Originally Posted by
Paddy
I looked through those posts Ged the children?s admission unit on Acrefield road was for taking in kids who had come into care. Some kids would return to their families after very short periods others would be filtered through into the system. I went there from Bootle as I had become hostile to the foster parents in Bootle as I thought they were squandering money that was for keeping us. As in going on benders. My first home was Nazareth house Crosby run by nuns I went there when I was ten months old till I was nine and they sent me to Bootle. That was hard for me as I had previously only known the convent up until then. However I adapted. I was head butted and kicked in the balls a few times so I learn?t to fight back and stand up for myself. I wasn?t a little altar boy anymore and I had to react. Then when you start fighting back the label wild is applied.
Arriving in South Liverpool was the best thing for me it wasn?t all roses and I was very badly treated at Menlove Avenue while waiting to go to New Heys. New Heys was fantastic they had ladders in the trees and swings and you could play football and go out to the park unsupervised it was a very happy place and all the kids had a room of their own. Most of the homes in south Liverpool were okay except for Westfield the guy who run that one was eventually prosecuted. Parkfield was progressive and most of the kids were happy. There was a convent in Woolton that had a bad name but I never went there so I cannot comment. I read your post and your right, people should be able to talk about their upbringing freely. With the Catholic church acting as they are up until nine I have no childhood no photographs nothing you are never asked about or invited to reunions. Effectively your childhood does not exist it is taboo because it is a source of embarrassment for them. I never see pictures or read about the history of the place that was and still is the largest institution in Liverpool. When we were kids we marched every were in two?s forming a line quite long. If we went to the pictures or school or the shops. We had the nickname the Nazis because we came from Nazareth house that was abbreviated to Nazi house. The regime inside was very harsh on the kids. You went to church every single day first thing in the morning. Sundays you just got religion all day. Well what kind of a childhood is that? And I know it upsets people but it is the truth that some Nuns were very cruel to the Children. Still it is something they will not and won?t admit and so the victims remained emotionally in limbo.
Hi Paddy
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I was in a childrens home in Druids Cross rd in Woolton, It was called St. Catherines convent for girls, or st. catherines ophanage , I have been trying to finds out its history for years, some people get it mixed up with Knoll Park which was around the corner. My brothers where both in knoll park in the 1950s, st catherines belonged to a merchant taylor who gave the mansion to the sisters of de paul in the 1920s which became st. catherines, it was a huge white house , with a chapel on the side, it was a wonderful building, which i can still see vividly ,it had tennis courts, it grew its own fruit and vegtables, it was set in large grounds, it was demolished in the early eighties and now expensive house have been build since, all that is left of the beautiful old mansion is the coach house, which at the time was the laundry house, but now someone lives there, I had some many wonderful memories of st. catherines, which sadly closed down in 1971 because the city council could not afford to help the sisters of de paul run it, all the children where shipped off to different foster homes, across the city, i would love to meet up anyone who remembers me from them days
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