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After reading THE GUILD MESSENGERS of August 1971
and November 1971 they brought back vivid memories of my earlier
days as a Barnardo Boy at
Babies' Castle,
Leopold House then being boarded out at Stowmarket in Suffolk,
then to
Woodford Bridge,
Stepney, and, of course, in the move to Goldings in
Hertfordshire.
while at
Leopold House I was a member of the "A" Band, also a piper under
the tutorship of a Mr. Wigg. Mr. Aaron was the "A" Band instructor
for the hand bells, mandolines, ocarinas, sleigh bells and
xylophones. We had many a tour around England under the careful
leadership of the two Home representatives, Mr. A. and J. Meyers. I
enjoyed the concerts we used to give in the various halls, selling
tickets and picture postcards at the door I still have a set of the
postcards in my possession.
 When
I left the band I went into the wheel wrights shop under a Mr.
Austin at
Stepney and I had the privilege of making the wheel barrow which
was presented to H.R.H. The Prince of Wales at the official opening
of The William Baker Memorial Home; Mr. Garnett was the Governor at
the time. In my album I have a photograph of myself, with the
barrow, which was taken in the garden beside the shop at Goldings.
I left England on the 20th
February 1923, on the Largs Bay (see below)
and arrived in Sydney on the 1st April. Mr. Hitchcock and Mr. A1cock
were our masters on the trip out, and not forgetting Matron
Crawford, she was a wonderful woman to us 72 boys on the trip out
here.
In Australia I have worked at farming, motor body
building, carriage building, railway carriage building, lorry
driving, bus driving, taxi driving, and I finished my working days
at Coalcliff, New South Wales, in 1966, having retired on the age
system. My last job I worked as a coke worker and for the last
twenty years of my working life I was very happy and contented
working with a batch of sixty men in the Coke Works alongside the
mine at Coalcliffe, New South Wales the site where coal was first
discovered in Australia.
Now in retirement I have lived at my present
address since 1947. I have been happily married since 1941 and no
wonder, I married a Barnardo girl a Miss Ethel Dunbar. We
have two married daughters and three grandchildren.
We had a trip back to England in 1952 I signed
the visitors' book at
Woodford Bridge on that trip. A lot of the older boys will
remember me at
Woodford,
Stepney, and Goldings, as "Dad" or "Sos" Watling. I was in
Mount Stephen dormitory at Goldings, they even made me a
corporal.
From
Lionel
Watling
Reproduced from The
Guild Messenger
August 1972
The
ship
Lionel was taken to Australia, the
Largs
Bay was built in 1921 by Beardmore and co in Scotland, for the
Aberdeen and Commonwealth line. She was sister ship to Moreton Bay,
Hobsons Bay, Esperance Bay and Jervis Bay. She was part owned by
Shaw Savill and Albion by 1933. In 1951 Largs Bay was wholly owned
by Shaw Savill and Albion. Largs Bay was finally scrapped at Barrow
in 1957.
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