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My twin brother Tony
and I will always have long and lasting memories of Goldings and Dr
Barnardo's for their kindness and appreciation they bestowed on us
and all the Goldings boys. It seems like yesterday that Tony and I
arrived at The William Baker Technical School after a melancholy
journey from Lewes, Sussex, after living with our kind and loving
foster parents.
At long last we
arrived at Goldings and as we walked up the long drive to the school
feeling very nervous we first met the headmaster. He told us about
Goldings and the conduct that he wished us to practise. We were then
shown to our dormitories. We had the sad part to say goodbye to our
foster mother. It took a lot to keep our tears from coming to our
eyes. When this was over Tony and I went to the laundry room to
collect our new clothes and numbers. I was 16 and Tony was 17. This
meant that on Friday linen days we went to the correct place to
collect our clean clothes. On Friday they had the big laundry
baskets out and as we went along we just dropped socks into one,
vests into another, etc, and then collected our clean clothes.
After we saw the
matron we went to the dining room and the noise and the clamour of
the cutlery was terrible. You can imagine how we felt after having
our meals in peace with our foster parents, but we soon got used to
it. We all sat at a long bench with the head boy at the top of the
table. We continued to be put into our careers. We both wanted to be
carpenters but unfortunately we never stayed to complete our
apprenticeship and my advice now to any Dr Barnardo Boy is to
continue his apprenticeship whatever the difficulties.
Tony was in the band.
He enjoyed it immensely and on Saturday evening he used to get his
uniform ready, boots polished which he would spend hours cleaning
and then he was ready for the Sunday morning parade. I used to enjoy
marching to the chapel.
Memories that we have
all got live on and looking back they were happy days and happy
years too. Just before Christmas I watched parents purchase toys,
sweets, etc, for their children which we never had when our mother
was alive. I remember one Christmas we had a Mars bar and sixpence,
that's all mother could afford, but we had something special, LOVE,
and that's worth all the expensive toys that we have today.
Michel Rowell
THE GUILD
MESSENGER Spring 1984
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