The boys and girls at the Bourne House children's hostel in West Street were cared for by Pat and Lou Schmid and they had two staff to help with the children and several other workers for cooking and cleaning duties. From then on, they were to be known as Uncle Lou and Auntie Pat.

It was late autumn in 1966 when I arrived by car from our home in Boston with my dad and a lady from the social services. I was just 11 years old. The journey seemed to take ages although in later years, I realised that we had only travelled about 35 miles to get there. We pulled up outside a large stone house with a wooden door and on each side there were windows going up for three floors. We went in and it was the first and last time that I went through that front door. From then, in and out was always by the back entrance.

We were ushered into a small staff room half way down the main corridor where I was told the rules of the hostel before being taken into a larger room that was used as a sitting and dining room. At the far end where we ate there was a large serving hatch where we collected our meals that had been cooked and prepared in the kitchen beyond.

I was told to wait while Auntie Pat had a word with my dad and then he and the social worker went back to the little staff room. After about twenty minutes, my dad came to say goodbye. He gave me five shillings [20p today's money], which was quite a surprise because he did not normally give me cash, and then he and the social worker left.

When they had gone, I felt wretched. I hated my dad and already detested the hostel. Come what may, there was no way was I going to like it there.

Soon after midday, many children came home for dinner and I learned that they had been to school in the town. After they had eaten, they returned to their lessons and I thought I was going to have the afternoon to myself. How wrong I was because Auntie Pat told me to get ready because I was going too. I asked for sixpence from the money my dad had given me, not that I wanted to spend it but I wanted the reassurance of having it in my pocket.

When we reached the Bourne Secondary School, I was introduced to the lady who was to teach me, Mrs Cross, who seemed very old but was in reality no more than about forty. There were pupils from two different years in the class, Mrs Cross being in charge of them all and I discovered later that she disliked moving anyone on to other teachers. As a result, she remained my teacher for the next five years.

When I got home from school that evening it was tea time and I had the chance to meet some of the other children. I remember most of them and, best of all, they were all good natured, not one of them nasty or mean, and I realised that we would all get on well together. After tea, we had time to ourselves and were allowed to watch television or just sit and read and talk until bedtime.

I was allocated a bed in one of the upstairs bedrooms, sharing with three others. I was given a place near the window that overlooked a yard at the side of the building. Chicken wire had been nailed over the outside to stop anyone trying to jump out but the bolts were easy to unfasten and if anyone had wanted, they could easily have removed the wire and got out. I kept the same bed for two years and only then moved out because the room was allocated to Auntie Pat after she had been to hospital for an operation and needed somewhere to recover. I was therefore moved to another bedroom over the kitchen and although it had the same view from the window, my bed was nearer to the door.

One of the girl’s sharing my room was called Patsy and she became my best friend. Every Friday night a child psychologist visited the hostel, selecting the children she wanted to see and invariably both me and Patsy were included and although she asked us lots of questions, all we could ever say was “When can we go home?” and the reply was almost always “Maybe next week” but it never was.

Then, joyfully, after six months, I was allowed home for Easter but it was not an enjoyable experience. My dad was not there and my sisters did not want to look after me and the house smelled, something I had never noticed before. After the holiday, I returned to the hostel, travelling in the same ambulance that was used for these journeys, but Patsy was not among the children from Boston who were on board and all the way to Bourne I kept telling the driver that he had forgotten someone and should go back to collect her. But it later transpired that Patsy was not returning to the hostel because the problems at home that had been the cause of her being sent away had been resolved. I was so angry with the child psychologist for not telling me that I never spoke to her again.

Soon Patsy’s bed was taken over by a new arrival, Christine, and I thought that we would never hit it off or that she could ever take Patsy’s place but we soon became firm friends.

Over the next year or so, many of the older girls left and I had grown older, I became responsible for helping to look after the little ones, making sure that they washed themselves properly, cleaned their shoes and so on. I also sat at the head of the table at mealtimes to make sure that they all ate everything up.

I soon began to realise that Bourne House was a good place to grow up in and the staff were very kind. We got pocket money every Saturday and Auntie Pat advised us to save some but there was no pressure if we did not and spent it.

There were also occasional outings and she and Uncle Lou would sometimes take us to Bourne Wood. I sometimes pretended that I did not want to go but I always went and in fact would have been quite put out had I been left behind.

One day, Christine and I returned home from school to find that a tall slim girl with long wavy hair had arrived to live at the hostel. Her name was Annette and she was allocated to Mrs Cross’s class. Yet again, first appearances suggested that we would dislike each other yet we became firm friends and were very happy together.

There were some small luxuries such as being allowed to have pets. I had a hamster and Annette had a rabbit and as Auntie Pat liked cats, there were always plenty of animals around the place.

The kitchen was a large room dominated by an Aga cooking stove and it was always our first port of call after school, in summer to chat with the cook and find out what was for tea and in winter to get warm from the cold outside. There was adequate heating in the house but the kitchen had that comforting warmth that we had experienced at home, the very heart of the house and we loved it.

Every week, I had to go to hospital in Peterborough because I had webbed feet and it was felt that I needed treatment. Afterwards, Auntie Pat would take me swimming but I was not allowed to tell any one else that I had been in case they were envious and so it remained our little secret. Eventually, it was decided that I needed an operation but Auntie Pat told the specialists that she would not agree to surgery as long as I was in her care and so there were no more hospital appointments. Our secret swimming sessions therefore came to an end but some of the better swimmers at the home started going to the pool as a group, getting up at 6 a m for a session before starting school but as the pool was outdoor, this only lasted from April to October and even in the final weeks it was very cold although we still enjoyed it.

Bonfire Night on November 5th was always a special occasion and we looked forward to it immensely, the children bringing fireworks back with them from their half term holiday at home. Joe the gardener would make a big bonfire from garden rubbish and Auntie Pat cooked jacket potatoes and other tasty snacks for the party. We always imagined that we were being allowed to stay up late but that was merely the impression of the dark autumn evenings.

Saturday nights were always a jolly time for the older girls as Uncle Lou would go out to play drums with a band so we were allowed to stay up until he got home. We would sit around and talk about girlie things but once we heard the back door go we rushed up to bed without him seeing us, just in case he caught us breaking the rules although years later we discovered that he knew all about our activities and took his time coming in just to let us think we had one over him.

Sundays was a horrible day as we had to go to church. Sometimes, I hid and the others went off without me but I dare not come out of my hiding place until well after dinner and then Auntie Pat would tell me I had missed a good meal. But it was worth it not to go to church even though Sunday dinner was the best meal of the week.

Every Christmas we staged a play as entertainment but for three years it was the same production and it was always cancelled due to illness among the cast, usually me. One year I contracted yellow jaundice, a quite serious illness and contagious and so I was confined to the sick room at the very top of the house. I was all on my own but for the first few weeks, I felt so bad that I really did not care about the solitude but as soon as I began to feel better, I longed for some company and so I started sneaking down to see the others until one day Auntie Pat caught me in one of the other bedrooms. It was the only time I saw her lose her temper and she gave me such a hard smack on the back of the legs. After that Christmas, most of the children did not return to the hostel until the end of January as they had also caught yellow jaundice so I suppose that I deserved to be punished.

Yet in all my time at Bourne House, I was smacked only four times and I can honestly say that I deserved each one of them. Most of them were to do with presenting the plays ands I suppose I disliked taking part intensely and this usually lead to misbehaviour. All such incidents had to be recorded in a punishment book although I do not think that this applied to the odd smack.

On weekdays, we had to be in bed by nine o’clock and this was not a happy situation when we started having boy friends in the town because we hated telling them that we had to be home early for that reason. It made us look a little childlike at a time when we were trying to be grown up.

Then came the year we left school. Christine and Annette also left the hostel at the same time but I stayed on for further education at Stamford College although after a few months I got very homesick and left. Why I should have felt like this at that time I do not know but it was time to leave Bourne House and I cried more than on the day I had arrived. It was late in 1971 and I was just a few weeks away from my sixteenth birthday. I had been there for five years and my memories will never fade because they were the very best years of my childhood. The loving care we received from such dedicated people turned an institutional hostel into a true family home and I shall never forget my years there.

A TEARFUL REUNION
Maxine always kept in touch with Pat and Lou Schmid, through letters and sometimes phone calls, and in 2002 they met for a tearful reunion when Pat and Lou were holidaying at Bognor Regis in West Sussex.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Maxine Follows (née Edwards), now aged 50, is happily married with a family and lives at Boston in Lincolnshire. After leaving Bourne House, she got a job as an office junior at a local factory where she met her future husband, Robert Follows, who worked there as an engineer. They were married in January 1979 and have five children, Peter, aged 32, Gareth, 30, Jason, 27, Emily, 24, and Robert 19.

REVISED OCTOBER 2006