‘Yes, well, I’m going to take them to the clinic,’ Mam said.
‘And when were you planning to do that?’
Mam was really flustered now, covering her face with her hands so the Inspector had to tell her he couldn’t hear what she was saying.
‘Just as soon as I can,’ she mumbled, then started crying. ‘It’s not easy with eight kids and no money coming in. You should try it.’
The Inspector had crouched down on the floor and was looking at Freddie. ‘This boy has a terrible rash all over his chest,’ he said, and I could see him drawing his hands back and putting them in his pocket as if he was scared of catching something. ‘Where’s your next youngest?’ He consulted a piece of paper. ‘Terence, isn’t it?’
Mam looked around and caught sight of me cowering behind the settee. ‘There he is.’ She pointed.
Next thing, the Inspector leaned over and grabbed me by the arm and hauled me out, kicking and cursing.
‘Get off me, you! Leave me alone.’
He held me just long enough to get a look at my snotty nose – I always seemed to have a cold in those days – and the itchy scabs all over my legs.
‘I’m going to get a doctor to come and look at these children,’ he said. ‘They need medical treatment.’
He stood up and wrote something on his papers and then made for the door. ‘I’ll return later, Mrs O’Neill,’ he said. ‘Make sure all the children are here when I get back.’
After he left, Mam sat sobbing on the settee. I wanted to run out the door and escape but Dennis talked me out of it.
‘Maybe the doctor will give us something to stop the itching,’ he said. ‘That’d be good, wouldn’t it?’
I wasn’t convinced, but if Dennis was staying, I decided I would as well.
When the doctor came later with his big black medical bag, I noticed he wore gloves to examine us, as if we were too dirty to touch. We lined up in front of him and one by one he listened to our chests and looked at our arms and legs and peered into our ears and eyes. The Inspector stood behind him with his arms folded.
After a while the doctor stood up. ‘The four youngest children need hospital treatment,’ he said. ‘They’ll never get better in these conditions.’ He looked around the room. ‘I’ll arrange for them to be picked up.’
‘Where are you taking them?’ Mam cried. ‘I don’t know what their father will have to say about this.’
‘Just to St Woolos hospital, Mrs O’Neill. We’ll sort them out there and they’ll be home before you know it.’ He glanced at the Inspector. ‘We’ll be in touch to let you know, at any rate.’
I looked at Dennis and he didn’t seem to be bothered by this turn of events. ‘We’ll get lots of grub in hospital,’ he whispered to me. ‘And I won’t have to go to school.’
But the doctor and the Inspector were big scary men and I was worried that they were going to put me in handcuffs and lock me away, as they had done to Tom, so when they came to pick us up I tried to hide and I was screaming my head off as they dragged me out into a van parked in the street outside. Freddie was crying too, but Rose and Dennis were sitting quietly so I soon calmed down, following their lead.
When we got to the hospital, the first thing I saw was a big grand front doorway with wide steps, which to me seemed really posh. We were taken up to the ward in a lift with criss-cross metal gates that clanked shut. I giggled when I first saw the nurses because they looked so funny with big white caps that were like boats perched on top of their heads. They gave us all hot baths, then one of them painted brown liquid all over my skin, from neck to toes, and I wriggled when she got to the ticklish bits. They were nice, those nurses: smiling and gentle and good fun.
The four of us were put in the same ward, each with our own bed, which was a luxury I’d never experienced before. I loved the feel of the crisp white sheets and the clean, starchy smell and the fact that I had my own little bedside cupboard, despite having nothing to put in it. At mealtimes, a trolley came round with fantastic food, the likes of which I’d never tried before. There were chunks of real meat in the stews, and mashed turnips and puddings with creamy yellow custard. One day we had tripe cooked in milk and Rose wouldn’t eat it because she said it was disgusting, that it was made from cows’ stomachs, but I thought it was very tasty.
It was Christmas while we were in hospital and we got a special dinner that day with turkey and stuffing and roast potatoes, which was the best meal I’d ever had in my life. Everyone was in a good mood. The nurses tied lots of balloons round Freddie’s bed and tried to teach him how to sing ‘Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run’. We all laughed till our sides hurt as he tried to copy them because at not-quite-three years old he couldn’t pronounce the letter ‘R’ so it came out as ‘Wun, wabbit’. It was a really happy day.
We stayed in St Woolos hospital for a few weeks, and the rash on my skin cleared up rapidly. It was great not to be scratching my legs till they bled the whole time. The matron also gave me medicines to help clear my chest, and my nose stopped running constantly, which was a welcome relief. Then one day we were told to get dressed in the clothes we’d arrived in, which had been washed and pressed for us. Dennis, Rose and I lined up at the end of our beds, and watched as the Inspector came into the ward and greeted the nurses.
‘Are we all ready?’ he said to us.
We nodded.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Off we go.’
I was sad leaving the ward because I’d really liked the nurses and the lovely food and having my own bed. I assumed we were being taken back home again to sleeping crushed up in a rough old bed and feeling hungry most of the time.
‘What about Freddie?’ Dennis asked, and was told he would be following on later.
Dennis and I were ushered into a van outside, but Rose went off separately. No one told us where she was going. No one told us where we were going either, but instead of taking us back towards Pillgwenlly, I realized we were being driven into the centre of Newport and soon we pulled up outside a great big house on the top of Stow Hill.
‘What are we doing here?’ Dennis asked.
‘This is your new home,’ the Inspector told us. ‘For a while at any rate. It’s a children’s home. You’ll be looked after here until we decide what we’re going to do with you next. Be good boys, mind, and I’m sure you’ll like it.’
I looked up at the big, smart-looking building set in nice gardens and I decided that if it was anything like the hospital, that would be OK with me. I didn’t mind if we weren’t going home. I didn’t miss Mam or my older brothers or sister. The only person I cared about – Dennis – was there with me and with him around, everything was sure to be fine.
I didn’t realize there was a war on until I got to Stow Hill Children’s Home in January 1940, despite the fact that my dad had signed up to fight. Somehow it hadn’t got through to me that Hitler had invaded Poland and we had declared war on Germany as a result. I was only five years old, so that’s my excuse. But one of the first things we learned at Stow Hill was that when the air-raid warning sounded it meant there were German planes in the sky and we had to run to the shelter in case they dropped a bomb on us.
If the sirens sounded during the day, we ran to the shelter entrance which was in the big yard surrounded by a high wall where we played at the back of the building. If they went off at night, we had to leave our