May 11 2008 has been a leisurely morning with much reflection before making a key stroke.
I have been much preoccupied with tying to find any evidence of my early years to substantiate a memory which requires accurate triggers to bring about recall and I so regret not keeping basic records or a diary from when I was in a position to do so. I have written that sometime between the ages of eight and eleven I was taken to what I now believe was either a family group home or a foster home. I remember that I had a case with me and being left there and that I was made welcome and the place was warm and well furnished in comparison to what I was used to. What I cannot remember is if I actually stayed but if so it would not have been for more than a night or two ,but as when I was taken to be admitted to a hospital to have my adenoids and tonsils removed, I was able to plead why my care mother and did not stay and returned to our home. However as a consequence of this and through the intervention of the local Member of Parliament my birth mother, my care mother and their elder sister were rehoused by the local housing authority in a war time requisitioned property close to where I lived for the greater part of my life to that time. We were allocated the top floor of the detached house and a former RAF serviceman and his wife occupied the ground floor and we shared the garden which my birth mother loved to upkeep. This was only a temporary solution.
Wallington was part of a borough with Beddington and where a large park separated the two communities. Wallington was then a sleepy town where there was a tea room but no restaurants, a few of public houses and a small cinema which did not show the current releases, but which was in retrospective an advantage because it meant that I was able to see films from the twenties, thirties and forties as well as going to neighbouring towns of Croydon, Purley and Sutton to see contemporary films at weekends. There were two roads of shops, one Stafford Road, which connected Wallington with Sutton and Croydon had shops from Mellows Park and the school where my birth mother worked for twenty years down past the Catholic Church we attended and Police station, past the Public house to a junction of the second main road which southward was the main shopping area, with the Town Hall and Library, and the cinema just before a dip in the road under the railway station bridge. and then to Hackbridge of Beddington and onward to Mitcham and central London.
On the geographical southern side of Stafford Road, was a vast area of private residential housing with gardens and where along Woodcote Road from the junction with the main shopping Road, there were increasingly larger properties as one went towards Purley and joined the main London road to Brighton and the South coast. It was therefore to the north of Stafford did the local authority managed any public sector house and there were a few council houses tucked away, although there was more across Beddington Park in Hackbridge. There were no blocks of public housing flats. Because of bombings there were vacant sites many still craters. In an area past the telephone exchange and post office and the fire station accessed by a small bridge over the railway was Bute Road which led down to the council housing and Beddington Park. Here about a third of way along was a large site upon which the Council its first new public housing since the war in the early 1950's, two blocks of three storey flats, twelve in total, we were allocated a flat on the second floor of the block situated on Bute Road, although the address was Maldon Road and the ex RAF wartime service man and his family the flat adjacent. As both families attended the same Catholic Church they were one of the few non family contacts which my birth and care mothers maintained.
When I left school and commenced to work in central London, often staying on in the evenings or using my monthly travel ticket to return on weekends perhaps to Promenade Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, or to a Soho Jazz Club. or in nearby Oxford Street, I suspect it was arising from conversations between my family and the neighbours which led to attempts to find a suitable girl friend for me, and it was during this period that I was taken in by the neighbour out for a drink one evening, but beforehand we called in at a child care home to deliver some gifts from the parish church and I recognised the place from where I had been taken a decade or close to a decade before. The visit is today of special significance because although the establishment and the application for me to be placed in care was likely to have been made before Children's Department, the National Health Service and the Social Security system came into being, the visit was made several years after Children's department were in being. As my life changed as I became involved with support for civil rights in South Africa, with the peace movement and with War on Want, I have no doubt that my family shared their concerns with much embarrassment and then their relief as I accepted the place at Ruskin College, switched to public and social administration and into child care social work. In fact the husband helped me to transport of my books and clothing at least once or twice for the start and of terms. But then as I settled in very different life as I successfully completed training and commenced my career I lost contact, especially after my family moved as I believed also did our former neighbours
This is by way of background because on Sunday as part of a new Government initiative to discuss the future structure, including financial structure of care in the community, in which the Prime Minister and Health Secretary are leading the discussion, an interview took place with a severely disabled couple continuing to live in their home with the wife suffering from dementia and the husband with visual impairment. A recording of their interview broadcast on BBC news programmes was available on BBC on line and I watched it on my return in amazement as there were indeed the former neighbours and the husband might remember the child care home and where it was located, and possible who it was run by so this particular trail into my early years may not have ended. Life is indeed stranger than fiction.
I tried to make contact through the BBC as did another relative but we received no response or acknowledgement.
I have been much preoccupied with tying to find any evidence of my early years to substantiate a memory which requires accurate triggers to bring about recall and I so regret not keeping basic records or a diary from when I was in a position to do so. I have written that sometime between the ages of eight and eleven I was taken to what I now believe was either a family group home or a foster home. I remember that I had a case with me and being left there and that I was made welcome and the place was warm and well furnished in comparison to what I was used to. What I cannot remember is if I actually stayed but if so it would not have been for more than a night or two ,but as when I was taken to be admitted to a hospital to have my adenoids and tonsils removed, I was able to plead why my care mother and did not stay and returned to our home. However as a consequence of this and through the intervention of the local Member of Parliament my birth mother, my care mother and their elder sister were rehoused by the local housing authority in a war time requisitioned property close to where I lived for the greater part of my life to that time. We were allocated the top floor of the detached house and a former RAF serviceman and his wife occupied the ground floor and we shared the garden which my birth mother loved to upkeep. This was only a temporary solution.
Wallington was part of a borough with Beddington and where a large park separated the two communities. Wallington was then a sleepy town where there was a tea room but no restaurants, a few of public houses and a small cinema which did not show the current releases, but which was in retrospective an advantage because it meant that I was able to see films from the twenties, thirties and forties as well as going to neighbouring towns of Croydon, Purley and Sutton to see contemporary films at weekends. There were two roads of shops, one Stafford Road, which connected Wallington with Sutton and Croydon had shops from Mellows Park and the school where my birth mother worked for twenty years down past the Catholic Church we attended and Police station, past the Public house to a junction of the second main road which southward was the main shopping area, with the Town Hall and Library, and the cinema just before a dip in the road under the railway station bridge. and then to Hackbridge of Beddington and onward to Mitcham and central London.
On the geographical southern side of Stafford Road, was a vast area of private residential housing with gardens and where along Woodcote Road from the junction with the main shopping Road, there were increasingly larger properties as one went towards Purley and joined the main London road to Brighton and the South coast. It was therefore to the north of Stafford did the local authority managed any public sector house and there were a few council houses tucked away, although there was more across Beddington Park in Hackbridge. There were no blocks of public housing flats. Because of bombings there were vacant sites many still craters. In an area past the telephone exchange and post office and the fire station accessed by a small bridge over the railway was Bute Road which led down to the council housing and Beddington Park. Here about a third of way along was a large site upon which the Council its first new public housing since the war in the early 1950's, two blocks of three storey flats, twelve in total, we were allocated a flat on the second floor of the block situated on Bute Road, although the address was Maldon Road and the ex RAF wartime service man and his family the flat adjacent. As both families attended the same Catholic Church they were one of the few non family contacts which my birth and care mothers maintained.
When I left school and commenced to work in central London, often staying on in the evenings or using my monthly travel ticket to return on weekends perhaps to Promenade Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, or to a Soho Jazz Club. or in nearby Oxford Street, I suspect it was arising from conversations between my family and the neighbours which led to attempts to find a suitable girl friend for me, and it was during this period that I was taken in by the neighbour out for a drink one evening, but beforehand we called in at a child care home to deliver some gifts from the parish church and I recognised the place from where I had been taken a decade or close to a decade before. The visit is today of special significance because although the establishment and the application for me to be placed in care was likely to have been made before Children's Department, the National Health Service and the Social Security system came into being, the visit was made several years after Children's department were in being. As my life changed as I became involved with support for civil rights in South Africa, with the peace movement and with War on Want, I have no doubt that my family shared their concerns with much embarrassment and then their relief as I accepted the place at Ruskin College, switched to public and social administration and into child care social work. In fact the husband helped me to transport of my books and clothing at least once or twice for the start and of terms. But then as I settled in very different life as I successfully completed training and commenced my career I lost contact, especially after my family moved as I believed also did our former neighbours
This is by way of background because on Sunday as part of a new Government initiative to discuss the future structure, including financial structure of care in the community, in which the Prime Minister and Health Secretary are leading the discussion, an interview took place with a severely disabled couple continuing to live in their home with the wife suffering from dementia and the husband with visual impairment. A recording of their interview broadcast on BBC news programmes was available on BBC on line and I watched it on my return in amazement as there were indeed the former neighbours and the husband might remember the child care home and where it was located, and possible who it was run by so this particular trail into my early years may not have ended. Life is indeed stranger than fiction.
I tried to make contact through the BBC as did another relative but we received no response or acknowledgement.
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