and insular, the church culture reflected that too. Yet there was also an outward-looking aspect, a concern for others that went beyond our small, grimy town and into the world beyond. My father knew he would have little opportunity to travel, but he did what he could in the only way he knew. He gave money we could often ill afford to causes he believed in. He was a gentle, faithful, and diligent man. We were all thrilled when he later received the British Empire Medal for “services to industry.”13 My father eventually became clerk of works for our local government authority. It was his job to independently assess the quality of structural, mechanical, and engineering works. Nominations are made without the recipient knowing in advance. It was testimony to my father’s hard work and attention to detail that architects and civic and community leaders all combined to put his name forward.
Mam was a very different character to Dad. She was sociable, friendly, and loved to talk about family, friends, and church. She took an interest in people. She never studied after leaving school and helped in the family bakery where she learned how to bake. I always remember listening to her sing as she baked and cooked. She often baked for people who were sick or going through difficult times. Mam had a strong sense of duty to her parents and siblings. Three of her brothers saw action in North Africa during the Second World War. Her father was Irish and lost both legs in a mining accident. Little wonder the last place she wanted me to work was down the mines!
Churchgoing was more common in the UK in those days, even in poor working-class areas like ours. There were Anglicans and Methodists, the Salvation Army and Congregationalists. Even non-churchgoers sent their children to Sunday school, largely to give themselves a break. There were a lot of good folk involved with the churches and chapels even though the surrounding culture did not conform to their ideals. It took me a long time to realize that some of my “uncles” and “aunts” were not blood relatives at all. Rather, they were people my parents knew through church or were other neighbors and friends. We needed their support. I was eighteen months old when my sister Pamela was sent away to hospital on the coast.
When they got married my parents were told that they would not be able to have children. It was medically impossible. So they did what Pentecostals do. They devoted themselves to prayer. They called for the prayers of the elders of the church and of the congregation. During one prayer meeting, a minister prophesized that their prayers would be answered. They would most certainly bear children. Imagine their delight when Pamela was born in 1947. Imagine their anguish when they learned she had chronic asthma and was not expected to live.
I grew up without my sister at home. I was only aware I had one because of the photograph on the parlor wall. It showed a bonny toddler on the street outside our house, a pint of milk behind her on our doorstep.14
“Mam, Dad, who’s that girl in the picture?”
“Your sister.”
“Where is she? Why isn’t she here?”
“She’s away. She’s ill.”
Mam and Dad invariably changed the subject. Perhaps they wanted to spare me the pain they were going through. Around once a month, on a Saturday, my father would set off to visit her in the children’s hospital near Liverpool. Sometimes my mother would go too. They could not always afford the fare for the two of them. I would be left with the Elleringtons, friends of my parents from church. I struck up a lifelong friendship with their son, John, who later became one of my charity’s first trustees. We often got into scrapes and John sometimes hid in the outhouse with his ferret to avoid Sunday school.15 We were both rebels even then. Yes, we both continued with church and owned our parents’ faith for ourselves, but we were not afraid to question or challenge anything we felt was ill thought through, unnecessary, or unhelpful.
It was the early 1950s and Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) was still in its infancy. Founded in 1948, the NHS guaranteed treatment “free at the point of delivery” to everyone, irrespective of income, social level, or circumstances. It made, and still makes, an immense difference to people’s lives, particularly those who are disadvantaged or on low incomes. Back then, however, officialdom and deference were still big factors in British society. What the man with the suit and tie or the nurse in the uniform said went unchallenged, even when the consequences were clearly less than ideal. The authorities said that Pamela had to be taken away to save her life and away she went. She was away from home for three Christmases, effectively four whole years.16
Officials told my parents that Pam would die unless she left our dirty, smoggy town. My parents had little choice. I’m told they could have faced criminal charges at that time if they didn’t comply. We were poor. Where could we go? We didn’t know anywhere else and our support networks were all very local. There seemed nothing for it but for my sister to go to that children’s hospital on the coast to benefit from the bracing sea breeze.17
Astonishing as it may sound to us today, as late as the 1950s some children’s respiratory hospitals still operated a drastic system recommended and described in 1919. In order to provide ventilation, children slept in dormitories which were deliberately kept draughty. Pamela’s dormitory had brick walls no more than a yard high. The rest of the space up to the roof consisted of wire netting. The floor was concrete and the children slept on iron beds. The idea was to strengthen their lungs and stiffen their resistance to cold and hardship. In the winter, as snow and sleet blew through the wire mesh, the children would pull the beds into the center of the room and huddle away from the wind and ice. Pamela recalls how they were taken on walks along the seafront in order to benefit from the sea breeze and then put to bed for two hours during the day to recover.
Playtimes were restricted to half an hour a day, parental visits to an hour at most. Hugging or kissing was discouraged. To reach the hospital my parents caught a bus, two trains and another bus, only to sit at a table with Pam for an hour. When my father had to work on Saturdays our mother would visit accompanied by an aunt as she lacked the confidence to travel by train alone.
Children were not allowed to cry. If they cried or complained, they could be locked in a room with barred windows. Pamela remembers staring out through the bars, crying for our father to come and take her home. There were no beatings or threats of physical violence, but children were “sent to Coventry” for any misdemeanor.18 This punishment involved complete isolation, effectively a form of solitary confinement. For a specified period, the child would be treated as though they did not exist. Any child who tried to contact them would suffer the same penalty themselves. Pamela recalls several occasions where she was shut away in a cupboard or small room, without food or drink, and not allowed to go to the bathroom. Once, she was so thirsty she drank her own urine.
One day Pamela escaped. She passed through the dormitory, into the corridor and out through the front door unobserved. The train station was only a few hundred yards away. She reasoned in her young mind that if only she could get on a train it would take her home. She boarded the first train to arrive and hid in the baggage compartment. By then, her absence was noticed. The nurses raised the alarm. Police delayed the train and searched each carriage. They found Pamela hiding among the luggage. Why had she run away? She did her best to explain. The hours locked in silent rooms, the punishments, the restrictions, the abuse. No one listened. She was taken back to the hospital and found herself in a locked room once more. She lost all track of time. It was light when she entered the barred room, then dark and quiet, and light once more when they let her out.
There were twelve girls in Pam’s dormitory. She was the only one to survive. Time after time the staff carried a small body to the morgue. Occasionally, some of the other girls managed to sneak in and hide underneath the bed where the body of a friend lay. So intense was their need for attachment and love. A close bond developed between the girls. While they were together, they were safe.
Pamela