The Garden and Sports:
The grounds of Bramham House also had a very large garden which was maintained by Mr. Dickenson, all sorts of vegetable were produced here and fruit such as Pears, Gooseberries and Blackberries which were all gathered and used by the home.
The cook would use the off ripe tomatoes for making Chutney and the Gooseberries and Blackcurrant for jam making and stored in the Pantry.
On Saturday mornings and after breakfast (there being no school,) the children would continue with their given tasks. On more than one occasion I would be tasked to polishing the entire cutlery with Bluebell.
This I would do in the Scullery and then lay it out on the table for inspection. One could not just place it in a heap; it all had to be displayed in an orderly fashion individually. If having passed the scrutiny you would then wash and dry it all up and place it all in the kitchen drawer and then if the weather was fine, allowed to play outside.
The Matron preferred us out of the house because one can well imagine the incessant noise and chatter that 36 children can make and she certainly wouldn't put up with any misbehaviour.
From a very early age I enjoyed all types of sport especially football and cricket and it was mainly these two sports that I indulged in.
Although we made friends at school, after school hours even if invited to a friends to tea or to play, this was not allowed so we all felt very isolated and remote and as time went on we came to know Bramham House as Prison without Bars .
This graffiti was daubed on the outside border wall facing the main road for all and sundry to see. If it started to rain we would then be called to come indoors and would go to the playrooms.
There were two playrooms, the larger one facing the lawn and leading out to the balcony (originally the library) and the smaller one next to this one and adjacent to the dining hall (originally the ballroom), was the cloakroom used by the guests who attended the dances.
In the larger of the two playrooms was a piano accordion which played music by pressing ones feet on the large foot pedals. The music was on metal scrolls (similar to rolling pins) which rotated as one pressed down on the pedals and played the music and the keys on the piano would go up and down as if one was actually playing.
The piano could also be played in the conventional way. In the playroom you would more than likely find me and three other boys in the far corner on our hands and knees engaged in a game of cricket with marbles.
It was always Test match cricket between England and Australia and we knew every present cricketers name at that time. We made the wickets out of matchsticks and the bat fashioned out of a piece of wood.
Both sets of team's names we had on a sheet of paper and every run scored war recorded. I must have spent literally hundreds of hours day after day playing this game especially in the winter months when you couldn't go outside because of the weather.
On Sundays we all changed into our Sunday best and went to church for the mornings service. The local vicar's name was Mr. Shephard.
After the morning service it was back to the home for dinner and then back to the church for 2 o'clock Sunday school which would be for about an hour. After several weeks the home gradually began to fill with new faces until we had the full compliment of 36 children and we that had been there from the beginning took it upon ourselves to show the newcomers the ropes.
In these early days the country was still on rationing which didn't really affect us as children as it would have done to a normal family.
Anyone living in the village the parents of the household would have to produce their rationing book to obtain sugar, butter meat etc which was all weighed and then distributed depending on the size of the family.
We at the children's home had most of the produce home grown, we had pigs and hens so there was no problem there .
To get sweets from the shops in the village we were issued with sweet coupons. During the Easter holidays we never had Easter Eggs as one gets them today made of chocolate.
The cook would hard boil the hens eggs and the staff (when the eggs had cooled) would paint them in a multitude of colours and paint a face on them with ones name. If the weather was fine we would all go out on to the lawn after being handed your egg.
You would then in pairs place them at the top of the rockery slope release them at the same time and the one reaching the lawn first was declared the winner. All the winners were then paired off until a winner was declared. During the Whitsun bank holiday the girls would change from their winter clothing into their summer dresses and we the boys into white shirts and sandals.
On nice warm evenings we would take the table cloths from the dining hall, place them on the lawn and have a picnic. In those days there was no music to entertain us in the home and television was unheard of to the majority of people.
There were however many occasions when members of staff working in the sewing room would put their wireless on with the window slightly open and the music would drift over the forecourt where I was playing either football or cricket.
Most of the music in those days was by artists from the war such as Vera Lynne, Gracie Fields, and Anne Shelton along with the likes as Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Perry Como.
The big band sounds of Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, Ray Dorsey and Billy Cotton to name but a few.
So life went on in the same routine day after day. When I became bored as I often did, I would go down to the Laundry room to talk to Mrs. Young. She was a lovely kind lady who showed compassion and understanding and would listen to what you said to her.
I used to be fascinated in the workings of the Laundry, great big cauldrons everywhere with steam billowing from them, a big steam press used for ironing the bed sheets, a large mangle for wringing the clothes out.
Right next door to the Laundry was a small boiler room which Mr. Dickenson would stoke and maintain regularly.
It was fed sometimes with coal, coke or anthracite. It would get bitterly cold down this part of the house and it was on many occasions I would sneak into the boiler house to get warm.
The only other part of the house that emitted any sort of heat on this ground level, was in the kitchen in front of the cooking range.
I suppose the average age of the children would have been about Nine to Ten when I first arrived at the home. The eldest child was Roy Thorpe who was about fourteen and then John Knowles a couple of months younger.
The two eldest girls were Florence Jarvis and Mary Knowles both aged thirteen. When a child reached school leaving age which was fifteen the child would also leave Bramham House so when Roy and John left they were replaced by two new boys. The two girls Florence and Mary when they left were probably replaced by my two sisters Pat and Olive.
When my two sisters arrived I cannot recall the occasion or of being told they were present it was just one of those things, they were here full stop end of the matter so to speak.
Holidays:
The summer holidays were mostly spent in Robin Hoods Bay, we usually had a three weeks vacation there.
The coach would arrive on the forecourt in mid morning and off we would go. As the coach departed we would all burst into song "its a long way to Robin Hoods Bay, it's a long way to go? Farewell Bramham House Farewell Boston Spa. This was to the tune of the war song Tipperary.
I don't remember Mr. Holmes coming with us on holiday, he probably stayed at the home to oversee the daily running of the home; Mrs. Holmes always came with us and also three members of the staff.
After disembarking from the coach we would all climb up the long steps to the school where we were being accommodated? This is a photograph of the steps leading to the school. |
The sleeping quarters at the school were in the main assembly room, this was the largest room in the school.
The walls were all covered in paintings drawings and sketches that the children of the school had done before their summer break. We all slept on camp beds which were then folded and put away after the nights sleep and replaced with trestles for the meals. There was no playground at the school so at the rear of the school we would go out to play.
This was on a grass knoll that led up to the Coast Guard Station on top of the cliffs. If the weather was fine and the tide was out, we would all in crocodile file wend our way to the beach with buckets and spades in hand.
I used to love going to the beach mainly because of the freedom and the open space, the fresh air and the sound and smell of the sea and exploring.
Often one would find me when the tide was way out wading far out to sea looking for Starfish Crabs Lobsters and above all else Sea Urchins. Why Sea Urchins? Because I knew I could sell them for sixpence each to a fisherman who used to be sat in the vicinity on the approach to the beach tending his lobster pots.
I remember making as much as two and sixpence on one day, that's five Sea Urchins. I being such a distance from the beach and out of sight of the Matron would scamper with my prized captures to the fisherman.
It wasn't just a case of handing the Sea Urchins over; they had to be the finished article so with penknife in hand I would gut them, swill them out and them take the spikes off by rubbing them off on a rough surface. |
