Although the doctor usually came to do vaccinations and check-ups on our progress, writing down his findings on special forms, there were other times when he was called out to someone who was ill. We all had the usual illnesses, being together so much and passing them on to each other. I know from my medical records that I had whooping cough when I was two and I remember the doctor coming to see me when I had measles, aged three and a half. But the worst thing I ever had was salmonella food poisoning when I was about three, because I had to be taken to Hagley Green Hospital in the doctor’s car. I must have been very ill with it as I was kept in for about five weeks.
Throughout the summer, the staff would sometimes organise games for us, like taking turns hitting the ball. But I never joined in those games for very long as I lost interest in balls and bats. Instead, I would go off to a little den I’d made and study the insects that hid under the logs.
I wasn’t really interested in group games. For me the biggest entertainment was the gardens, the beautiful place we lived and the countryside around it – I just loved playing there. I looked at the buttercups and how they were made; I watched the butterflies flitting about and settling, so that I could study the patterns on their wings.
One day, my housemother came over and sat on the grass with me, watching the bees buzzing over a clump of lavender. ‘I like bees,’ she said. ‘They are good for the flowers, taking pollen from one to another and back to their hives, where they make honey.’
‘Really?’ I asked in wonder. ‘Do the bees make our honey that we sometimes have at teatime?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she nodded with a smile.
‘But they sting, don’t they?’ I continued. ‘David had a bee sting.’
‘Not usually, only if they feel threatened. David was trying to hit them with his bat. Bees only sting if they think we are trying to hurt them, but wasps are the ones you want to look out for. They can give you a nasty sting, so best to stay clear of them.’
‘How do I know if it’s a wasp?’
As my housemother explained the differences, I took it all in and never forgot it. From an early age I was fascinated by nature and loved to learn about it.
As well as organised games and a large amount of space to build dens and trees to climb, we had swings and small climbing frames, which we took turns on.
I don’t remember having any best friends at Field House because we were all friends together – I liked everybody and none of them were horrible or selfish, so we just got on. We missed the older ones when they had to leave, but new children came in to replace them and it was all part of the pattern of our lives. We were all different ages under five, so it was like a big family. Yes, that’s exactly the right word: it was the ethos of the place, we all felt loved and looked after. We took it for granted, cocooned as we were from the outside world, not knowing that children’s homes could be any different.
Of course, children were occasionally naughty and they would have their legs slapped. If they were very naughty, they would have to go and see Matron. That induced the fear, oh yes! Just the thought of it put them off doing anything naughty again.
I wasn’t immune. Sometimes I did get into minor trouble, possibly for over-eating – I did a lot of that! Or maybe I didn’t come when I was called. I have to admit that there were occasions when I ignored the call because I wanted a bit of extra time – I suppose all children do that. It was usually when I was in the garden. I used to love it so much that I was often in a dream, but when they called us, we had to toe the line, we had to go in. If they wanted to wash me down, there was no messing about: it was soap and water time and that was that.
As I approached four, I became more aware of the beauty of Field House, both inside and out. It was a classical design – Georgian, I think. Through the elegant porch and the huge front door was a beautiful hallway that stretched so far ahead, it seemed to me to go on for ever. There was oak panelling along the left-hand side and an old oak sideboard. A huge chandelier reflected the light in the centre of the hall and to the right was a grand oak staircase with beautiful carved banisters and turned finials, polished to a high sheen. In fact, it was the sweet smell of beeswax polish that pervaded the whole house. When I stood at the bottom of the stairs and craned my neck, I could see all the way up the staircase as it curved round and round the squares of space, through each floor, creating a pyramid effect, at the top of which was a beautiful painted ceiling. Every landing was surrounded by huge oak doors and the only light flooded down from skylights at the very top.
‘You must never go up those stairs,’ I remember Matron telling us one day. It was an order. But, on one occasion, looking upwards, I began to wonder what was on the upper floors. It was just curiosity, but almost involuntarily, I found myself climbing up the first flight of stairs. Halfway up, I realised what I had done and looked over the banisters, but there was nobody in sight, just distant sounds from the kitchens. Everybody else seemed to be outside, so I tiptoed on up the polished treads to the first landing. There were doors everywhere, all of them closed. I was desperate to go and see what was inside one of the rooms, but I didn’t dare – somebody might be lurking behind, ready to pounce on me. I dreaded to think what my punishment would be. I turned to go back down, but it was too late.
One of the doors opened and Matron herself came out.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in her sternest voice as she towered over me.
I could barely get the words out. ‘S-s-sorry Matron …’
‘You know you’re not supposed to be up here?’
‘Yes, Matron.’ I hung my head, expecting the worst.
‘Well, go straight back down those stairs and never come up here again. Do you understand?’
‘Y-y-yes Matron. I’m sorry.’
She was pointing at the stairs, so I began to clamber down them as quickly as I dared, until my housemother arrived and took my hand to help me down the rest and sent me out to play with the others on the grass.
Later, at bedtime, she kindly reinforced the message, as Matron had probably asked her to do. But she said it with a tolerant smile.
‘I’m sure you were just curious,’ she said.
‘Yes, I only wanted to see …’
‘There’s nothing much up there,’ she explained. ‘Just offices, staff bedrooms and lots of cupboards, where we keep the clothes and sheets and things.’
I nodded. I couldn’t help being inquisitive and adventurous, which did lead me into other tricky situations from time to time, but I never ventured up the stairs again.
The sleeping arrangements at Field House were very straightforward. Being such a grand house, all the downstairs rooms were very large, with high ceilings and long sash windows, letting in generous beams of light. The babies were all in a room beyond the staircase, in their cots.
The first door to the left of the front door led into the girls’ dormitory, which I never saw inside. The boys’ dormitory was the same but opposite, to the right of the front door and looking out over the front lawns. There were usually about 10 to 12 of us in there, our little metal-framed beds placed at intervals around the walls of the room, with tables and chairs in the centre for us to play at if the weather was bad, though in my memories it hardly ever was. The room itself had been stripped bare of its grandeur and painted white, but it still had its wooden floors and the ceiling’s decorative cornices. There were full-length curtains at every window.
My bed was by the window at the far side of the room, so I had a remarkable view in the daylight, but there were no lights outside, which made it so dark at night that it seemed almost haunted. I was glad then that I wasn’t alone.