The Royal Navy:
I caught the bus to Leeds at the bottom of Tenter hill to board the train to Manchester where I duly arrived at the medical centre.
After being informed I was medically fit I was now accommodated in a hostel with other successful volunteers to stay overnight in Manchester.
The next day we all caught the train to Ipswich and then a naval coach to a village called Shotley where the naval establishment was H.M.S Ganges.
After proclaiming our alliance to the Queen we signed the papers and were now enlisted in the Royal Navy on the 11th October 1955.
The discipline and routine of Bramham House put me in good stead for those early months training in the Navy, a lot of the boys found it hard going.
In the Christmas of that year we were sent on two weeks leave and me having nowhere to go I spent my leave back at Bramham House.
I didn't like this two week period at all because instead of having my meals at the table with the children I knew, I was seated with the staff which made me feel uncomfortable and embarrassed.
I was also put into a spare single bedroom where I felt isolated. This was the last occasion I was to live within the walls of Bramham House but I did correspond with the home when I was posted to the Far East.
Return to Bramham:
Many years passed before I was to see Bramham House again and it came completely out of the blue. My wife Mary and I regularly visit my eldest son David for a few days in Chester usually in the August.
During our stay at his home in 1999 we were going to spend the day in York when David asked me out of the blue if I would like to visit Bramham on the way. This came as a nice thoughtful gesture as I had no preconceived thoughts of ever going back to visit, it was just past memories.
We arrived at Bramham at about lunchtime and went into the Red Lion and had a snack lunch and a beer. I asked the landlord if Bramham House was still there and he assured me that it was.
I took this to mean that it was still being used as a children's home. After lunch we strolled down the high street and visited the old familiar Post Office and pointed out where Bramham School used to be. Instead of going my old route past the Bay Horse Hotel towards the old crossroads and up the bottom path I took them up the Almshouse Hill and approached the house from the top of the main drive entrance. From the top of the drive one cannot see the building, it's only when you have gone about fifty yards and the drive curves to your left that you see the building.
What beheld me was an unbelievable sight.
I was looking at a ruined derelict building all shuttered up and boarded, it really was a terrible shock and made me feel sick to the stomach to see this once wonderful building completely neglected.
I took my wife and son to the rear of the house where we used to picnic on the beautiful lawn on hot summer days. Rolling those Easter eggs down the slope, now it looked like a jungle with the grass waist high.
In the midst of the grass Mary noticed a rose bush covered in bright red roses and chose one to take back with us. We proceeded to the front of the house again and I spoke to the duty ambulance man in the ambulance building to enquire the future plans that were in the pipeline regarding the future prospects of the house.
He told me that as far as he knew it was on the market to be sold and the keys to the house were held at an Estates agency in Wetherby.
He also informed me that the police did regular spot checks because of the vandalism that had been taking place; he also remarked that most of the lead had been stolen from the roof .
We then went to the back yard and the backdoor where we the children always used, (never the front door that was for staff only) and David came across a loose brick which we kept as a keepsake.
I said to my son that there was a tree I had carved my name on in 1952 and I wonder if the tree is still there, he asked me if I still remembered where the tree was and I said I'd certainly remember. Sure enough I took them straight to the tree and there was my name still there after all those years. After the visit to the house we then went to Bramham Church where I would go every Sunday.
The door was open which surprised me and so we went in and I signed the visitor's book and then carried on our journey to York, I only regret not taking a camera with us. When Mary and I arrived back home down here in the New Forest Mary placed the Rose in a picture frame and the fragment of the house David picked up is still with us on the kitchen window ledge. In August 2002 we were again at David's home for a few days holiday and intending once again to
visit York when David suggested we pay another visit to Bramham but this time with a camera to take some shots.
We again arrived at Bramham about lunchtime and I not feeling hungry decided to go outside the Red Lion just for a moment to myself. On entering the pub I told Mary and David I would be in the other bar whilst they finished their lunch and got talking to a local who I thought was roughly my age so hopefully he would be able to remember certain people.
He said he knew one of my school pals Billy Firth and he was surprised he wasn't in the bar as we were speaking and if I hung on for a little while he would turn up at any moment. I waited as long as I could and then decided to make tracks to Bramham House
We took some photos in the village square and then made our way up to the home. Approaching the house it looked far worse than it did just a couple of years previously. The weeds and grass had now really taken over and the whole house seemed so sad and neglected, it really was a sad sight, such a shame. |
