I had already enjoyed and simply could not understand why such freedoms should now be forbidden. My placement into a family group where some of the other children had experienced life outside the Home might have made my stay an easier matter, it was the total organised regime of what we did and when we did that I disliked. If the staff had spent a little more time talking to me in a quiet environment, it might have been possible to solve a couple of my problems that in turn would have prevented other problems from occurring.
The NCH had a system to run, it had evolved over many years, by the mid 1960's things were running smoothly for those who fitted in. It could take one child that while not actually rebelling against the system to cause problems, it seemed I simply did not fit in. The wide range of ages and circumstance simply meant that in any one group there was going to be some friction.
If more of the hoped for plans about my future had been explained perhaps I would have been able to settle down, it was simply the uncertain future for my family from the age of about ten that worried me.

AFTER THE HOME
On leaving the Home, my mother knew that I had not been very happy during my stay. It was suggested by her that I should start afresh and forget about the past few years. If I put my mind to school work and made new friends there would be plenty to occupy my mind.
The matter of starting afresh to my mother seemed a simple thing to do, for me it was a different matter, trying to forget the previous three years was impossible. On leaving the Home there was always the worry that for whatever reason things did not work out, my return to the Home might occur.
Over the next few years I was still a little worried about my future. There was always the thought that living with my aunt and uncle might not completely work out.
If on leaving the Home I had been able to go and live with my mother on our own in a similar fashion to before I went to the Home life might have been easier to settle into. With my new friends there was a gap of three years that I could not explain, when they told me what they had done over the past few years, there was the problem of trying to explain my life and at the same time not admitting to having been in care and away from my mother.
Although on leaving the Home I did not really have nightmares over the place, I knew in my mind that I would not want to return. For my first six months of living with my aunt and uncle, my nights were a little unsettled, and I was a little on edge. I didn't know if things were settled enough and that I would be staying with them.
My three years of life at the Home and the three years of school were always in my mind. It was impossible to just forget. On leaving I would have loved to follow my mother's instruction and have been able to have wiped the whole event from my mind.
There was never really any resentment against my mother for sending me to the Home, circumstances at the time made it appear that this would be the most favourable option, at the time it appeared to me that I must have done something wrong. During my stay if there had not been any problems with my behaviour and I had been able to act as an ordinary member of a family group life would have been fine, it was just for almost three years I could not really settle and was unhappy, this was something I was finding difficult to put behind me.

TRUST

The staff of the Home were devoted to looking after children. The Sisters did not simply look after us for set hours of the day, other than allowing them day's or part of the day off they were there to provide for our needs and education every moment of our life like a true parent.

There was a build up of trust between the Sister and the child, with the arrival of Houseparents providing they took on the roll that the Sisters had evolved; they too could be completely trusted by the children in their care. In modern society finding such devoted staff would be difficult and with modern thinking perhaps having a child so reliant on one adult might not be a good idea. Children need security, the National Children's Home gave this in the form of group homes and orphanages and it did solve the problems of the time. If my arrival had been a few years later, I might have found that support came to my mother directly, this might have lead to a more pleasant life. In the mid 1960's there was no government financial support for a lone parent, had my mother been given some minor financial support or had help in looking after her disabled parents then my view on life might have been different. The NCH had given me an outlook on life that the ordinary child would not have experienced; life outside the Home was not comfortable for every child. For most of our friends we met at school they would have had a happy family life, however there would have been a few of our friends that would have suffered far worse experiences through ill treatment and neglect, than we ever imagined, they simply needed to keep silent through keeping a family together. During my stay at the Home it was the most miserable chapter in my life, however without their help my life could have easily been far worse and their simple act of kindness possible kept me from far worse experiences.

SCHOOLS
The number of schools I have attended during my ten years of education between the ages of six ans sixteen, might seem high, but they have provided me with an interesting outlook on education. Some of which I might have missed out on whilst changing between schools.
1 1963 First infant school. Burnham on Sea (6)
2 1963 Infant School. Burnham on Sea (6)
3 1964 Infant & Junior School. I.O.W. (7)
4 1964 Junior Boarding School. (7-8)
5 1965 Junior School. London N.W. (8)
6 1966 Junior School. Harpenden (8-9)
7 1966 Junior School. Harpenden (9-11)
8 1968 Senior School. Harpenden (11)
9 1968 Junior School. London N.W. (11)
10 1968 Junior School. Wiltshire (11)
11 1968 Senior School. Wiltshire (11-14)
12 1973 Senior School. Hampshire (15-16)

Continued
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