Shirley Oaks

Hello Judith - I was in Rose Cottage. I was first in Willow Cottage but they closed Willow as they wanted to use it for training. We were then transferred to Rose Cottage. I was there with Betty Smith. I was in Shirley Oaks from about 1953 until 1964. I remember the back gates in Shirley near the School and the caretaker Mr Jarvis (I think his name was) lived in the house right next door to the back gates. I was in the band and really loved Mr Parr the band teacher. We had some good times there and I don't ever regret being in Shirley Oaks. I have some fond memories together with sad ones. When I went back a few years ago I was very sad to see what the place was like. It is now a housing estate. The swimming bath tower, laundry room etc are all gone and they only kept a handful of the cottages. Of course the atmosphere there now is completely different. The Nursery has gone together with the orchard. Living at Shirley Oaks was good for me and I am gratefu to all the staff who looked after all the children there.

Hello Judith Stone and Julia Binney! I worked in Sycamore house from 1964 and up to September 1967. I remember Mrs Young from Maple cottage and the Irish lady who also worked there was Chris O´mara. We became very closed friends and at Easter time we went on a short holiday to Paris . I have a photo of us together with another group. We also use to go together to the mass every sunday a catholic church that was not far from the gate right at the end .. I did not like to walk alone to the end gate because there was a cottage there where they had a few dogs . I don´t remember the name of this cottage, neither the house mother name. I had a wonderful time there with the children but unfortunatly I lost their contact. If you know where they are please let me know. The children at Sycamore were Frank Ridley, Anthony (forgot his surname) Gina and Anthony Collet (sister and brother) Janet and Rosemary Winn , I think, (they were tweens)Allan, Patricha, Leslie and Bethy Brown (also tweens) Simon and Rowan or Rohand (two brothers) . These last two they also had three more brothers which lived in a opposite cottage. I remember was very sad at the time because we could not have them together because of the space. They were lovely children and wonder what happend to them, If anyone knows any of them, please let me know as I would like to get in touch with them. I am portuguese from island of Madeira. I went back to England so many times after leaving for the first time but never had the opportunity to go to Shirley Oaks. Everytime I went was rather on business which tooked more of my time. I am also very grateful to have worked there because it improved my knowledge on English language and was a bless to be surrounding by such lovely children.

I also forgotton to say that I love animals but those that I mencioned above used to run to me and I got a bit worried. In Sycamore cottage the house mother was Jean from the north of England Chester or Cheshire and we had a lovely daily lady that used to go there every mornings to help. She was called Mrs Reeves and she had a son that had a problem with his leg. He had a special car in order to be able to drive. I also would like to say that I have a few pictures with the childrens. I missed writing above another girl who also lived in the cottage. Her name is Linda. If anyone interested or any of the children mentioned above reads this please let me know. Thank yoy.

I have seen so many comments written many years ago and I am wondering if it will take so long to answer to my comments made above. I am very interested to know if the children I have helped to look after, got on with their lifes in a very good way. I am quite sure they did because they were all very well behaved children. Thank you I realy need your help .