Children's homes or orphanages in Sheffield

[glen]

where are all the girls from f.c.h. we are hearing from all the boys.surely there is someone who was there at that time or maybe before or after.You may know someone on the fulwood cottage homes site.Can anyone remember the concerts we had periodically.We also had concerts at Marske by the sea.

[debbielou]

Hi glen,

had a quick chat with my mum and she cant remember what number cottage she was in but shes going to ring her sister to see what she remembers.

She does remember being in a concert at marske singing gillygilly hosenfether bogen by the sea-ee-ee! (dont think thats quite right but hope you know what i mean!)

anyway she started to laugh while singing it and that started her sister laughing and they spoiled the whole thing..... she remembers the house mother smacking her so hard round the head that she had a headache for hours...... cant have done her much harm though cos she still laughs about it now!!!

I'll post again if i find out anymore info after shes spoken to her sister.

[marybotham]

Hello Glen

 

My husband is Tom Botham.He was in the homes fromJan.1945 until about 1952/53 when he was sent out to a farming "centre".

 

Do you remember any of his family Beryl,and Marian,both older than him were in 16.

 

Beryl later became a house mother but by then I think she was Harrison.

 

It was only last week, on Toms 70th birthday that they were talking about concerts.

 

Tom can remember them doing "uncle Tom cobley" and he was Bill Brewer.

 

He can also remember being dressed up in old clothes and pushing a pram with other

 

dirty faced kids for a fancy dress.

 

Marian can remember her and Beryl in Ballet dresses dancing on a concert.

 

These must be the only good memories he has of the place.

[glen]

Hi Debbielou and Mary.Nice to hear from you.The concerts at marske were fun, I used to sing Theres No Place Like Home also dance.It was fun there and different because we didnt get bashed,i cant remember at this stage why that was,maybe all the usual cottage Mothers didnt go. Tom is around my age so maybe he remembers me also his sisters were next door to me (17) My name was Glenda Fearnehough my brother Rex and Rodney were also there.Can they remember the concerts at the home as well,i always danced in those,sometimes sang.Hope to hear from you again.Thanks:thumbsup:

[bresail]

Brian 1941.

Yes we did have fun in the homes and a lot of us had more fun than we had at home. The fun though was usually made by us kids, outdoors and unsupervised. The concerts that were put on were display pieces, to show that the homes were full of happy smiling kids and there were such kids.

These kids were very lucky and not plentiful.

I was not treated badly in the homes, so I was one of the lucky ones.

Brian1941

"i have seen a lot of things going on, and its half one-half other."

Some of the kids, in the homes, were better off there. At their parental homes they didn't know that their treatment was different from other kids in balanced homes. They may have been used to violence in the house, so any pause in that violence, no matter how short, would be a happy time.

Eventually the children's department would rescue these kids.

Some, for the first time, would know regular food, clean clothes, cleanliness and playing fields. We were surrounded by children, all of us in the same boat. We had been rescued from poverty and degradation.

All we had to pay was the occasional slap or minor beating. This was a small price to pay for all the benefits that we had gained.

Or was it?

Some of the kids were orphans and had come from "good" homes, where violence was unknown and their parents loved them. They were also in our boat but, they also had to suffer the slaps and beatings from the house mothers, this would be, then, a large price to pay. They had in fact lost much more than than they had gained!

WE WERE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT!

Now if these minor corrections, had been just that, minor slaps for naughtiness, then, that was acceptable in those days.

If however they were the results of an inadequately trained house mother or a house mother who hated her job, so blamed the kids and vented their anger on them, this is unacceptable and also proves that there were little or no checks on our welfare by the children's department.

So back to Brian's post above, six of one and half a dozen of the other or, give and take.

It wasn't that way at all.

Who did the giving?

Who did the taking?

The giving was by the children's department, food, clothes a clean home and beatings.

The taking was by the kids, food, clothes a clean home and beatings.

Kids should not have been beaten!

I am now 73yrs old on the 20th October. I am not angry about what happened to me and what will happen to me, but a lot of kids, not only in the homes had a formative part of their lives denied them.

I do get angry however, when we deny or pretend that these things didn't happen or that somehow they were normal and, a small price to pay.

Ask yourselves!

Should I do the same things to my own kids or my family?

A joke here may be relevant,

"I've just been offered a 60 inch digital tv for 50 quid,

the bloke said "unfortunately, the volume control doesn't work,"

But for that price, you can't turn it down, can you?

[flyer]

Grr someone upthere still doesn't like me every time I give a reply on this thread my provider goes down and i lose all my hard one finger reply's as I said Grrr

[flyer]

In the firm believe that our early witch's was much more evil than your 50s-60s witch's I will conduct a poll 1st Miss Millner#3 late 30s was still there in46 when i left she beat the kids around the head with her thick bonker a lot of kid never quite the same after leaving her tender care,A close 2nd would Miss Bull (same time frame)#2 I remember her pasting one lad who had been pulled out of the bombings and wet the bed every day,he was beat every day for 3-4 years and was still going on when I left in 46,even at the age of 8-9 i was thinking what a complete stupid fool she must havebeen but I'm sure she would carry on to the bitter end

[anlabystreet]

one thing i always remember about old housemother winnie edge in cottage 1.....her idea of punishment for the kids..retribution for daring to speak in the house without being spoken to by her...she used to stand you up in a corner facing the wall.......and you would stand there for hours till she went to bed about 2 o clock in the morning...if you fell down she would stand you up,give you a pasting and start again....and you were up at 7 for school

[flyer]

Yes I've heard infamous Winnie,Bull didn't like to see fiddle hands(go figure) so she made all kids sit on their hands in her presence ,made all the lads come out with permanent round shoulder.

[SputnikBoy]

Do any of you remember some of the popular songs of the day that we would hear played on the radio at FCH? A few that spring to mind are She Wears Red Feathers and a Huly (Hula) Huly (Hula) Skirt and There's Always Room At Our House (To Share A Smile Or Two) by Guy Mitchell and I Believe and Make Way, Oh Make Way (For My Eastern Rose) by Frankie Laine. I also seem to recall C'Mon a'My House and Mangoes Papiyahs by Rosemary Clooney and Shrimp Boats Is a'Comin' and AllenTown Jail by Jo Stafford. Also You Belong To Me (See The Pyramids Along The Nile) by the same artist. Hmmm . . .also Little things Mean A Lot by ...Kitty Kallen ...? There was also some stupid 'pirate song' many of the kids were obsessed with that if I could think of the name of it I would die a happy man.

 

Oh my, I could go on an on ...anyone else?