FIRST IMPRESSIONS

On arrival, I was shown round by the deputy, a very pleasant lady who, I learned later, had applied for the post of matron herself. I stayed overnight in a small bedroom and was woken at around 6 am by a loud banging coming from the boys’ room. I went to investigate and discovered the lads busy destroying the drawers in their room. Although I was not yet appointed, I informed them that this kind of behaviour was not acceptable and would not be tolerated if I were matron. No member of staff appeared and it turned out that the matron’s quarters were downstairs at the other end of the house and the deputy was non-resident.

I made up my mind that if I was to take charge, there would need to be some changes made. On entering one of the girls’ bedrooms, I chatted to the occupants, one of them a girl about 15 years old. “You must be leaving soon, where are you going and what are you going to do when you leave?” I asked out of genuine interest. To my horror and surprise, she burst into floods of tears and confessed she had no idea where she was going or what she would do, but she was nearly sixteen and had to leave school and therefore the hostel, the latter being run by the education committee. There were three other older girls with similar problems unsolved. I resolved that this would be another matter to which my attention would be given.

THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS

My interview for the job took place in a large airy room with windows all round and used as a playroom. It was cut off from the rest of the house by a long corridor. Six long tables were placed in an A shape and the applicant, myself, required to sit on a chair so that questions could be fired from any angle.

I was surprised at the large number of people on the board. The chairman, a Dr Fielding, introduced himself and his committee. I remember Dr O’Sullivan, the medical officer, Dr Richardson, the child psychiatrist, Mrs Amy Burchnell who lived locally, Mr Harboth, the educational psychologist, a clergyman and a very old lady called Mrs Schwind who brought us a basket of new laid eggs. There were others, but I cannot remember their names. Dr Golby was director of education for Kesteven whom I met later and Dr Fielding was medical officer for Holland County Council.

THE INTERVIEW

I was asked why I wanted the post of matron and explained that although my training as a nurse was important to me, the qualification SRN [State Registered Nurse] was a means to an end as I had always wanted to work with children and had strong ideas on how they should be treated. I was almost 27 years old at this time, my husband being three years my senior, and had been married and divorced, and now had a five-year-old stepdaughter named Pauline. The clergyman on the board noted that I had done a lot in a short time and I was then asked if I intended to have more children. I replied that it was possible although I had no immediate plans. I had other experience working with children and with favourable references from these, I was duly appointed. Apart from my unsuccessful deputy, there seemed to be no other applicants.

THE HOUSE

The house was a Regency mansion. When I first saw it I was somewhat overawed. The imposing squareness of the front was, however, mellowed by the very beautiful wisteria growing across the front up to the second floor and the soft purple flowers hung gracefully from the grey walls. Inside, was the front hall with a stone flagged floor and a curved staircase carpeted in red with an alcove three quarters the way up housing a pot plant was no less imposing. The office, accessed through a door on the right, had a beautiful fireplace protected, and its appearance spoiled, by a childproof fireguard, and was used not only by the matron, but also by the child psychiatrist once a week and therefore housed a sand tray and a water tray, the tools of the trade.

There the illusion ended. The swing door through to the rest of the house was kept closed. The door on the left led into the dining room that looked like a cafeteria with about six or eight round tables, four on each side. The rest of the house was painted green and pale yellow and reminded me of an army barracks. There were five children’s bedrooms with four beds in each. Four were on the first floor and the fifth was up a curved staircase on the second floor. There were no toilets on that floor but a small single bedroom and a spacious bedroom with a fireplace that could be used by a member of staff. On the first floor, the two large front rooms were used for boys and the remaining two fair sized bedrooms were for girls. The boys’ and girls’ toilets and the staff toilet were at the end of the corridor. On the other side of the corridor were two small single rooms that could be used by staff and a third room used for storage. A small staff bathroom was in a corner next to the children’s toilets. The back staircase, steep and narrow with a small window at the bottom, was used by the children and staff, thus preserving the front for visitors only.

The kitchen was large, containing an Aga cooker on which all the meals were cooked, and two pantries, one of which housed a multitude of silver coloured saucepans of different sizes. A laundry room with a washing machine, a mangle, and two large sinks, led from the kitchen through a door, which was kept locked at night, into the back hall to the back door which was used by the children going in and out to school or to play in the back garden.

The staff room was fitted with a medicine cupboard and was quite cosily decorated, and was situated across from the servery where all the meals were dished up through a hatch that opened into the dining room. This marked the end of the old part of the house and the corridor leading to the matron’s quarters, the cloakrooms for boys and girls (always referred to as the ablutions), and the playroom began. Halfway down the corridor there were glass doors and another at the end, seldom used, the one on the right led in the back garden. The matron’s quarters consisted of a downstairs toilet and cloakroom and a small sitting room while upstairs there were three small bedrooms and a bathroom. There was at this time no connection with the upstairs of the matron’s house. There was however, a wrought iron fire escape leading from a door of the top floor children’s bedroom, with a glass fronted key holder, to a small balcony which finished on the roof of the downstairs corridor about ten feet from the ground.

THE GARDEN

The back garden was divided into a kitchen garden and lawn. The lawn was scattered with beautiful trees that were, by chance, arranged to form the bases for a pitch suitable for the game of rounders. There was a silver birch, a copper beech, a flowering plum and a pine tree. In the kitchen garden there were various fruit trees, a conference pear, a Williams pear, and several plum trees overhanging the outside fence. There was also an old walnut tree, probably as old as the house. At the end of the lawn was a sandpit and some small climbing bars. An expanse of concrete provided a good play area with two swings. This led to the front garden planted with various bushes and flowering shrubs and looked very attractive to the visitors. At the back of the house stood a very imposing cedar tree, like a giant umbrella, with pigeons nesting way up in its foliage.

At the back of the house was a garage, two outside playrooms, a coke hole and a toilet for the gardener. The coke for the fire was stored in a large heap at the back and a small covered way led from the yard and past the shed where the gardener kept his tools to the back garden.

THE STAFF

At this early stage, in 1957-58, the staff consisted of the matron whose husband followed his own occupation, a deputy matron, who at the time was non-resident, and a 16-year-old girl who lived in but was completely untrained. On the domestic side we had one full time cleaner (or dogsbody) and three part-time cleaners who worked from 9 am until 2 pm. One was responsible for the matron’s quarters, the playroom and ablutions, one the upstairs children’s bedrooms and third the dining room, office, staircase and children’s bathrooms which were downstairs off the corridor leading to the kitchen. There was a cook who worked the same hours and a gardener who was employed 8 am until 4 pm but spent most of his time at the Six Bells public house in North Street while weeds in the garden grew waist high and little produce from the vegetable plot ever reached the kitchen.

CHANGES WERE INEVITABLE

An upstairs corridor was built between the matron’s quarters and the children’s bedroom. The kitchen door was left open at all times. The whole house was, over a period, redecorated with attractive wallpaper. The dining room was divided into two sections, the front half turned into a sitting room, carpeted, with sofas, armchairs and beanbags etc while the back half was retained for meals with refectory type tables replacing the old circular one. Upstairs, new curtains, bed covers and personal lockers were provided in all the bedrooms, plus bedside mats, all of which helped provide a more homely atmosphere for the children. There was however, chicken
wire over the front bedroom windows which, although it spoiled the appearance of the room, had to be left in place because it was accepted that children, particularly small boys, will climb and a fall to the ground floor from such a height was too horrible to contemplate. The chicken wire therefore remained in place.

I acquired a new washing machine and with it a laundress, thus freeing the deputy matron for other more amenable tasks. The 16 year old was given the title of children’s assistant and was presented with a work list that she accepted with gratitude. She remained on the staff until she was 18 and proved herself very capable, so much so that she eventually trained as a nurse and became a ward sister at Northampton General Hospital.

Staff changes were inevitable and there were quite a few in the first few years. In l960, two years after I had been appointed, I was on the point of leaving myself due to shortage of staff and the fact that I was only seeing my husband one night a week when we met in Peterborough to go to the cinema. A visit from Her Majesty’s Inspector solved this problem by asking what could be done and I suggested, tongue in cheek, that my husband could be fully employed with me. He would be a father figure, particularly for the boys, and could do many odd jobs around the house, transport the children to an fro at holiday times, and other similar tasks. After a short interview, she was convinced and my husband Lou was employed.

I then introduced the Auntie and Uncle regime at the hostel, an approach for the children that seemed so much nicer than the previous Mr and Mrs, and this family intimacy continued until we closed. For the first time, we really began to feel like a family. Our own daughter saw much more of her father than she would otherwise have done and life was a whole lot easier.

The staff now directly concerned with the welfare of the children consisted of matron and house father, a deputy matron and a children’s assistant. Various changes to the domestic staff also meant a lot more stability because staff members became more likely to stay and a new cook became permanent. I was always aware of the motto that a happy staff makes for a happy household and that was now becoming a fact of life at the Bourne House.

THE CHILDREN

The hostel was run by the county education authority and so it was imperative that all of the children had to go to school. Sadly, the boys sometimes had to leave when they were eleven. We therefore had no senior boys. On the other hand, the girls could stay all the time they remained at school. This meant that we had youngsters of five years and upwards of both sexes and girls of 15-16 years old. This tended to bring out the mothering instinct in some of the older girls who often took responsibility for their favourite little ones.

To say why the children were with us and not at home would fill up more space than I have here. Apart from those that were deemed to be in the care of their local authority, the children were sent to us by the child psychiatrist. There were often referred by social workers and all were with the full agreement of the parents. Some of the parents were openly rejecting, preferring to accept the policy of out of sight out of mind, and never contacted us unless they were forced to.

Others were quite the opposite, writing letters and visiting regularly. The latter were likely to be the parents of what we termed our short stay children, among them truants, bed wetters, soilers, elective mutes, aggressive and over timid children. Some had a combination of problems while others just had a problem with their weight that often turned into a refusal to go to school so that solving the problem automatically solved the teasing which had created the reluctance to attend.

Our child psychiatrist, Dr Richardson, in the early days, would visit once a week, usually on a Saturday morning. Occasionally he would see individual children, particularly if I had had problems with someone during the week. But mostly he would have a small group and observe how they interacted when playing with the sand and water etc.

The older girls sometimes got out of hand and there would be a frantic ringing of the bell, placed under the rim of the desk for emergencies, and it was always Auntie Pat to the rescue. Sometimes he would come outside and see what the young ones were building in the sandpit. I remember one little boy proudly answering “An industrial estate, doctor.” Whatever happened to simple sandcastles?

Dr Richardson had a friend, another psychiatrist, who lived and worked in Bristol. He apparently had children he found impossible to place in his area and sent several to us over the years, one of which I was able to follow up in later years, and still keep in touch to this day.

The social workers played their part, advising parents and giving us feedback about how the children fitted in at holiday times. Most of the children returned home for the school holidays but there were about half a dozen who could not for varying reasons. Sometimes there was complete rejection from the parents or the parents had separated or were in prison. Sometimes, it was arranged for these children to go to a home run by the social services department, such as Ivo Cottage at Spalding, but they seldom stayed for long and frequently proved to be too rebellious. The social workers on the whole were excellent and kept us up to date with conditions at home within the family. They also visited the children within the hostel and took back reports on their progress.

ACTIVITIES

Daily activities were many and varied and often depended on the talents of the children we had at that time. Once or twice a week we had handicrafts when two young women came in and helped them produce a variety of attractive, if simple, items. Some of these, when finished, went home to parents who were often unaware of the abilities of their children and were pleasantly surprised at what they could do.

A favourite pastime was rounders on the back lawn, especially when Uncle Lou joined in although it tended to get a little boisterous at times. Once, in his enthusiasm, he knocked down a small girl and she came up with a mouthful of mud but after going indoors and being cleaned up, she insisted on going out and continuing with the game. But Uncle Lou did get a rounder which was the thing that mattered most.

Cricket too, became a popular summer sport. One boy really fancied himself to the extent that he always wore whites when turning out for a game. Uncle Lou was also usually in evidence and when knocking the ball over the fence onto the patrol cars in the police station next door he was quite clearly seen passing the bat surreptitiously to one of the smaller boys to avoid blame. One of the fathers, an aeronautical engineer, whose nine-year-old lad was with us for a short time largely because he was unable to relax and do those things that boys of his age usually do, surprised everyone by coming over and taking the bat for a while. He greatly enjoyed it and often visited and played with the children.

When it was fine, we often had tea on the lawn and these picnics were greatly enjoyed by all. In summer, swimming in the town pool was also a must and again Uncle Lou, being a keen swimmer, came into his own, getting up early and taking those children who were really keen for an early morning dip down to the Abbey Lawn. This was particularly beneficial to the bed-wetters and actually cured several, the rule being “No wet bed – swimming with Lou; wet bed, sorry no swim”. Almost all the children learned to swim, which in itself was a confidence booster.

At weekends, the children attended Sunday School that was only a stone’s throw down the road at the Baptist Church in West Street. At first, this was not very beneficial due to an elderly, well meaning fire and brimstone pastor who literally put the fear of God into some of the younger members of the congregation. Later however, a young pastor and his schoolteacher wife became a considerable asset and several of our boys joined the Boys Brigade at the church and greatly enjoyed it and being able to play the piano, I found myself filling in when the organist was away.

Sunday afternoons were often spent wandering through Bourne Wood or picnicking at the Wellhead when the weather was clement. In winter, especially when the snow fell, Wellington boots and scarves were the order of the day and invariably a snowball fight ensued during our outings.

The older girls either joined in with the younger ones or went about their own business, the only house rules being that they were required to say where they were going and had to be back for mealtimes. Several little girls went to dancing classes and proved to be quite talented. This was useful when it came time for our annual pantomime. Every Christmas, we practised hard and according to the amount of talent available in the house at the time, we staged a production such as Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Dick Whittington, Pinocchio, Aladdin, a nativity play, Cinderella and the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Besides the pantos there were children who performed individually, or in groups. I remember the boys doing the popular skiffle song My Old Man’s a Dustman and another popular number of the time, She Wears Red Feathers on her Hula Hula Skirt, all great fun. Of course, the children were not able to learn a full length, professionally written script so I would write a story line to suit those we had in residence at the time. I think the best one we ever did was the Wizard of Oz because we had a little girl of ten who could dance and was chosen for the Judy Garland role of Dorothy while a group of talented girls, one who was attending Bourne Grammar School, played the tin man, lion and scarecrow beautifully.

The singing was excellent too. This was exceptional however and often I was struggling to write simple couplets that would be easy to learn. The elective mutes, those children who would not talk but could, were always given a part and it was assumed that they would speak their lines when they were dressed up in disguise and it always worked. Teachers who were invited to attend the performance were often amazed at hearing them speak for the first time.

Patsy was able to speak but refused to because she had a slight imperfection and lisped. Marion also refused because her mother had a severe speech defect. Both girls were talking normally by the time they left us although I remember feeling extremely severe when I said everyone must say “Please” if they wanted to go to the cinema. Marion would not say it so she did not go and so the other children put a lot of pressure on her and also thought me very hard. Within a few days however, she was talking and soon the problem was to keep her quiet.

Besides the pantomimes we had a large tea party at Christmas when all the children could invite two people. These could be adults or children and some of their favourite teachers from school were often included. This meant a sit down meal for around sixty people and the kitchen staff and domestic assistants worked very hard to provide this. After the meal, everyone went into the playroom that had been divided into a space for the audience and a stage curtained off. We were fortunate in having some wings and backcloths given to us and made full use of them.

Officials from the Sleaford office, schoolteachers, friends from the church and around town, such as the librarian, were invited to be entertained. It was a way of showing some appreciation to the people who had helped the children throughout the year. Parents attended the final dress rehearsal that was always held on the last Sunday afternoon before the party. The children went home for Christmas soon afterwards with the exception of the few that remained behind for various reasons although they seldom minded being left because they knew they would get special treatment, either at the hostel or at Auntie Pat’s bungalow at Baston.

Holiday times generally were a problem due to the fact that certain children could not be placed. We were greatly assisted by local groups such as the Round Table, the Licensed Victuallers’ Association, the Young Farmers’ Association, and others, who funded a weeks’ holiday at a chalet or caravan at the seaside in the summer. They also gave us a small circular pool in the garden that was greatly enjoyed, especially by the children who were left behind.

RELATIONSHIPS

Life at Bourne House was all about relationships. It was essential that there should be a cheerful and happy atmosphere generally. This was brought about by the interaction of staff with staff and passed on between staff and children. The domestic helpers were very important as the children often formed relationships with them. The full time domestic in particular was essential as she was often used as relief in the absence of a member of the children’s staff. We even gave one such member of staff the title of Auntie Mary because she was so close to the children. There had to be a relaxed, friendly, and dare I say, loving atmosphere in the house in order that the children could regard it not just as a place of containment but also as a home with all that this implied.

We had about 225 children during my time there and to me, the most important thing we did, or tried to do, was to show them a better way than so many had been accustomed to before they came to us. This was particularly important in the case of the older girls as we had them long enough to be able to shape their lives and sow the seeds that might make them better mothers. I was lucky enough to be at Bourne House long enough to see the fruits of my labour and feel a certain pride that at least some of my girls, as I called them, have married and had families who have been loved and cared for in the way their mothers were at Bourne House.

I cannot close this account of caring without mentioning my two longest-serving children’s staff, Joan Little and Kath Dolby, both honorary aunts. They stayed longer than any of the others and provided stalwart and faithful service which I know the children appreciated and so did my husband and I. They especially were extremely helpful when my husband or I went away on in service courses, which we did occasionally, and it was good to know that things would continue to run smoothly in our absence. There were many people who deserve our thanks for their help in running Bourne House, a place which many consider achieved many, if not all, of its aims.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS

Note: Pat Schmid died in Spain following a heart attack
on Tuesday 15th April 2014, aged 83.

See The woman who was auntie to 200 children

REVISED APRIL2014