I have been woefully absent from these pages for some time. For that, I apologize. The subject matter has been no less present in my thoughts, merely my availability to give it energy has been tapped by the day-to-day demands of life. I have moved back to California. I have been working full time. Moving. Living. But I am still here. I continue to get messages, and emails from women who have been impacted by Mother and Baby Homes. From curious researchers, inspired production companies, interested students. This thread between myself and the women who were impacted by Mother and Baby Homes has not disappeared. We are still linked, I have just been on something of a sabbatical. But I can feel that sabbatical drawing to a close, and my energy slowly turning back towards the topic at hand. Back towards the Homes. Back towards the women. Their babies. Their grown children. Out in the world, needing to know more. Needing to connect to each other. Needing to connect to their own experiences. To contextualize and contemplate what the impact of these Homes has been to themselves, their children, and the world around them.
I have a few ideas on where I want to go with the research. What I want to pursue next. What I’m curious to know, and share, and uncover. I would like to accumulate more imagery from the homes, the women and their children. I would like to flesh out the stories of some of the individual homes. I would like to highlight the experiences of some specific women. I would like to consider the lives of their children.
However, I would also like to hear from you. What are you curious to know? What would you like to read more about? See more of? Who would you like to hear from? Please leave a comment below to let me know so that this can be a dialog, not a lecture. That is my goal. That is the goal of oral history. To create a dialogue. With you.
My Mother was born at the Salvation Army Hospital march 1914 , Her mother was unmarried domestic servant ,curious to know if any record are still there ,I understand sometimes they tried to trace the fathers and somewhere saw there maybe the girls statements that may contain Fathers name ,
You could try http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb2133-mh
Does anyone know the address of the C\E mother and baby home that used to be on Harrow on the hill I am trying to trace my daughter who was born in a local hospital I am not sure 1965 or 1966 I have had a massive breakdow and lost lots of years from my life in the 1960\1970s
The home I lived in was in Harrow on the Hill in London I went into the home at about 7months pregnant life was not easy we had to do all the chores like lighting the big range scrubbing floors and polishing the brass handles on all the doors we also had to clean the stairs carpet by had with a brush and pan I used to get up about 4am in the morning to get my duties done if the where something I could do before others arose. I think the worse thing was after you had your baby you where sent back to the home with the baby and cared for it until the church found parents to adopt it. I still can remember a lot of things that happened but also have a lot of blank pieces as I suffered a massive nervous breakdown in the early 70s nothing to do with me having the baby. Another thing I remember was I did not even have a photo of my daughter so I had nothing at all to keep. Her father was in a very famous American pop band of the time and returned to the USA saying he would send for me which of course he never did. And he has now died so I suppose that is the end of the story,
The srory never ends Carole – Have a look at the website http://www.movementforanadoptionapology.org and please sign the petition. An apology we feel would allow acknowledgement of what we all suffered.
I need information about Mother and baby home/s in Stratford Upon Avon, 1967.
I would love to talk to anyone who was in Hopedene Elswick Road Newcastle-upon-Tyne between Febuary 1964 and early June of same year . My name was Pauline Sutcliffe .
I was sent to a mother and baby home in SW London in the early 1960s. My memoir No Decent Girl will be published by Unbound if enough sponspers pledge to support the book. See https://unbound.co.uk/books/no-decent-girl
I was adopted in July 1952. I traced my birth mother in the 1980’s but sadly that didn’t work out. As a result I destroyed all research I had made so I am now starting again. I believe she had me in a mother and baby home in Tiddington, Stratford. I have ordered my birth certificate but my father’s name I know isn’t on it. I know his first name, he was in the R.A.F, from Wales and that’s it. I would so like to know who he was. Is it possible with do little to go on?
Kind Regards,
Penny Nichols
That would probably be the Monroe Devis, Tiddington, Stratford-upon-avon