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CHAPTER 2

Field House

December 1954 (1 month old) – Appears a normal child for age. Plump and round.

September 1955 (10 months old) – A happy, fair child. Can sit and crawl. Goes after toys and is responsive and friendly.

August 1956 (nearly 2) – Growing taller. Jealous of baby in his ‘family’. Happy and jolly in between times.

Field House progress report

Friends are often amazed at how vivid my early childhood memories are. My earliest recollection is from the age of about two and a half to three. I was running around the huge lawn in front of Field House, enjoying the freedom of space in the sunshine, when I was excited to find a metal watering can lying on the grass. I must have seen the gardener watering plants, because I knew what to do with it. With some difficulty, because it was quite big and heavy for me, even though it was nearly empty, I picked it up. Inside, I saw a little water at the bottom, so I half-carried, half-dragged it across the grass to a flower bed – I suppose I thought the flowers needed watering and I remember trying to lift the spout to pour water over them. I was thrilled when a trickle came out and wetted the earth around one of the plants. That memory has always stayed with me and I’ve loved gardens and gardening ever since.

I know it’s a cliché, but the sun always seemed to shine at Field House and I was a happy child. That’s what I remember most – being happy, whether playing with the other children or exploring on my own. Those memories have comforted me ever since.

As a child, I was always hungry. I don’t know why because at mealtimes we had a lot of food and the staff encouraged us to eat as much as we wanted. Every now and then I would run through the grand front door (which was always open) and across the hall to the kitchen to see what I could find.

As I approached the kitchen one day I could smell the steak pie they were cooking for our lunch – my favourite. When I peeked in, round the kitchen door, I saw a trolley with several loaves of sliced bread, all wrapped in waxed paper. One was already open, with half taken out. I reached for it and looked inside to see if it had any burnt crusts – I always loved the burnt loaves best. This one looked just right, so I turned around with it, and as I carried it out, I saw one of the cooks smiling and winking at me. They were all so kind – I think I amused them with my cheeky ways. I ran outside again, across the lawn and found my favourite tree, whose branches swept the ground. After clambering up on one of those branches, I ate the crusts from each piece of bread. I was in Heaven! It seems strange now, but nobody ever told me off for taking the bread – or for climbing the tree for that matter.

I often sat in that tree and gazed at the beautiful house, with its tall windows arranged in a pattern on each grand facade. At that stage, as far as I knew, I hadn’t seen any other buildings at all, so I didn’t realise how lucky we were to live in such an elegant mansion, with its mown lawns, ancient cedar trees and wonderful views of the Clent Hills. Every day, I watched Matron drive in or out in her little car, a pale green Austin A30, which she parked on the gravel to one side of the house.

When I wasn’t running around or climbing trees, I used to take myself off for a walk around the outside of the building. We were all friends at Field House, but from a very early age, I enjoyed being on my own as well. I loved to see what was happening in the large, walled vegetable garden behind the house. All our vegetables were grown there and I enjoyed watching them day by day as they came up out of the ground and revealed their produce. To me, the whole process seemed like magic! We grew our own fruits too. Often in the summer we’d have raspberries and strawberries and in the autumn the cooks made us delicious apple crumbles. Blackberries grew abundantly in the hedgerows lining our drive, so we would each be given a little basket to pick some – under supervision, of course. I remember eating most of mine, but some must have been taken back to the kitchen because they were often added to the crumbles.

All the year round, the kitchen’s delicious smells lured me in, again and again. Often the best times were when the cooks were baking cakes. I have to admit that every now and then, when I thought they weren’t looking, I would pop in and pinch an iced bun or a slice of Victoria sandwich from a plate – I loved that. The cooks never seemed to mind. The head cook was a large and jolly woman. In fact, all the staff seemed jolly to me. Whoever appointed the people to work at Field House, with children from all different backgrounds and circumstances, they chose very well. If any of us had a problem, from a scraped knee to a crisis of confidence or a terrifying nightmare, there was always somebody on hand to comfort us.

There were several housemothers and I think we each had one special one who would take particular care of us and encourage us to do the right things and to play well with each other. I can remember my housemother as if I saw her yesterday – very slim, with straight dark hair and a kind, smiley face. She was very bubbly and I loved her for that. I only wish I could remember her name. I suppose each housemother must have had responsibility for two or three children at a time and sometimes, especially when the new babies came in, I think I may have been a little jealous of the attention she paid them. However, as far as I can remember, I was quite an easy-going child and always happy to make my own amusements.

Sometimes, at night, I remember waking up to find I had wet the bed. This wasn’t unusual at Field House, but it did upset me and I couldn’t help crying. I don’t know how they knew, but my housemother, or one of the others, would always come and change the sheets and calm me down with soothing whispers and a cuddle until I fell asleep again.

The matron was different. We all had to call her ‘Matron’ and so did all the staff – it wasn’t Joan, or Mrs Smith, or anything like that, it always had to be ‘Matron’. A tall woman, she was quite thin and stern. I remember she did sometimes have a kindly face, but most of the time she was strict and everyone was a little afraid of her. She was that old-fashioned sort of matron they used to have on hospital wards to make sure that everything was clean and tidy. Nothing got past our matron! We were all wary of her – nobody ever said ‘boo’ to Matron. I think the staff were all wary of her too – they were constantly cleaning. As soon as that little green car came up the drive, crunching the gravel, and drew up outside, I noticed the great flurry as everybody started doing things!

While all the housemothers were kind to us, they sometimes had to be quite strict as well, to make sure we did the right things and followed the routines as much as possible. If we were asked to line up on the front lawn, that’s what we did. And if it was time for lunch or an afternoon lemonade, we had to stop what we were doing and come straight away. I don’t remember a bell – the staff just came out and found us around the grounds and gathered us in.

Although the house was big, we only really used the ground floor. In all, there were about 20 to 25 children, plus the babies, who were in a separate part of the house. There were at least as many staff as there were children. I can still remember the uniforms the housemothers wore: striped dresses with belts round their waists and pure white tabards slipped over the top.

Although the doctor usually came to do vaccinations and check-ups on our progress, writing down his findings on special forms, there were other times when he was called out to someone who was ill. We all had the usual illnesses, being together so much and passing them on to each other. I know from my medical records that I had whooping cough when I was two and I remember the doctor coming to see me when I had measles, aged three and a half. But the worst thing I ever had was salmonella food poisoning when I was about three, because I had to be taken to Hagley Green Hospital in the doctor’s car. I must have been very ill with it as I was kept in for about five weeks.

Throughout the summer, the staff would sometimes organise games for us, like taking turns hitting the ball. But I never joined in those games for very long as I lost interest in balls and bats. Instead, I would go off to a little den I’d made and study the insects that hid under the logs.

I wasn’t really interested in group games. For me the biggest entertainment was the gardens, the beautiful place we lived and the countryside around it – I just loved playing there. I looked at the buttercups and how they were made; I watched the butterflies flitting about and settling, so that I could study the patterns on their wings.

One day, my housemother came over and sat on the grass with me, watching the bees buzzing over a clump of lavender. ‘I like bees,’ she said. ‘They are good for the flowers, taking pollen from one to another and back to their hives, where they make honey.’

‘Really?’ I asked in wonder. ‘Do the bees make our honey that we sometimes have at teatime?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ she nodded with a smile.

‘But they sting, don’t they?’ I continued. ‘David had a bee sting.’

‘Not usually, only if they feel threatened. David was trying to hit them with his bat. Bees only sting if they think we are trying to hurt them, but wasps are the ones you want to look out for. They can give you a nasty sting, so best to stay clear of them.’

‘How do I know if it’s a wasp?’

As my housemother explained the differences, I took it all in and never forgot it. From an early age I was fascinated by nature and loved to learn about it.

As well as organised games and a large amount of space to build dens and trees to climb, we had swings and small climbing frames, which we took turns on.

I don’t remember having any best friends at Field House because we were all friends together – I liked everybody and none of them were horrible or selfish, so we just got on. We missed the older ones when they had to leave, but new children came in to replace them and it was all part of the pattern of our lives. We were all different ages under five, so it was like a big family. Yes, that’s exactly the right word: it was the ethos of the place, we all felt loved and looked after. We took it for granted, cocooned as we were from the outside world, not knowing that children’s homes could be any different.

Of course, children were occasionally naughty and they would have their legs slapped. If they were very naughty, they would have to go and see Matron. That induced the fear, oh yes! Just the thought of it put them off doing anything naughty again.

I wasn’t immune. Sometimes I did get into minor trouble, possibly for over-eating – I did a lot of that! Or maybe I didn’t come when I was called. I have to admit that there were occasions when I ignored the call because I wanted a bit of extra time – I suppose all children do that. It was usually when I was in the garden. I used to love it so much that I was often in a dream, but when they called us, we had to toe the line, we had to go in. If they wanted to wash me down, there was no messing about: it was soap and water time and that was that.

As I approached four, I became more aware of the beauty of Field House, both inside and out. It was a classical design – Georgian, I think. Through the elegant porch and the huge front door was a beautiful hallway that stretched so far ahead, it seemed to me to go on for ever. There was oak panelling along the left-hand side and an old oak sideboard. A huge chandelier reflected the light in the centre of the hall and to the right was a grand oak staircase with beautiful carved banisters and turned finials, polished to a high sheen. In fact, it was the sweet smell of beeswax polish that pervaded the whole house. When I stood at the bottom of the stairs and craned my neck, I could see all the way up the staircase as it curved round and round the squares of space, through each floor, creating a pyramid effect, at the top of which was a beautiful painted ceiling. Every landing was surrounded by huge oak doors and the only light flooded down from skylights at the very top.

‘You must never go up those stairs,’ I remember Matron telling us one day. It was an order. But, on one occasion, looking upwards, I began to wonder what was on the upper floors. It was just curiosity, but almost involuntarily, I found myself climbing up the first flight of stairs. Halfway up, I realised what I had done and looked over the banisters, but there was nobody in sight, just distant sounds from the kitchens. Everybody else seemed to be outside, so I tiptoed on up the polished treads to the first landing. There were doors everywhere, all of them closed. I was desperate to go and see what was inside one of the rooms, but I didn’t dare – somebody might be lurking behind, ready to pounce on me. I dreaded to think what my punishment would be. I turned to go back down, but it was too late.

One of the doors opened and Matron herself came out.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in her sternest voice as she towered over me.

I could barely get the words out. ‘S-s-sorry Matron …’

‘You know you’re not supposed to be up here?’

‘Yes, Matron.’ I hung my head, expecting the worst.

‘Well, go straight back down those stairs and never come up here again. Do you understand?’

‘Y-y-yes Matron. I’m sorry.’

She was pointing at the stairs, so I began to clamber down them as quickly as I dared, until my housemother arrived and took my hand to help me down the rest and sent me out to play with the others on the grass.

Later, at bedtime, she kindly reinforced the message, as Matron had probably asked her to do. But she said it with a tolerant smile.

‘I’m sure you were just curious,’ she said.

‘Yes, I only wanted to see …’

‘There’s nothing much up there,’ she explained. ‘Just offices, staff bedrooms and lots of cupboards, where we keep the clothes and sheets and things.’

I nodded. I couldn’t help being inquisitive and adventurous, which did lead me into other tricky situations from time to time, but I never ventured up the stairs again.

The sleeping arrangements at Field House were very straightforward. Being such a grand house, all the downstairs rooms were very large, with high ceilings and long sash windows, letting in generous beams of light. The babies were all in a room beyond the staircase, in their cots.

The first door to the left of the front door led into the girls’ dormitory, which I never saw inside. The boys’ dormitory was the same but opposite, to the right of the front door and looking out over the front lawns. There were usually about 10 to 12 of us in there, our little metal-framed beds placed at intervals around the walls of the room, with tables and chairs in the centre for us to play at if the weather was bad, though in my memories it hardly ever was. The room itself had been stripped bare of its grandeur and painted white, but it still had its wooden floors and the ceiling’s decorative cornices. There were full-length curtains at every window.

My bed was by the window at the far side of the room, so I had a remarkable view in the daylight, but there were no lights outside, which made it so dark at night that it seemed almost haunted. I was glad then that I wasn’t alone.

Although most of the staff slept on the upper floors, they were always alert for any problems with the children – I suppose some of them might have been on night duty. I know they were there for us because one night the rain was pouring down in torrents, beating against the windows so hard that it kept us all awake for a while. Finally, I must have dozed off, perhaps for an hour or two. Suddenly I awoke to a great flash of lightning, followed immediately by loud thunder cracks that must have struck very close by. At first, I feared it had broken our windows, but they were still intact. I grabbed hold of my scruffy old second-hand teddy bear, Jeffrey, and hugged him tight. The lightning lit up the room again and again with crashing roars, which terrified us all. I hid myself and Jeffrey under the covers. Only moments after this crescendo, my housemother and two of the others rushed into our room and straight away, comforted us all, gathering us together in little groups and calming us down.

Sometimes, on more peaceful nights, I would hear the sounds of animals outside, such as badgers or foxes making their way round to the back of the building, where the hens were kept, but I don’t remember them ever catching any, though the staff probably wouldn’t have told us if they had. Often, I used to wake early and peep out to watch the stately deer or the rabbits and hares scampering across the lawns.

Any toys or games we had were donated by well-wishers, so they had often been well used. As well as Jeffrey, I also had two toy cars. I used to play with them a lot, pushing and spinning them round while making the noise of a car, and I would park them under my bed every night.

When the weather was bad, we played in our dormitories, the girls in theirs and we boys in ours. We had a big bag of little blocks of wood and I used to piece them together to make shapes and patterns. Sometimes we built towers. I remember going upwards as far as I could before they all crashed to the floor.