Shepherd Street Mission Children's Home

The interior of Shepherd Street Mission School showing a class in session

Here's some more information on the Shepherd Street Mission, Preston, Lancashire, the organisation that ran the Children's Home where I spent the first six years of my life, along with my two sisters and brother after our mother died. Our father was eventually able to take us home again, more of which I have written on my blogsite. The text in this post is taken from the website, listed below.

In 1876, Joshua Williamson, a Preston grocer was so moved by an encounter with two homeless children that he resolved to tackle the growing issue of destitution in the town. Joshua established a Mission, holding non-denominational meetings in Rose Street. The organisation rescued children and provided temporary accommodation for homeless adults.

In 1879 the charity acquired an old weaving factory in Shepherd Street which could accommodate a hundred people. Just a year later it was extended to accommodate fifty more.

The charity, initially called the Shepherd Street Mission, grew rapidly as the need to rescue children from the dangers of homelessness and poverty became critical. The mission was not state-aided. It maintained itself with subscriptions and donations from the Preston public, along with initiating and operating its own firewood business.

In 1900 Joshua Williamson gave up his business in order to devote himself to looking after the children. The charity by now had acquired property to accommodate the needy - both adults and children - in Laurel Street, Berry Street and Oxford Street.

Crow Hill House, in Oxford Road became the primary children's home and underwent much adaptation through the vast social changes of the last century.

The main premises were eventually sold to the NSPCC in 1989. The Shepherd Street Mission became the Shepherd Street Trust.

A committee was now formed to manage the Trust funds raised from the sale of the Mission's assets: the achievement of the people of Preston.

For more information, go to www.shepherdstreettrust.co.uk

The Trust is still very active, assisting those in need, under age 21, within a 50 mile radius of Preston Town Hall.

Night sounds

The Shepherd Street Mission Children’s Home where I was placed at the age of two years and six months had around 60 people living in it when I first went to sleep in a small room above the entrance door. My room was separated from the rest of the building by a series of passages and storerooms and as only the staff running the home went there it was usually a quiet area during the day.

I remember clearly the sounds of the night from the street below during the summer evenings as my young mind began to distinguish one particular event from another. The only sounds that I could hear clearly came from outside at night: probably not very late at night though as I was such a young chap I would have gone to bed early. Thus my mind was able to concentrate first on the sound, then on what caused that sound.

—That was a bicycle, just the faint whirr of the tyres on the road and an occasional tinkle of the bell.

—Then a car, (although I wonder now who would have had a car to drive down that particular street since those were the days of the Depression); and sometimes there could be at least two or three, sometimes more. The engines had a distinctive note to them, rather a soothing one to me, with a Paah! Paah! of a motor-horn now and then. Those were the mechanical sounds.

—There would follow a time of hardly any noise at all. For quite a time, just as I was dropping off to sleep, I’d hear the low murmur of people talking to each other, accompanied by the sound of their wooden clogs on the pavement. Faintly at first, then gradually increasing as they came nearer, then passing by before growing quiet again. With some, there was an air of business-like urgency in their steps, while others would stop and talk to someone they knew standing at their front door before continuing on or going into a house close by. I’d strain my ears to try and catch what they were saying but I was never able to get both sides of the conversation which I found very frustrating.

—What was that? A hand-bell? Yes!

—And now, the slow rumbling of a hand-barrow wheels blending with that of people. A happy, cheerful sound, sounds I enjoyed the most.

—Then a man’s voice calling: ‘Parched peas! Parched peas! All lovely! Come and get ‘em!’; or the call could be: ‘Get yer baked peraties; baked peraties here’; or maybe even: ‘Hot crumpets! Lovely hot crumpets!' Oh delicious sounds they were to me for people came running and laughing and calling out to each other, all warm and friendly Lancashire sounds, and I’d give a little laugh as I caught their delight. Such simple comforts from cleverly designed little hand-barrows with their individual touches crafted to suit their wares. They were enterprising; the souls who made their way up and down the smoke-grimed streets at night.

They will never know that they gave me such pleasure as a young chap; I lay in my bed and listened to them all going about their lovely Lancashire lives, while I shared it with them in a small measure of a way.

Dennis Crompton © 2013
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)

Memories of my early days

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)