Call Me Auntie

Anne Harrison

Description

A truly original story of life in and after care. A unique account of trans-racial fostering which focuses on identity, family history and loss. Call Me Auntie adds to the literature of post-Windrush 1950s Britain and tells of 'Heartbreak House' care homes.

Informations

• Publié par: Waterside Press
• Date de parution: 07 septembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781906534486
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Call Me Auntie
My Childhood in Care and My Search for My Mother
Anne Harrison
Copyright and publication details
Call Me Auntie: My Childhood in Care and My Search for My Mother
Anne Harrison
ISBN 978-1-909976-80-1 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-906534-48-6 (Epub ebook)
ISBN 978-1-906534-57-8 (Adobe ebook)
Copyright © 2020 This work is the copyright of Anne Elizabeth Harrison. All intellectual property and associated rights are hereby asserted and reserved by the author in full compliance with UK, European and international law. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, including in hard copy or via the internet, without the prior written permission of the publishers to whom all such rights have been assigned worldwide.
Cover design © 2020 Waterside Press by www.gibgob.com
Main UK distributor Gardners Books, 1 Whittle Drive, Eastbourne, BN23 6QH. Tel: [phone]; [e-mail] ; www.gardners.com
North American distribution Ingram Book Company, One Ingram Blvd, La Vergne, TN 37086, USA. Tel: [phone]; [e-mail]
Cataloguing In-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.
Ebook Call Me Auntie is available as an ebook including via library models.
Published 2020 by
Waterside Press Ltd
Sherfield Gables
Sherfield on Loddon, Hook
Hampshire RG27 0JG.
Telephone [phone]
Online catalogue WatersidePress.co.uk
Email [e-mail]
Table of Contents
About the author v
Acknowledgements viii
Dedication ix
Publisher’s note x
Preface xi Welcome to the System 15 This is Home 19 Why Can’t I Go to Australia? 35 Heartbreak House 41 The Bensons Arrive 53 My Failed Passage to Australia 59 I Have a Mother — and a Brother! 73 Call me Auntie 83 Why are You Asking Me? 93 Leaving the System 103 My Mother — Lost, Found, and Lost Again 111 Revelations 131
Afterword — A Princess After All 137
Index 141
About the author
Anne Harrison was brought up in care. She was a shop assistant before she joined the Warwickshire Police. From there she became a social worker and social care manager in the West Midlands and Warwickshire. Happily retired, Anne lives with her husband in Coventry. She has one son and two stepsons, all grown up.
‘Anne’s story is a compelling account, not just of her search for her birth mother but of her extraordinary journey from being a child in care, then qualifying as a social worker and finally becoming a magistrate. I read it at a sitting and could not put it down. Her account of life in a children’s home in the 1960s and 1970s deserves to find a place on every social work training course’
Retired Judge Robert Zara.
‘This is an excellent read for anyone who has compassion. The author had a really tough childhood brought up by the care system. She raises really important questions. A must-read for anyone who wants to make a difference for children and their lives. Make it compulsory for all social work students’
John Bolton, Visiting Professor, Institute of Public Care, Oxford Brookes University, and a former Director of Social Services.
‘A family tie is like a tree: it can bend, but it cannot break.’
Eyamidé Ella Lewis-Coker 1
‘You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.’
Maya Angelou 2


1 . African Proverbs, Parables, and Wise Sayings: Sierra Leone, West Africa (AuthorHouse, 2011), p. 20.

2 . Letter to My Daughter (Virago Press, 2009), p. x.
Acknowledgements
Many people have helped me write this book. As I explain in the text, Warwickshire County Council provided me with much of the documentary raw material, and without this I could never have begun it. I discussed the concept and detail many times with my brother John and sister-in-law (also) Anne, and with Dorothy Hill and Robert Zara. A chance conversation with Colin Partridge revealed an astonishing connection over more than 50 years.
I was able to use some photographs of my early life supplied by the late Constance Reed, and a few contemporary photos taken by my husband Mark. Other photographs in the book are all from my personal collection unless otherwise credited.
At the final stage John Bolton, Lynda Hammond, Fiona Kaplan, Ros Taylor, my friend Myra, John, Anne (my sister-in-law) and Mark read the typescript and gave me comments and advice. I thank them all.
Anne Harrison
July 2020
Dedication
I dedicate this book to three precious people in order of their appearance:
My brother John
My son Roy
My husband Mark.
Publisher’s note
The views and opinions in this book are those of the author and not necessarily shared by the publisher. Readers should draw their own conclusions concerning the possibility of alternative accounts, descriptions or explanations and be aware that the text occasionally contains language from the era concerned (including in official correspondence) that might not be acceptable today. Certain names have been changed.
Preface
When you grow up in a family your parents keep mementoes of your childhood. When you meet as a family, with parents and brothers and sisters, you tell and retell what happened, where you went, what you did, and what you felt. Each one has their own perspective, and memory is not always consistent or faithful, but this is part of how you understand where you came from and who you are.
I was taken into the care of the county council before I was one year old. For nearly all my adult life, I had little record of my childhood — a few photographs, a handful of letters. I never saw my original birth certificate; I was given a copy only at 17. My memories were often hazy and confused. I knew — or thought I knew — only a few basics of my background and upbringing, with little or nothing against which I could check my recollections. I have a brother, whom I love dearly, but we were brought up separately. He knows nothing of my life before I was 12. I have a mother, but she says she does not know me.
In my sixtieth year, because of a chance sequence of events, I obtained my social services file — a file that I was once told had been destroyed. For the first time I could map my memories against the official paperwork of my early life. This book tells what I remembered from before and what I discovered next.
To protect the privacy of people still living that I grew up with, I have changed some names, though not all. Most importantly, in this book my mother is called by the name to which she was born, rather than by the one under which she lives today. Where names have been altered or removed in documents from which I quote, this is shown by square brackets.

A photo of me as I am today.
List of Illustrations
A photo of me as I am today. xii
Here I am to Vera’s right, holding her elbow. 23
Mum Reed holding Vera (left); Valerie, Marilyn, Peter, David, and Christine Reed; Dad Reed holding me. 26
Vera (left), Mum Reed, me, and Marilyn Reed. 26
Valerie Reed (left), me, Marilyn Reed, Vera, and Les Reed junior. 27
Me (left) and Vera at the Rootes Social Club, Coventry. 28
In fancy dress: Vera (left) and me. 29
Me (second left) and Vera as lollipop ladies, with Mum and Dad Reed on holiday in Yarmouth. 29
Mickey (left), me, and Karen in Newbold. 33
Memo from Mrs Fletcher to the Children’s Committee, 20 April 1966. 40
My old children’s home, Charles Street, Rugby, in May 2014. I stand in the street outside. One of the two children’s ‘boot-room’ entrances can be seen on the left. 41
The gable end of the home in May 2014. 42
My clothing record for April 1969 to March 1970. 45
Foster sisters: Christine Reed (left) with Karen, Mickey, and Anne. 52
This is me as a nine year old. 52
My letter to the Reeds in Australia, not dated but roughly October 1968. 61
Early 1972: With Mum Reed in Wicksteed Park. Seated: Karen (left), Mickey, and Peter, Mum Reed’s grandson. 69
With my friends at White City Stadium, London, around 1971. 72
SS Flandre: Passengers landing 10 March 1960. 73
Hazel 1971 or before. 78
From Hazel to me, 23 June 1971. 84
‘Your father is living in West Africa …’Letter from Hazel to me, 14 April 1973. 88
‘Do not be too upset please …’. Letter from Hazel to me, 4 September 1973. 91
My Bloxam County Junior School report, July 1968. 94
Dorothy Hill (second left) and me (right) at a dinner. 98
Last day at school. 104
Warwickshire’s first black female police cadet — talking to Major S W Birch, chairman of the county Police Committee, in September 1974. 106
At Rugby Police Station. 107
With the cadets. 110
Hazel outside her home in Harefield, Middlesex, 1994. 112
Part of the letter I received from Hazel dated 20 October 1994. 113
On the Embankment: mother, daughter, grandson. 118
Feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square: Roy and me (kneeling), Hazel and Jim (standing). 119
With my son Roy, 2015. 134
One of the Benin Bronzes in the British Museum. 137
Chapter One
Welcome to the System
In January 2016 I received a telephone call from Warwickshire Police. They were making enquiries into allegations of misconduct, made by people who were once children in a residential care home in Charles Street, Rugby. This had been my home, too, when I was a child.
Rather than talk on the phone, the police officer visited me where I live now, in Coventry. He had questions about me and my time living in the Charles Street home. Some of the children who lived there during my time had made allegations about abuse by other children in the home. I had little to tell the officer. What surprised me was how much he knew about my own childhood.
After he left, I turned to my husband Mark and said, ‘How come he knows things about me that I don’t?’ I knew the police had access to many records and that the officer had spoken to other children from the home before he spoke to me. But his