My first week as a foster child in St Albans - Part 1

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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?

So I went upstairs and read a book in my bedroom feeling rather lonely and abandoned.

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.

Adventures on the Harpenden and St Albans buses (321 and 355)

I have many fond memories of travelling on the 321 bus between St Albans and Harpenden. 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. 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.    

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 355 route. 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.

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.

The 355 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.

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.

Christmas and Birthday celebrations before and after fostering

My 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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

It is funny how things improved so much and so quickly once I left foster care and started living with Mrs H.

The lies that are told to foster children

When 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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My last day living with my foster parents in St Albans

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!

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.

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.

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!

And that is how aged 16 I left Care and became - so I thought - a "proper grown-up"!

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.

 

"We are the Oak Road Boot Boys"



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?

Starting the hunt for other fostered children

About 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Death and the foster child

I 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?

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.

Perhaps they are waiting somewhere for me to join them?

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.

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.

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.

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!