I don’t know if anyone is ever quite sure when speaking or writing about one's early days, whether what they recall is really a memory of the event, or a mixture of what happened and what you have been told has happened. My first memory is this: I vaguely remember being in a room where there was activity all around me, with folk going out somewhere while I remained where I was, which was under a table eating cake apparently…(this from my brother, Fred, who found it amusing).
My next memory is of lying in a cot on the first floor of Shepherd Street Mission Children's Home in Oxford Street, Preston, listening to the sounds from the street below. The window of my room was immediately about the entrance to the home. I was cared for at this time by Sister Mary Smith but I have no real memory of this care, only of having my bed apple-pied one night and not being able to sleep properly. At some stage I slipped out of the trap by wriggling above the sheets. This took place in the girl's wing where the small room for infants was.
Then I was moved over to the boy’s wing where my brother Fred introduced himself to me, and for the first time I felt a person in my own right. My two sisters, Hilda and Jean, were in the girl’s wing. The few things I remember happening there is of bath time, when the bed I occupied was closest to the bathroom door and a constant stream of lads came and went, smelling of soap and looking fresh and clean. I don't remember having any baths myself, only of one boy who, the first time he saw me, came over to me in this area, put me down on the floor then picked my up by the feet and let my head bump on the hard floor. It gave me a splitting headache but nobody knew and I slept it off anyway. He's in a photo I have; four lads standing around a rocking horse. I'm seated, the rest are standing close by. I think he could have resented not being on the horse himself.
I wasn't unhappy there; the days seemed to pass without my being aware of much. I went to school and came back up a cobble stone street with gas lamps to light the way in winter. On the way back one day, a small white dog yapped at me and gave me a nip on my hand which made me cry and with no one around to care for me it just became another small event that registered.
The small boys sat at one long table for meals, with the big boys at another table. Nothing stand out about the meals except that on rare occasions we had a dab of golden syrup on our bread, and in winter we lined up for a rare spoonful of malt, which I enjoyed. We might all have used the same spoon too.
We all dressed in grey pants and shirts, although at one stage after my move from the infants to the boy’s wing, I wore a grey pullover over darker coloured pants. One photo shows a button missing, and the pants were held them up with cloth straps for braces. I'd tied the strap through a hole I made where the button had been, making me lean forward a bit to compensate.
Our jackets and caps were on hooks in a small area just outside the door of the dining room, which was also our day room. A great jumble of coats and caps hung there and you had to remember just where you'd hung yours every time you needed them. So as far as having any place to call your own, there wasn't one.
On Sundays the girls would come over to our day room, someone played the piano and we sang choruses of a religious and uplifting nature. My sister Jean sang a solo once, 'Jesus wants me for a sunbeam', which later made Fred smile every time he heard it.
Then some weeks after that, Fred told me we would be leaving to go to our own home. And then I turned seven. Surprise, surprise, Mr and Mrs Slater arrived. Mr Slater was the superintendant and looked after the boys; Mrs Slater looked after the girls, helped by a cook and Sisters Anne and Mary Smith. They came in with their son, Tommy, I think, and he handed me a ‘Happy Birthday’ package. It was heavy and turned out to be a fire truck: the first present I ever remember being given. I don't remember having it with me when we left, nor ever seeing any other boy get a birthday present. It may have been from Dad, but I never knew.
On two occasions Mr Slater surprised us, calling the boys out into the play area outside the cloak-room, when we all stood in a semi-circle to listen to him, when he threw handfuls of sweets. I took a while for me to realise what was happening but did I did manage to get a couple to enjoy. The second time I was ready and got a few more. Another time Mr Slater came in with several large cardboard boxes which had lots of strings hanging out of the thin paper coverings. Each of us knew we could pick any string and pull out whatever was on the end, which was a small packet of sweets each. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to create that delightful surprise for us.
The last Christmas we were there, we had a concert of some kind. Carols were sung, words were said, and then Father Christmas came. Excitement and happy sounds all round us as one by one, names were called, a present given and received, until each held a gift in our hands. All except me. 'Has everyone got a gift?' someone called out. Those around me knew I hadn't, but I said nothing, being somewhat bewildered, sad and confused. 'Go on Den, tell him you 'aven't!' someone prompted me. Eventually I called out: 'I 'aven't got one'.
‘Who was that?’ someone at the front said. Then I heard Sister Mary Smith say, 'That's our Dennis Crompton'.
'Come on out here then, Dennis. There's one for you here too.' All was sorted out and the day ended happily for us all. The ordinary, good-hearted folks of Preston saw to it that we were not forgotten at Christmas time.
Come the day we left. We'd seen other boys leave from time to time. This time I was taken through a door I'd never been through before to Mr Slater's office. As I stood there, my two sisters Jean and Hilda came in and a short time after my brother Fred joined us, just as Dad walked through the door. There were hugs all round as we stood together as a family after five years apart. The journey up the street took us away from the Children’s Home to the bus station.
I don't remember everything about that day, but I do remember getting on the bus to leave Preston to take the seven mile trip to Longridge, where our house was, and where we could be together as a family again. As we walked through the door of 1 Pump Street, I saw large stone paving stones on the floor, with several hand-made rugs here and there. A table covered in a nice red cloth, a big armchair and several smaller chairs round the table and a cheery fire warming the room as we entered. Two smiling women were there who'd worked to make this a home for us left a short time after so that we could be on our own at last.
Dennis Crompton © 2012
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)
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