tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35866082620793745602024-02-20T04:04:03.773-08:00Fostered in the 1960s and 1970sFostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-79836484849593898252016-06-03T02:59:00.002-07:002016-06-04T00:17:49.395-07:00Sadness and resentment about events long-ago.<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Walking back to St Albans railway station after saying goodbye to my former foster mother was a horribly sad thing to do. I had thought and hoped that seeing her after so long would help me deal with the crossness and sadness that had been inside me for over 40 years but I knew it hadn't.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Part of the problem was St Albans itself. My parents are both buried in the town and seeing their worn and hard to read graves was quite emotional. It was the same seeing the places where Jane (my late-wife) and I had had such fun in our courting years. I have such mixed feelings about the town that I don't have the skill to put into words.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When you are a grown up it seems silly to complain about things not being fair but sitting in the three different trains going back home to west Wales that was exactly what I was doing. Inside my head I was having a conversation with my long-dead foster Dad telling him how his meanness in refusing to pay for my school uniform all those years ago had changed my entire life. Which was true.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If I could have stayed on at school I had the brains to go to university and then into a proper job. But all these possibilities were stolen from me by the meanness of one person and the weakness of my social worker who should have stuck up for me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was sitting in the train feeling sorry for myself when something strange happened. I felt my dead wife Jane was sitting there beside me. I have never had any time for supernatural things so this was an ever-so curious feeling to be sitting beside a ghost. I think what must have happened was that I dozed off and I was having a very vivid dream.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Jane told me that if I hadn't left Care when I did I would never have met her and wouldn't have had all the happy years we later had together in Woverhampton as a married couple. She was right of course, Jane usually was!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sometimes life is like an amazingly complicated maze. There are hundreds of different paths you can chose to go down or be forced to go down by outside events. A Father I don't remember, a Mother who got ill, Foster Parents who didn't care much were just a few of the junctions in my life and it is just chance that they are all associated with a childhood in St Albans and Harpenden.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-78112378754545156372016-04-08T10:19:00.001-07:002016-04-08T10:19:09.083-07:00Sadness at another parting - being fostered is like that!I had been in something of a blue funk about talking to my former foster Mother about my last few weeks living with her and her late husband. I was quite ashamed of how I felt cross and sad more than four decades after the event but that was just how it was inside my head.<br />
<br />
You see one quite small piece of financial meanness by my foster Dad made a life changing difference to me. If I had been able to stay on at school I'm as sure as I can be that I would have qualified to go a university or a polytechnic when I was 18. There was a course at Hatfield Polytechnic that looked really interesting and it would have been easy to commute there from St Albans where I was living.<br />
<br />
The trouble was I needed a new school uniform and nobody was prepared to pay for it. Without the uniform I couldn't stay on at school and move up into the 6th form as I wanted to. It really was up to my foster parents to pay but my foster Dad absolutely refused to do so. Nobody was willing to stand up for me and so I was pretty much forced into employment and out of the foster home with almost no notice.<br />
<br />
In the 1970s going to university meant a lot and pretty much made it certain that you would be able to get a well paid job in a proper career. Without a degree you were nothing special and you were in competition with loads and loads of other teenagers.<br />
<br />
So for most of my life as an employee I worked mainly with my hands and far less with my brain. Apart from the first few years when I worked in a factory I worked as a school technician in Design Technology. It was quite frustrating to see young teachers earning far more than me when if my life had been more settled I could have been a teacher just like them.<br />
<br />
Looking back perhaps I could have studied with the Open University but for some reason I never thought of doing that. I think too much of my self confidence had slipped away in the troubled years I had between going into Care at 14 and getting married to even think of pushing myself forward like that.<br />
<br />
Anyway right at the end of the meeting with my Foster Mother I talked about the time when my Foster Dad was so mean. I thought it would upset my Foster Mother, and it did. But I felt that I needed to say the thoughts that had been inside my head for so long.<br />
<br />
When everything had been said I said my goodbyes and off I went back to my other life. I'm glad I bothered to go meet with her after so many years but I don't have any strong wish to stay in touch with her. Perhaps if I am ever in Hertfordshire again I might suggest a meeting - but perhaps not!<br />
<br />
Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-6922749088712027882016-03-04T03:17:00.000-08:002016-03-04T03:17:11.540-08:00More about my Foster Mother 40 years on.<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My Foster Mum and I had different views about my time in foster care. She really thought that I was very unhappy most of the time that I lived with her and my Foster Dad and that quite a bit of the blame for that should be directed towards the two of them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was able to tell without having to make up anything to spare her feelings that most of the time I was happy enough and when I wasn't happy it was far more to do with things that had happened at school or it was straight after a visit to my Mother in the mental hospital.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don't blame my Foster Parents for the lies I was told about my Mother. I still think it would have been much kinder if somebody could have told me "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" about her condition. When you are young you sometimes hold onto even the tiniest crumbs of false optimism so when a doctor or nurse says something about being hopeful about a new treatment or drug they were planning to use on your Mother I used to leave the hospital expecting that she would be cured and then released to come home to me quite quickly. Of course that never happened and she spent the rest of her life in hospital not even knowing who I was.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I got used to living in somebody else's house, living by their rules and knowing that I wasn't particularly welcome. Looking back none of rules were unfair and nobody ever said to my face that I was not wanted. There was just a small amount of tension all the time and so I realised that it was so much easier to keep out of my Foster Dad's way as much as I could. We never argued because I avoided speaking to him except about really routine things.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course it would have been nicer if I could have friends round sometimes but that was just something that was never going to happen. My Foster Dad didn't like young people so after a while I worked out that my friends wouldn't stay friends for long if they ever had contact with him. I have said it before but I would like to say again that he never hit me or even threatened to hit me. That wasn't his way. Yes there was a cane kept in the cupboard under the stairs but it was never used on me. Anyway I expect there was a rule about not hitting foster children? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was 14 when I went to stay with the two of them and 16 when I left. At that age I didn't really think too much about my future. I knew that I was quite brainy because I always came towards the top of my form in exams, especially in subjects that involved numbers or science. On the very, very rare occasions that my Foster Mother talked about the future I always felt worried that she was going to ask me to leave so I tended to give her the answers I thought she wanted to hear rather than say what I was actually thinking.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";">I'm pleased that I was able to make my Foster Mother feel less unhappy about the whole middle section of our time living together.</span><br />
<br />Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-32926539415101100342016-02-05T04:30:00.000-08:002016-02-05T04:30:49.263-08:00Meeting my Foster Mother after over 40 years (2)<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I didn't know what to expect when I met my former Foster Mother after so long. I certainly didn't expect that she would remember as much about those two years we shared as she seemed to. I also thought that she would only want to talk about the good parts of our time together and all the things where there had been problems would be ignored. <strong>Well I was wrong and it serves me right for being such a pessimist!</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almost the first thing she told me was how sad she was that my time living with her "hadn't worked out" and that "Those two years nearly destroyed my marriage.". She told me that her husband had never been keen on fostering and that he had only gone along with it to stop her nagging and because it brought some extra money into the household. He was a proud and stubborn man who was, just about, prepared to accept the income from having a foster child but certainly didn't want any of the expenditure.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He valued his privacy and hated having what he saw as a stranger living in his house. It was never personal - he didn't particularly dislike me and she thinks that it would have been the same whoever it had been. It wasn't my fault.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">She could remember my first few days really well and it was good for me to hear a different perspective on that difficult time. I had arrived in the late afternoon not knowing that my foster Mum and Dad had had a furious row that morning about me coming to live with them that had ended with him storming off to work leaving her in tears. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When the Social Worker drove off after doing the introductions it was all very difficult. I didn't know what the house rules were or even what I was to call my Foster Parents. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After tea I helped wash up like I always used to do when I was living with my Mum but then I had no idea what I was supposed to do. The two of them sat in the lounge watching the TV and I didn't know if I was allowed to go in to sit with them or not and anyway if I was allowed to go in where would I sit? There wasn't a spare chair and I didn't want to sit on the floor like a dog would. I</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> went upstairs and read a book in my bedroom feeling rather lonely and abandoned. </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">All the time I was sitting there my foster Mother and Father were having another row downstairs with him saying again and again that it was bad enough I was living in his house without having to share his lounge with me. Perhaps it was a good thing that I didn't know what was going on!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";">I think we were both upset, even after so many years, walking about those times back in the late 1960s. Now I am old (60+) I can look at things in a different way to the way I did when I was just 14. But even now I don't understand how I came to be placed with a couple with one of the pair totally against the whole idea of fostering! It was almost bound to end up badly and of course that is exactly what did happen. It would have been useful to hear my foster Dad's memories but he died in 2009 without ever talking about me to his wife. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>More next time</strong> - when my Foster Mum and I talked about the middle 18 months of the two years I lived with her in St Albans.</span>Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-86300078254240773532016-01-29T10:42:00.000-08:002016-01-29T10:44:53.196-08:00Meeting my Foster Mother after over 40 years<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just before Christmas I found a message waiting for me on Facebook. It was from somebody in St Albans who had read my blog and who thought that her aunt was possibly my foster mother! It seems that at a family event a few years ago they had been sitting at the same table for lunch and somehow the topic of adoption and fostering had come up. Her aunt mentioned that she had done some fostering for a young lad whose father was dead and whose mother was in a mental hospital. My blog reminded her of that conversation so she decided to write to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I replied I thought I should only mention the road in St Albans where I lived when I was in foster care. Almost straight away though she messaged me back with the surname of her aunt and it was my foster mother. That was quite a shock to me I can tell you!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I didn't hear anything for over a week so I started to think that the whole business was over. But then I got a much longer message telling me that my foster mother was still alive and well and still living in St Albans. She was in her 80s but she wanted to meet me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I live in west Wales so it is a long way to Hertfordshire but now I am semi-retired I have more spare time so after a couple of restless nights I decided I would accept the invitation. My mind felt very jumbled up, rather like it did just after my dear wife Jane passed away. First of all it was going to be a long train trip (I get travel sick on buses) with changes at Birmingham and London Euston plus a trip on the Underground. It was also going to cost a lot of money but as I have some "rainy day" money saved up I thought I could afford it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We were due to meet on a Saturday so on Friday I caught a train mid-morning and nearly six hours later I arrived in St Albans. I found the Bed and Breakfast place I had booked quite easily. The next morning I had a walk around the town thinking how much some parts had changed and how some parts were just the same. I also visited the cemetery on Hatfield Road to put some flowers on the two graves where Mum and Dad were buried so long ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then I set off to the meeting place for what turned out to be a long and quite sad and strange conversation. I will write about that next week.</span>Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-88726721296894608842016-01-17T01:23:00.000-08:002016-01-17T01:23:07.015-08:00A former foster child asks "Am I doomed to always feeling slightly cheated?"<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Am I doomed to always feeling slightly cheated?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My Dad died when I was too young to remember him.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My Mother had mental health issue and so from 14-16 I was in foster care.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My foster parents were never abusive but never showed me a scrap of affection.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My dear wife and I were never able to have children.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She then died while still quite young. She was 54 and died from heart disease.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I posted, for a reason I still don't really understand, this question to a well known website recommended to me by a young friend. I didn't get as many replies as some of the other threads seem to get but those I did get were very helpful.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I think the circumstances of your parents would be very difficult for anyone to deal with & can see how you would feel cheated. But its not something you can do anything about so maybe try to reconcile it for your own peace of mind."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"You're not doomed to anything ,how you see your life is a choice. Sadness is normal, but feeling cheated...well that's a perspective that causes bitterness, and that only hurts you. I lost my parents young, I've had other troubles. I've never felt cheated. Life is random and fickle and things happen. How you deal with those things is entirely up to you."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I suppose it depends on whether you wish to actively deal with it through counselling or some sort of therapy. Or if you prefer to try to live with it then regard it as part of life's journey, that good things happen & shit things happen but at the end of it you are still alive & look at what you do have instead of what you don't have? A sort of counting your blessings type thing, although it sounds unbelievably trite!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think the third one of these felt best for me. I suppose everybody has good and parts of their lives and I till just have to accept that some of the time I spent living in St Albans will have to be put on the bad part pile. When I was working in schools in St Albans and Wolverhampton I sometime heard such terrible stories about young people who had been abused for years. I never had anything like that happen to me so perhaps I have no reason to feel cheated after all? </span>Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-12718554325476410902016-01-09T03:53:00.000-08:002016-01-09T03:53:56.028-08:00Long-term loneliness and being fosteredWhen my late wife Jane was still alive we used to get invitations to a wide range of family events. My problem was that I felt that I was only invited because I was Jane's husband and that was the label that almost everybody at these gatherings attached to me. I felt like a shadowy figure always doomed to be sitting in the corner trying to make polite conversation with other people who were in the same position as me while the "proper family" swapped memories and looked at old photographs. I never gave, I hope, Jane any hint that I felt quite left out at these events. She loved them and I would never have wanted to spoilt things for her.<br />
<br />
Jane was very keen on family photographs and one of my favourite memories of her final few months was her trying to understand how to enter information into some genealogy software she had got from a family history magazine. Jane was very organised and she always used to write on the back of photos who all the people were and what event was being photographed. Sometimes she would add extra information years later like "Aunty Floss - died 6 months later" or "Cousin Frank - the first signs of his drink problem?".<br />
<br />
When Jane died I returned most the photographs to her family. I thought they would be of more interest to them than they would be to me as a bit of an outsider. I was worried that if I kept them and then suddenly died the old photos might get thrown away without people thinking. I went through a rather black spell after her funeral and I made some decisions that perhaps were not sensible but returning the photos really wasn't one of them.<br />
<br />
I had always got on well enough with Jane's family so it was disappointing that I ended up feeling rather lonely and abandoned after the funeral. I suppose they didn't want to intrude but as I didn't have any other family to help with all the jobs that need doing when somebody dies it might have been nice if they could have made more effort to help me.<br />
<br />
Without my best friend Mike and his famous check-lists of jobs that needed doing I don't know how I would have managed.Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-74024090240826496002015-12-12T03:29:00.000-08:002015-12-12T03:29:41.966-08:00My first months as a foster child in St Albans - Part 2<span style="font-family: "arial";">A few days after I went into foster care I told my Social Worker how sad and disappointed I was that I wasn't living like a member of a family at all and that living in the foster home reminded me of a horrible Bed and Breakfast place that Mum and I had once stayed in over in Cromer. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";">I don't know exactly what my Foster Parents had been told about what they were expected to do to help me in exchange for the money they were being paid but what I do know was they didn't do much. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";">They knew that my Dad was dead and that Mum was in a mental hospital but perhaps they thought that it wasn't their job to deal with anything apart from my physical needs? I wonder if they thought that my school or my social worker dealt with everything to do with my worries or the sadness I sometimes felt after visiting Mum in hospital?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";">My bedroom was fine and I had enough to eat so nobody should think that my foster parents didn't do that part of their job because they did. What they didn't do was any of the things that "proper parents" would do if their child was feeling lonely or upset. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";">I'm sure they were not neglectful on purpose. I just don't think that they realised it was their job to be a substitute family for me. Looking back their way of doing the job they were paid to do did cause some strange situations!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";">My Foster Parents used to go to the cinema about once a month (usually the <strong><u>Odean </u></strong>but sometimes the<strong><u> Gaumont</u></strong>) but in all the time I lived with them they never once took me with them. The <strong>Gaumont</strong> was further away so they used to go there in the car. I can remember two or three times when I watched the same film as them at the same time but with me walking there and back and the two of them going in the car!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";">My Foster Dad wasn't a great fan of football but about six times a season he would drive over to Luton to watch a game. I used to go more often but only when I had enough spare money of my own to pay the fare and then the admission charge to the <strong>Oak Road End</strong>. Surely it must have felt strange to him that the two of us were going to exactly the same place but that he wasn't taking me or paying for me?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";">I never got to love or respect either of them and I think that was a shame because if they had made a bit more effort I think it would have been easier for all three of us to share a house for 2 years. I also think that the Social Workers might have tried a bit harder to find my a placement with people that wanted me rather than with people who just put up with me. </span>Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-53932096235414057172015-12-04T02:33:00.002-08:002015-12-04T02:34:16.832-08:00Role models for foster children in St Albans<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">TWO BAD ROLE MODELS - It probably sounds horribly ungrateful but I think that both my foster parents, but especially my <u><span style="color: red;">Foster Dad</span></u>, were not very good role models. He worked hard at his job and was clearly well thought of by his employer but that was it. He did almost nothing around the house to help my <u><span style="color: red;">Foster Mum</span></u> and he never showed any interest in what I was doing or what I was feeling.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Young people were only put into foster care when something had gone seriously wrong within their own family. Surely what was needed was some extra support? Not being made to feel that the only reason I was allowed to stay with them was because of the extra money it brought into the house!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He almost never started a conversation with me and most meals were spent in silence with him eating with one hand and holding the newspaper he was reading with the other. It never felt that I was part of his family or that I mattered even a tiny bit to him.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">THREE GOOD ROLE MODELS - When I had to leave foster care I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't stay on at school but luckily in the 1970s it wasn't hard finding work at 16 and I found work at small engineering firm down one of the alleyways off the main shopping street in St Albans. <u><span style="color: red;">The Boss</span></u> there was the most professional person I have ever worked with. He had a lot of real "hard men" working for him but they were always in awe of the quality of his work so he never had any problems with them! All my life I have tried to be like the Boss by always trying my hardest to get jobs right, to get them done on time and to get them done at the agreed price.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the lecturers at the college where I studied for some City and Guilds qualification was always very kind and patient with me and always made a point of checking that I understood all the new skills he was teaching me. He was a pal of my boss at the engineers where I was working so perhaps they had discussed me when they were down the pub. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><u><span style="color: red;">Mr T</span></u> was an all-around good bloke and a very high quality engineer and he had a big impact on how my life developed. I think he would be embarrassed and shocked if he ever found out that I saw him as a bit of a father figure to make up for the Dad I didn't remember.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">When I left foster care I lodged with <span style="color: red;"><u>Mrs H</u></span>. She lived where the Maltings Development is now right in the centre of St Albans and only 3 minutes from my job. She was lovely and for the first time for what felt like ages I was happy to go home at night. Mrs H </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">looked after me like a real Mother would and I started to realise that perhaps I did matter to somebody. Years later i</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">t was one of the very few times I cried as an adult when I went to her funeral. I helped carry her coffin from the hearse into the church and I was pleased and proud that I had been asked to do that.</span></span></div>
Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-69097042843528943082015-11-27T08:02:00.000-08:002015-11-27T08:02:48.954-08:00My first week as a foster child in St Albans - Part 1<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is strange how some days stick in your memory right through your life. I will always remember my first few days in foster care with a mixture of sadness and puzzlement. When Mum had to go into hospital I was told I was going to a foster family "for a few weeks". Neither of these things I was told was true, or at least not true in the mind of a 14 year old boy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My new Foster Mum and Dad didn't have any children so to me they were not a proper family at all. Looking back over 40 years later I still think it was a bit strange that the first time I ever met my Foster Parents was when I arrived at their front door with my social-worker in tow. I had been waiting around all day for all the arrangements to be sorted out - the biggest delay was caused by the social worker wanting both adults to be there when I arrived and my Foster Dad not wanting to lose a days pay.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My bedroom was fine. It was clean and warm and there was a decent desk there where I supposed to do my school work in the evening. That was a good start but when we went back downstairs I noticed something very curious. The lounge was at the front of the house and it contained a large and very ornate sideboard, the television and two single arm-chairs. That's right when I first arrived there wasn't a chair for me to sit on!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The dining room at the back of the house had a table with four chairs and the four of us (me, 2 Foster Parents and the Social Worker) sat there talking for what seemed like ages. I kept expecting her to say something to my Foster Parents about needing to buy another comfortable chair for the lounge but she didn't and I was too shy to say anything.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When the Social Worker left it was all very difficult. I didn't know what the house rules were or even what I was to call my Foster Parents. It didn't take long before I realised that the whole fostering project was my Foster Mother's idea and that my Foster Dad had no interest in any part of what was going on.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That first evening was horrible and very unfair on me. After tea I helped wash up like I always used to do when I was living with my Mum but then I had no idea what I was supposed to do. The two of them sat in the lounge watching the TV and I didn't know if I was allowed to go in to sit with them or not and anyway if I was allowed to go in where would I sit? On the floor like a dog would?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So I went upstairs and read a book in my bedroom feeling rather lonely and abandoned.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";">About three days later a different (more senior?) Social Worker came round to see how I was getting on. We sat in her car so my Foster Mother couldn't hear what I was saying. I tried to be brave but I was so sad and disappointed that I wasn't living like a member of a family at all and that living there reminded me of a horrible Bed and Breakfast place that Mum and I had once stayed at in Cromer. I don't know what was said or when but within 48 hours another comfortable chair had arrived and my Foster Mother started trying a bit harder to make me feel welcome.</span>Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-74810623467981705072015-11-21T02:53:00.000-08:002015-11-21T02:53:21.442-08:00Adventures on the Harpenden and St Albans buses (321 and 355)<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 32px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 32px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 32px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 32px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">I have many fond memories of travelling on the<span style="color: red;"> <strong>321 bus</strong></span> between St Albans and Harpenden. </span>After Dad died we didn't have (couldn't afford) a car so the bus was our main means of transport. The shops in Harpenden were quite limited, especially for families like us where money was tight so the trip to St Albans market was a regular event. <span style="color: black;">One time I remember really well was when I had a hospital appointment at the St Albans Hospital (Mid Herts Wing). We wanted to travel from Harpenden to St Albans between 8 and 9 in the morning but the busses had loads of school children going to the secondary schools. We had to wait quite a long time before there was a bus with any space for us. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A few years later, after Mum had died as well and I was in foster care in St Albans, I did some trips between St Albans and Harpenden on the <span style="color: red;"><strong>355 route</strong></span>. This was when I was going to see a young lady friend who lived in Batford. Her Dad worked at the same small engineering works that I did and for some reason he thought that I would be a good influence of her. Sheila was her name and although we became quite good friends for almost a year it was only a friendship - nothing more. There was nothing romantic in our relationship.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sheila's Mother was very strange. She didn't like me or trust me not to get her daughter into trouble so she used to chaperone us all the time. When the dog wanted a walk she wouldn't leave us alone in the house so we had to go with her. We used to cross over the little bridge at the bottom of Crabtree Lane (where the ford was, and still is?). We would walk up the hill, along Grasmere Avenue, down Granby Avenue then along Marquis Lane to cross over the road bridge over the River Lea. I still remember it quite well. Some the houses we passed were quite posh and it all seemed like a different world to the Batford Council Estate that was just a few hundred yards away.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The <span style="color: red;"><strong>355</strong></span> was always a single decker bus because of the low bridge where the railway crossed over Station Road. Sometimes it was almost full and sometimes almost empty for reasons that were never obvious to a youngster like me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the end Sheila's Dad changed jobs and I felt safe to end a relationship that was never going anywhere. It was done properly - face-to-face and not by email or text like youngsters seem to do now.</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 32px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 32px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 32px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 32px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 32px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 32px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 32px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;"></span>
Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-6486838443053316632015-11-14T03:04:00.000-08:002015-11-14T03:04:21.310-08:00Christmas and Birthday celebrations before and after fosteringMy first Christmas in foster care in St Albans was a real shock to me and I think was the only time I cried from sadness and disappointment during those two years. Mum and I used to make a real effort at Christmas time and we used to have a large Christmas tree and we used to give each other nice presents. I used to make things during the lunch hours in the Craft Room at school and with a bit of help from the teacher and the technician I was able to make things that looked really expensive but that were actually not too dear at all.<br />
<br />
My foster parents only had a small tree and my present from them was a cheap wallet. And that was all. They gave that to me at breakfast so during the morning I kept thinking that they would give me something else after lunch - but they didn't. I felt so sad that Christmas was never going to be how it had been before Mum got ill that I went up to my room and cried. It didn't help of course and so I never did it again.<br />
<br />
Most of my pals were busy with family for the days around Christmas so I got bored. My foster parents never made me feel particular welcome in the lounge where the TV was so I would leave the house and just wonder around in the park. I felt quite lonely and left out - I was almost starting to want the school term to start so I would have more people to talk to!<br />
<br />
After Christmas my social worker, unusually, visited me at school. She asked me about my Christmas and I told her the truth about what had happened. I think she was quite surprised because she had already told my foster parents off for ignoring my birthday a few months earlier. Anyway she then went back to my foster parents and they must have had a big row because when I got home my Foster Mum had red eyes and looked quite embarrassed. My second birthday and second Christmas in Care were a bit better so whatever the social worker said must have worked.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">When I timed out of foster care I moved in with the lovely Mrs H. She used to buy me a present and bake me a birthday cake and once I met Jane - who later became my wife - I started getting presents and cards from her as well. Jane's family were very good at remembering events like birthdays and for our whole time together we used to receive and send little gifts and cards. Jane used to write all the dates on the calendar we kept in the kitchen so nobody would be forgotten.</span><br />
<br />
<strong>It is funny how things improved so much and so quickly once I left foster care and started living with Mrs H.</strong>Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-10852539645948044132015-11-07T02:45:00.000-08:002015-11-07T02:45:38.403-08:00The lies that are told to foster childrenWhen I was told that my Mother was going to have to go into hospital "for a few weeks" I believed what I was told. Why shouldn't I? I was only 14 years old and even I had started to notice that she wasn't well. Nothing was said to make me believe that my time in foster care was going to be anything more than a few weeks duration and I was happy to pay that price if it meant she could receive the treatment she needed.<br />
<br />
But I soon realised that I hadn't been told the truth. Of course I had no medical training whatsoever but even I could tell that each time I visited the hospital she was worse than the time before. She wasn't making any progress that I could see and there didn't seem to be anybody at the hospital who could answer my questions.<br />
<br />
After about a month I began to notice that she didn't immediately recognise me when I visited her and that her memories of our life together after my Father had died were slowly but steadily disappearing from her mind. I can remember being quite frightened - I didn't know what to do or who to ask for help. All my foster parents used to say was that, "The doctor's know what they are doing."<br />
<br />
I started taking in photographs of important events from her life. Things like the photo taken when she got engaged and the photos of her wedding. But soon she would just glance at them in the way you might look at the photos of somebody you didn't know. I used to tell her who all the people were but she didn't seem either interested or bothered.<br />
<br />
I feel quite ashamed now but once she didn't recognise me it didn't seem worth visiting her every week and gradually my visits became once a fortnight and then once a month. I was getting used to living with my foster parents and in my heart I think I knew that Mum was never going to be well enough to come home. I was also getting old enough to start planning my own life and common sense told me that it wasn't going to involve her however much I wanted it to.<br />
<br />
My home - that was another set of lies I was told. The little rented house we used to live in wasn't that far from my foster home and as I still had my key I was able to get in. Quite suddenly somebody decided that it wasn't going to be our home any longer and everything that we owned that was still in the house was packed up and sent to my paternal grandparents in Yorkshire. I wasn't told this of course - I was told that it had been put into storage locally and I could have it all back when Mum was better.<br />
<br />
The months and then the years drifted past but nobody seemed bothered about telling me the whole truth - they just let me work it out for myself. Mum lasted 8 years in the hospital and it was only after she died that I found out what had been wrong with her. It was also then when the boxes containing so much of our life together were returned to me.<br />
<br />
I have been worried about telling this part of my life history. But I have told it as I remember it. Perhaps the social workers and my foster parents hadn't been told the truth either. I'm guessing that I will never know the complete story now but it seems strange that a few weeks in hospital became 8 years.<br />
<br />Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-54471156800317095092015-10-31T00:57:00.000-07:002015-10-31T11:45:36.386-07:00My last day living with my foster parents in St Albans<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sometimes I think that my memory is starting to fail me because I cannot always remember the order in which different events happened during my years as a teenager in Care!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On my last day at school I was interviewed by the Head Master. All the people who were leaving the school at the end of year 11 (we called it the 5th form in my school days) were interviewed. Most of the leavers were pupils the school wanted to get rid of or were pupils who were not clever enough to stay on at school. I was a bit of a special case partly because I was in Foster Care and partly because the only reason I was leaving the school was because I didn't have the money to stay there any longer. I was seen last of all the leavers and I remember having to wait for ages for my turn.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I can remember my last day at the foster home. I have a picture in my mind of me lying in my bed on that morning with my old brown suitcase already packed and two open bags waiting for the last few items to be put in them. I heard my foster parents getting up and using the bathroom and toilet and then it was my turn to get washed and dressed and to go downstairs for my breakfast.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It seemed funny that neither of them said anything about it being my final day and even stranger that my Foster-Dad didn't offer to give me a lift in his car to my new lodgings. Anyway he didn't so after breakfast I finished my packing and then walked up the hill to my new home carrying the suitcase and one bag. I left them with my new landlady Mrs H and then went back to collect the second bag. Strangely neither of my foster parents were in the house when I got back there so I let myself in, picked up my bag and left the house for the last time: remembering to post my front door key through the letterbox!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">And that is how aged 16 I left Care and became - so I thought - a "proper grown-up"!</span></strong></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">I only saw my foster parents a few times after I moved out. Once was when the postcard with my O level exam results were sent to their address so I had to walk down to collect it and just a couple of times I bumped into my Foster-Mother while I was shopping in St Albans.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF9ya1wGtsTOsP3lQfDfeyeATuHr6XXUe-YtNOFMRfAj6C2ppiFMT3-_V4m4f58QfDYriY6AQaZ8_xewRnH_pKJe-9hEVhJKfjzeeNhquJnTy8BS_xeXRvGPXj2TM-w8zeDjXRjeo5jDh7/s1600/oak+road+end.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF9ya1wGtsTOsP3lQfDfeyeATuHr6XXUe-YtNOFMRfAj6C2ppiFMT3-_V4m4f58QfDYriY6AQaZ8_xewRnH_pKJe-9hEVhJKfjzeeNhquJnTy8BS_xeXRvGPXj2TM-w8zeDjXRjeo5jDh7/s320/oak+road+end.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"We are the Oak Road Boot Boys"</span></div>
<div align="center">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I saw, but sadly I wasn't close enough to speak to him, my Foster-Dad standing at the Oak Road End of Luton Town FC in about 1973 or 1974. That was the last time I saw either of them and I expect that they have both been dead for a while now. I wonder if they ever thought about me in their later years?</span>Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-36425576412986804952015-10-25T06:45:00.000-07:002015-10-25T06:45:30.285-07:00Starting the hunt for other fostered childrenAbout a year after I moved in with Mrs H I happened to see an article on fostering in a magazine in the dentist's waiting room. I wrote to the magazine asking them to forward a letter to the author of the article and as I didn't really expect them to bother it was a nice surprise when I got a long letter back.<br />
<br />
The lady author was a former foster child like me although she was a bit older. It felt like we had quite a lot in common when she said how much she wanted to meet with other people who had been fostered and how lonely and isolated she sometimes felt. She mentioned a few ways she had tried to find young people who had shared similar experiences to her and how unsuccessful her attempts had been.<br />
<br />
I wrote back almost straight away and then I waited and waited for a reply but one never came. I felt quite sad that she didn't want to have me as a pen friend but of course I couldn't force her to write to me could I?<br />
<br />
A few months later I wrote to the Herts Advertiser (the local newspaper) asking readers if they knew of any organisation that people like me could join. Of course the newspaper used to get lots of letters and mine wasn't one of the ones selected to be published so that idea didn't work either. There was then a short gap until I tried again. I was in Harpenden one Saturday seeing a friend and I visited the public library. I asked a very stern lady in the reference section for help but she didn't seem very bothered about helping me and within a couple of minutes she wondered off to support somebody else.<br />
<br />
After that I gave up looking - I have written an earlier blog entry about Mike who was fostered and who became my very best friend - but apart from him all my attempts were failures. It wasn't until decades later, after Jane had died, that I tried again. One day I will write about all the wonderful things that led to.Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-26280030683427863632015-10-18T03:30:00.000-07:002015-11-14T12:52:44.472-08:00Death and the foster childI ended up in foster care because my Father died when I was little and then a while later my Mother got too ill to look after me. I'm guessing a bit here but I wonder if what happened to me also happened to quite a few children who ended up in foster care because a parent or parents died and there was nobody left in the family prepared to look after them. I wondered at the time why my Father's parents never offered me a home but perhaps they thought they were too old to take on the responsibility?<br />
<br />
I don't remember my Father dying but of course I do remember getting a phone message from the hospital to say that my Mother had died. That was in 1977 so she had lived in the hospital for about 8 years. She had long since forgotten who I was and I think that made it easier for me not to mourn too much. I didn't, and still don't, believe in Heaven and Hell like some people do but I would like to think that Mother would have been made well again and that she would have been reunited with my Father. <br />
<br />
Perhaps they are waiting somewhere for me to join them?<br />
<br />
In 1977 I was still living with Mrs H and I was engaged to Jane. It was a happy time for me and I didn't let my Mother dying spoil things too much. It was far, far worse when Mrs H died in her sleep. That was nearly a decade later. I had stayed in touch with Mrs H all that time and I thought of her as the closest thing I had to a proper Mother. When she died it was one of the very few times I cried as a grown-up.<br />
<br />
It was over 20 years more to the biggest shock of all when my dear wife Jane died from heart disease. The last year or two of her life had been very difficult. She kept working almost to the end and I don't think her employer ever realised how poorly Jane was. Jane had been my anchor. I hadn't got any family ties of my own so as far as possible Jane's family became my family.<br />
<br />
When Jane died her family kept in touch quite well for the first few months but gradually the number of invitations I got to family event went down. What they didn't do enough of was actually helping me with all the jobs that needed to be completed when somebody dies.<br />
<br />
It was a lonely and sad time for me and it was only having young people around me at the school where I worked that gave me the kick to get up in the morning and to put a brave face on things. Not having children of my own to share the sadness of Jane dying was a heavy burden to carry!<br />
<br />Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-51969611397146016222015-10-10T23:41:00.000-07:002015-10-10T23:41:26.807-07:00Family history and the foster childI went into foster care when I was 14 and my foster parents had no particular interest in my family history. They knew that my Father was dead and that my Mother was in a local mental hospital and that was about as far as their knowledge went. They never encouraged me to talk about my family but if I did happen to mention something they at least seemed to be interested so it wasn't too much of a problem for me. In the early days I used to go to visit my Mother in the hospital most weeks and when I got back to my foster home my foster parents always asked me, "How was your Mother this week?" So they were not cruel or unthinking towards me: just rather casual.<br />
<br />
It was the same, just in reverse, with my foster parent's own family history. I don't remember anything being said about their lives before I had arrived on the scene. There were a few photos around but the earliest one was one of their wedding and was a picture of just the two of them signing a book with the vicar standing behind them. I don't remember seeing any photos with the rest of the guests so I don't know what type of wedding they had. At the age I was I wasn't old enough or sensible enough to appear interested in things like that so I don't think that I ever asked questions about their family.<br />
<br />
It wasn't until I moved out of foster care at 16 and into lodgings that I met somebody who was interested in my background. Mrs H was a good talker and a good listener as well and over the years that I lived in her house we gradually found out more and more about each other. It made a big difference to think that somebody wanted to know about me and that I mattered to someone. This feeling of not mattering and not belonging to part of a bigger group is one of the things that has been a problem for me for almost as long as I can remember.<br />
<br />
After I married Jane and we had moved to Wolverhampton I gradually met her quite large family. Some of them, mainly the older ones, were quite nosey about my background and it was quite difficult knowing how much to say about private things like my Mother's illness. Jane's family had all sorts of family feuds involving some members falling out with other members about really minor things. I used to think that they didn't appreciate how lucky they were to have family alive and living close by!<br />
<br />
From what I have found out since I started writing this blog a lot more time and trouble is now given to the family history of the young person going into foster care. I'm very glad about that.<br />
<br />Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-55188067477228106132015-10-02T03:52:00.000-07:002015-10-02T03:52:18.294-07:00The Harpenden years - before the fostering storm clouds gatheredI don't remember much of my first few years in St Albans and my first clear memories seem to be just before I started school after we had moved 5 miles north to Harpenden. Although I didn't realise it at the time we moved there because our previous home in St Albans had too many sad memories for Mum to cope with. <br />
<br />
Mum needed to work lots of hours to pay the bills. At different times she worked at Woolworth, Boots and J S Sainsbury which I seem to remember were almost, if not actually, next door to each other on Harpenden High Street. On "Early Closing Day" she worked for a few hours as a cleaner at a large house on Station Road Harpenden.<br />
<br />
Because of the hours she worked she had to make arrangements with other people to get me to school. There was a lady who lived quite near us - we were living near the old Harpenden East railway station - that Mum was friendly with. So after breakfast Mum walked me round there and her friend used to walk me and her own daughter to school. I think that went on for about a year and a half. Mum decided then that I was old enough to manage on my own. There were not any busy roads to cross so this wasn't quite as dangerous as it sounds!<br />
<br />
After school I used to walk home and let myself in the back door using the key hidden in the garden. I would play in my bedroom and then I would watch Children's Hour and eat the sandwiches Mum had prepared for me and wait patiently for her to come home. I think this used to be about 5:45PM.<br />
<br />
I was quite happy at school and never got into real trouble. I was in the A stream and I can remember Mum being quite proud about that. <br />
<br />
School holidays were a problem. Mum couldn't afford not to work so I was left on my own all day. The old lady next door kept an eye on me, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. I was quite happy either playing with friends or on my own and I didn't realise until much later that Mum was probably breaking all sorts of rules by leaving me unsupervised.<br />
<br />
I was sad when Mum said we were moving back to St Albans. I had lots of friends in Harpenden and when we moved house I never saw most of them again. In the summer of 1966 we moved into a small rented house just off Holywell Hill, just in time for me to start secondary school.<br />
<br />
<strong>I never guessed that I was soon to become a foster child!</strong>Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-68593535226844103732015-09-25T03:10:00.000-07:002015-09-29T06:08:06.356-07:00Do foster children make good parents?Jane and I were unlucky that we were never blessed with children but quite often I wonder what it would have been like to have had a son or a daughter. I do think having good role models must help somebody to be a good parent and I think both my parents always did their best.<br />
<br />
My Father's health was ruined serving his country but when he came home he didn't, or so my Mother told me, even complain or say that what happened "wasn't fair". He didn't want charity and he used to force himself to go to work even when not feeling well. It is sad that I don't remember him but I do know that my Mother loved him dearly and that his early death was a terrible blow to her.<br />
<br />
My Mother worked hard to provide for me. She worked long hours is not very exciting jobs so that the two of us had somewhere reasonable to live and enough food to live on. I think she sometimes only gave herself tiny portions saying she wasn't hungry so that I had enough to eat. She always put me first. When her mental health got worse she needed help that just wasn't available. She coped for as long as she possibly could before eventually having to go as an in-patient at the mental hospital. In the months before her memory went completely she would ask how I was managing on my own, she didn't realise that because I was only 14 I had been put into foster care. I think that would have really upset her so I am glad she never realised.<br />
<br />
My foster parents were not such good role models. They were never nasty to me it is just that they never seemed interested in what I was doing or how I was feeling. It is quite hard to put into words without seeming too ungrateful but it was all rather like living with strangers rather than with somebody who cared about you. Perhaps if they had cared a bit more they could have helped me pay for the new school uniform I would have needed if I had gone into the 6th form at school. I got the grades but I just didn't have the money.<br />
<br />
Mrs H who became my landlady would have made a wonderful parent. She was a widow but she treated me just like I was her own child. She was one of the nicest and most caring people that I have ever met and I would love to think that some of her niceness rubbed off on me.<br />
<br />
Jane's parents (Jane was my wife, she is dead now) were very kind to both of us especially in the early years of our marriage when money was in short supply. They treated both of their girls equally and they only offered advice when it was asked for. They never interfered.<br />
<br />
So overall I think I did quite well for role models and I think Jane and I would have been good parents so it is sad that we were never given the opportunity to prove it.Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-52694187863432602622015-09-18T03:22:00.000-07:002015-09-18T03:22:39.715-07:00Family traditions and the foster childAlthough I am quite old (over 60) my skills in Information Technology are not too bad. Not as good as the youngsters I know of course but much better than the retired people I see doing the Beginners or Intermediate courses in the local library.<br />
<br />
I thought that this site was quite interesting.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.fosteringperspectives.org/fpv15n1/holidays.htm">http://www.fosteringperspectives.org/fpv15n1/holidays.htm</a></div>
<br />
In a strange way reading what foster parents are supposed to do now makes me both happy and sad at the same time. It is good that more is done now to make the foster child feel loved and wanted but it makes me cross that nobody seemed very bothered about that sort of thing when I was being fostered in the 1960s and 1970s.<br />
<br />
My foster parents were white working class. They were not religious, except at Christmas time when they used to play Christmas carols on an old mono record player. Christmas and Easter were just holidays from having to go to work and would involve them sitting in front of the TV watching old films or various Christmas Specials. Most of my non-fostered pals would be expected to stay at home with their families over the main holiday time so I used to get bored with having nobody to have fun with. I used to go out to the park when the remains of the Roman walls are and walk round and round the lake just to pass the time. Quite often there would be families there with the youngsters trying out their new bike or other toys and it used to make me rather left out of things.<br />
<br />
For some reason my foster parents were far more generous at Easter rather than Christmas. I used to get 1 big chocolate egg and 6 of those small cream filled eggs from them. I used to make them last a whole week.<br />
<br />
Obviously my foster parents must have had some family but I cannot remember much about them so I am guessing that they either lived a long way away or that there had been a family row sometime in the past and they had stopped talking to them. I certainly don't remember any family visits, phone calls or letters.<br />
<br />
All this meant that when I left foster care I didn't really have any family traditions to take with me when I went into lodgings with Mrs H.
Mrs H was quite old, but she was lovely and she made my birthday and Easter and Christmas feel like special times. Decorating the Christmas tree always made her cry a bit because she had been doing that when the police called to tell her that her husband had been killed in a factory accident.<br />
<br />
When I moved away to live in Wolverhampton to live with my new wife Mrs H made me promise to put the little angel she gave me on top of the Christmas tree every year. And every year I still do!Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-6674986929963710112015-09-11T06:07:00.000-07:002015-09-11T06:07:47.519-07:00Foster kids and their lack of fixed points"Friends come and go but your family never changes." - that was something that Mike used to say quite often. Usually when he had a pint of lager in his hand!<br />
<br />
Mike had lots of casual friends but I think I was the only one he would have called a close friend. He used to work long hours when he was doing up houses so by the time he finished work there was usually not much time left for socialising. It was Mike who introduced me to the hobby of stamp collecting and he had a very fine collection that he left to me in his Will. I think it is probably worth quite a lot of money although I would never even think of selling it. I think the only social event he would always go to was attending the monthly meeting of whichever was his nearest stamp club.<br />
<br />
Because he didn't have a family to talk to I always felt that underneath the cheery exterior there was quite a lonely person. In all of the years I knew him he almost never mentioned his birth family. I think he must have had a very troubled time as a youngster and like most men of his and my age he didn't find it easy to talk about his feelings. We used to joke about how few birthday and Christmas cards we used to get but in his case I think his jokes were just a way of hiding that he was feeling sad.<br />
<br />
Although he and I had a lot in common we were different in other ways. I always wanted a job where I was working with other people. Mike tended to think of other people as being unreliable so he always did his building projects on his own. I never felt the same amount of restlessness that troubled Mike all the years that I knew him. Wherever it was that he was living it always felt that he was planning his next move to somewhere else. I think he was looking for somewhere or something that he couldn't find.<br />
<br />
I don't know for sure where Mike lived before he ended up in St Albans. He had a London accent so perhaps it was from somewhere down there. After he died his solicitor and I went through all his belongings . Mike had stopped his building projects after the bad news from his doctor so he was living in a medium sized flat but it didn't take long for us to realise that Mike had destroyed most of his "made of paper" history in the weeks before he died. I think he must have guessed he was very ill and didn't want people prying into his past once he had gone. The only important name that we could find was the person he left his money too. She was his last-but-one lady friend and she must have got a real shock when the large cheque arrived.Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-65806674783368138542015-09-05T09:21:00.000-07:002015-09-06T02:17:13.617-07:00Mike, my best pal, was a foster child too.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3BtzuwjYtb_v-ppetnZ03JqrH_e12u6RDYHcLvxu9C7JAnHsUFDJjFm19KV-UNPXRaO5CnIF6c4q1VGD0Zyk3_EK_HgThc2ggs1x-SNM4Oi0J0RB77Lj2Q-vlQk66eopAKH2_AusskMsc/s1600/Lonely+Man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3BtzuwjYtb_v-ppetnZ03JqrH_e12u6RDYHcLvxu9C7JAnHsUFDJjFm19KV-UNPXRaO5CnIF6c4q1VGD0Zyk3_EK_HgThc2ggs1x-SNM4Oi0J0RB77Lj2Q-vlQk66eopAKH2_AusskMsc/s1600/Lonely+Man.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Mike - just how I remember him</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
Mike was my best friend for over 30 years and when he died in April 2011 it hit me very badly indeed. We had exchanged letters and emails about every ten days for all that time so I suppose it isn't surprising that when that stopped I felt really sad. <br />
<br />
Mike was a very skilled builder and decorator and that is how he made his living. He would buy a house that was tatty but just about OK to live in and he would transform it. I saw loads of "before and after" photos of projects he had done and it was amazing what he could achieve.<br />
<br />
He would sell the improved house at a good profit and use some of the money to buy another house to start working on. But in the gap between finishing one house and starting on the next he used to do something very strange - he would go on a quite long and expensive sea cruise. I can remember at least 10 of these cruise he did and he must have seen more of the world than most people. I was quite jealous when he visited Antarctica and when another time he went to New Zealand.<br />
<br />
Another strange thing he used to do was to suddenly get bored of where he was living so he would pick somewhere almost at random and move there. When I first met him he was living in Watford, then it was Taunton, then Hull and finally Chester. He used to say that he had never had a home as a grown-up. He just had places where he lived. I have heard other foster children say that as well so perhaps it is a common feeling to have?<br />
<br />
Mike never married but he had lots a lady friends. Sometimes in his letters I could tell that part of his brain wanted to settle down while the other part was so restless that settling down to married life was never going to happen.<br />
<br />
Mike was a fixed point in my life. Part of my weekly routine and somebody I could share things with that might seem strange to a non-fostered person. He helped me sort out my wife’s funeral and that was typical of the man he was. I think he deserved better than he got from his life. Hardly anybody made the effort to go his funeral and there were less than ten of us there.<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<center><a href="http://www.letstalkmommy.com/" "><img border="0" src="http://www.letstalkmommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/ShareWithMePicM.jpg" /></a></center>Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-22970762851433258802015-08-27T01:09:00.001-07:002015-08-27T01:09:54.441-07:00Older and adult foster children and birthday cardsOne of the little sadness's of being fostered and having few, if any, family around is how few birthday cards you receive. It probably sounds horribly silly and trivial to normal people but it was an annual reminder that I was different from most folk.<br />
<br />
When I was in foster care from 14 to 16 I used to get one card (plus a postal order) from my Dad's parents up in Yorkshire and one card (without a postal order!) from my Mum's sister who lived in Southern Rhodesia in Africa. My Mum didn't know where she was in time or space and as she was in a mental hospital anyway she couldn't pop out to the shops - so she had an excuse!<br />
<br />
My foster parents probably should have brought me a present or at the very least a card but they didn't bother. That was how it was back then, many foster parents regarded their young visitors as little more than lodgers and not somebody to be cared for or nurtured. Because I didn't have a birthday party (or an event like 10-pin bowling) I tended not to get invited to other peoples celebrations.<br />
<br />
When I timed out of foster care I moved in with the lovely Mrs H. She used to buy me a present and bake me a birthday cake and once I met Jane - who later became my wife - I started getting presents and cards from her as well. Jane's family were very good at remembering events like birthdays and for our whole time together we used to receive and send little gifts and cards. Jane used to write all the dates on the calendar we kept in the kitchen so nobody would be forgotten.<br />
<br />
Now of course there aren't many people around who remember my birthday except when I was 60! - then lots did!Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-6480325010798413372015-08-21T03:21:00.000-07:002015-08-21T03:21:51.664-07:00Settling down and starting to grow despite having no "roots".It is strange when one half of a married couple has a family and the other doesn't! All the time I was growing up I didn't have much or any family around so having so many of Jane's family within 20 miles was something I had to quickly get used to.<br />
<br />
When we moved to Wolverhampton 3 of her 4 grandparents were still alive. Only her Dad's Dad had died (on holiday and in his sleep). Her Mum and Dad were both working - Mum worked in personnel and her Dad in sales for a well-known brewery. Jane's sister and assorted aunts and uncles lived further east, the Birmingham direction.<br />
<br />
1979 was the year when we managed to buy our first house. We paid £16,000 for it which doesn't sound like very much to young people today. Jane's Parents were very generous to us. They gave us £5,000 out of their savings to help us and I think the lady at the Building Society was impressed that a young couple like us had such a big deposit. We felt very proud and very grown-up when we moved into our own home.<br />
<br />
The 1980s were very mixed for the two of us. We both did OK at work and we gradually moved up the career and salary scales but we had a bad run when every year for 5 years somebody important in Jane's family died. By the end of the 1980s all her grandparents had died and so had one of her aunts and her god-mother. We used to dread getting a phone call at an unusual time because quite often it was somebody calling us with bad news.<br />
<br />
It was also during these years that we found out that it was very unlikely that we would ever have children of our own. We didn't try to have children for the first few years but once Jane came off the Pill nothing happened. Eventually we went to the Health Centre and a bit later we went to the local hospital for various tests but nobody could find out what was wrong. Perhaps nothing was and we were just unlucky?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586608262079374560.post-69085947699479207902015-08-15T02:45:00.000-07:002015-08-15T02:45:33.097-07:00Our wedding and moving to Wolverhampton (2)After the reception and the honeymoon we started the final planning to move from St Albans to Wolverhampton. Jane's parents found us a rented flat about a mile from where they lived and they paid the first three months rent for us as part of our wedding present.<br />
<br />
We had both given in our notice at the school in St Albans so once we had worked through that we were free to leave. We both were given good references and I think that helped us when we started looking for new jobs.<br />
<br />
Saying goodbye to Mrs H was the hardest part. I had lived with her for about 7 years and I knew I would miss her friendship and her wise advice. I wrote to her every two weeks from the day I left St Albans until she died a few years later. It was quite a shock when I got a phone call from one of her neighbours with this sad news. Jane and I went to her funeral and I was one of the people allowed to carry her coffin into the crematorium chapel. It was nice that some of her former lodgers had been tracked down and that they were able to come to her funeral and the wake. I still think about Mrs H quite often and remember all the years and cups of tea we shared.<br />
<br />
A friend of ours gave us a lift to Wolverhampton in a van he owned and he helped us unpack our few possessions into our new home. After a pub tea he drove off back to Hertfordshire and Jane and I started our new life together.<br />
<br />
The first few weeks of job hunting were a total failure. We would leave the house about 8:00 AM and we spent the day visiting possible employers. We both wanted a change from what we had done in the past but without experience people just didn't want to take the risk. So in the end we only looked at catering (Jane) and school (me) jobs. By chance we both got a job the same day. I arrived home excited because I found a job only to find Jane bursting to tell me her good news before I could even speak!Fostered in the 1960shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08255714191250694607noreply@blogger.com0