Hawke’s Bay Children’s Homes Radio Interview 1992 – Mack Swinburn and Judy Heyland-Paterson

Radio Interview 1992 – Hawke’s Bay Children’s Homes Centenary

[Mack Swinburn], Judy Heyland-Paterson – thank you for coming in this morning and talking a little bit about the Children’s Home.  Mack, first to you – you’ve been associated with the Children’s Home for some years now, and I know that you’re responsible also for compiling a little history, a little booklet, that I’ve been looking through over the last few days – a book looking at the history of the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Home. When did it all start, Mack?

Mack: The Children’s Home?

Mmm.

Way back in 1892. Like most of these Hawke’s Bay, or New Zealand charitable organisations they started in a very small way by a small group of people who saw there was something that needed to be done and decided to do something about it. In this case it was the ladies of the Baptist Union at their monthly meeting who had two girls who were homeless, and they thought they’d better do something about them. So they found a place for them, but at the same time they felt something more permanent should be done, and they had no cash, no premises; all they had were promises of assistance from members of the general public. So they went ahead, and that was the start of a hundred years activity of the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Home.

Back in those days of course, Hawke’s Bay was a wee bit of a different place, wasn’t it? I mean, you’ve looked through photographs, haven’t you? I mean things have changed a lot – what was the landscape like in those days? What was it like living in Napier?

Things were pretty grim; there wasn’t much help there for anybody who was in trouble.

There wasn’t a social welfare net there to catch people?

There was not. No, there were some grim cases. I’ve looked through the minutes … cases for instance, where a mother had lost her husband, was unable to pay the rent, and was thrown out onto the street with her furniture, and her children. Nowhere to go, nobody to look after them.

Used to see the old silent movies and the nasty landlord like that, didn’t we?

Yes.

So it was a reality of the day then?

It certainly was. There were many hard cases like that at the time, not only widowhood; sometimes the father had to go up-country to work and things would go wrong with Mum and the kids, and there was nobody else to look after them. The Government Aid Board wasn’t very helpful at that stage – they had a policy that children should not go into institutions, they should be placed out with foster parents. That worked moderately well I presume, although I must say, at the first annual meeting the Chairman of the Charitable Aid Board, Mr R D D McLean, stated that he felt that the proposals for a Children’s Home would provide facilities better than the government could supply. So he was in favour of it. So there was some official support at that stage, although there was no money; he didn’t get a government subsidy until 1909, I think it was.

So really, in response to some of those tough times, and some of the sights that people were seeing, particularly those ladies from the Baptist … what was it? Napier Baptist Bible Women’s Society, I think they were the ones, weren’t they, that saw … it wasn’t that it started actually as a religious though, organisation as such, was it?

No, it was always undenominational.

Has it always remained that way?

Yes, always. There’s been no bars on any children on the grounds of religion, colour, sex … that’s always been the policy.

So they started, what? Purchasing a Home, did they, for these two girls; and obviously there were a few more destitute women and children that were in need at the time, and they all came into the Home?

Well, they started off with these two girls, and they placed them with a widow in a cottage in Onepoto Valley; then they shifted to another house in town, but that didn’t prove satisfactory. Finally they purchased a property in Burlington Road – an acre of land, a bigger house – and that’s where they really got going. Children kept coming in fairly rapidly, and the numbers built up to about thirty towards the finish, at that Home. They started off with just girls and the young boys – they wouldn’t take any boys older than six. And this continued until they found the pressure for the admission of older boys was such that they had to move into bigger premises. And that’s when they shifted into Priestley Road.

Priestley Road – that was called originally, what? Randall House?

Randall House. This was an odd setup. About the same time as the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Home was formed, the France Orphan’s Trust was formed, which was a different Charitable Trust setup altogether. But they never operated a Children’s Home as such; instead, they offered to build a suitable Home in Priestley Road for the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Home and lease it to the Children’s Home at a nominal rent, and some of their children were placed in it. And that was the start of the institution-type Homes … big old place, I remember it in the early fifties – three storeys, long echoing corridors, high ceilings … not a very comfortable place, I don’t think; bottom of a gully. Must’ve been cold in winter, blazing hot in summer.

Gosh, it must’ve you know … I mean, things’ve changed a lot. We’ll talk about what the Children’s Home is about now, anyway, and particularly where you are at Swinburn House. But can you think back to those days? These weren’t like orphanages, were they?

Judy Heyland-Paterson: Well I wasn’t around those days. [Chuckles]

But at the same time, they weren’t orphanages, were they? They were …

Judy: My understanding of it is that certainly there were still some orphans around, but some children were coming in for other reasons as Mr Swinburn’s already said; problems in the home, dad away, or dad not present.

How long did they stay for, Mack?

Mack: It’s difficult to generalise … in most cases they averaged two or three years, although some were there anything up to ten or twelve years, sometimes – they came in at five and stayed there until they left school. But there weren’t so many of them.

So we could have quite a number of our listeners out there who might be old boys or old girls …

Yes.

… of the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Homes?

Certainly.

What about reputation, I mean, was it a bit of a stigma to be someone who went into the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Home?

I think at that stage, up until [the] Second World War, anyway, there was definitely a stigma, which is why we’ve always operated at such a low profile. We didn’t feel it was fair on the children or their parents, come to that. That I think is changing these days, although it’s something we still have to keep in mind, even with the day care centre.

Which we’ll talk about a little bit later on …

Yes.

The buildings – like Randall House, Gordon House …

Gordon House was another building put up by the France Trustees.

France Trustees and yourselves, your organisation, had similar ideals?

Yes. I think that’s a fair statement; they worked in fairly closely together.

When we talk about France House, we often talk about France House out at Eskdale, don’t we?

It is the third big institution-type Home we put up; that was for the older boys.

That wasn’t the original France House though, was it?

Yes. Yes, it was built in 1924 as France House, for the older boys. They moved there from Gordon House; they were old enough to do farm work – that’s roughly what it comes to. France House was built – nice brick house, too – 1924; got flattened in the earthquake seven years later. We had to start all over again; somehow they got the money together – had to borrow some of it for the first time – and it carried on out there as a farm for training the older boys until the sixties, when there were an insufficient number of boys to run the farm and it was finally closed in the early seventies due to lack of numbers and the cost of running it, frankly.

Yeah. A lot of people would think of that as Beck House.

It was taken over by the government and renamed as Beck House, yes … same building.

Exactly the same building, and that of course is still there; it was taken over after Beck House by the military academy out there …

That’s right.

… I think they’re still out there at the moment, aren’t they? I’m not too sure, but things have changed, I know.

Okay, so really, you know, the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Home has had quite an amazing history really – over the one hundred years it’s developed, and it’s changed, and now it has net assets of nearly $1.5 million. So the philosophy behind the organisation has changed to some degree the way that you operate, and that’s something that I would like to look at in just a moment or two. It this year celebrates its one hundredth year in existence – 1892 it started; started by a group of women in Napier who saw a need in the community, and in typical New Zealand fashion they did something about it. Mack Swinburn, who’s a past Trust Chairman – he was Trust Chairman for the years 1982 I think it was, Mack, right through to 1990. And as Secretary-Manager you started off in 1954, and … I’m not too sure, you’re not still Secretary-Manager, are you? [Chuckles]

No.

But I know you have a lot to do with the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Home, and of course you’ve compiled this little booklet which looks at the history of it.

And with me also is Judy Heyland-Paterson, who’s the Principal of Swinburn House. Now you’ve been the Principal of Swinburn House for a number of years too, Judy?

Judy: Yes, I have.

1978 you started there?

That’s right.

That was the inception wasn’t it? That was when Swinburn House really started?

Yes, although it actually … the Children’s Home that is, but we actually started in ’75 with a group of suburban churches getting together and seeing a need. And we started at Onekawa at that point.

But you are a working Minister – is that what you ..?

I’m a self-supporting priest.

That’s right, I knew there was a term that I had to use there. So one of the things that we mentioned before is that this is an interdenominational organisation, isn’t it?

That’s right. And that group amalgamated with the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Homes, and the group at that point felt completely comfortable with the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Homes’ constitution because we were interdenominational then, with no particular religious bias.

As I mentioned before, the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Home has gone through quite a number of changes of the years. We talked earlier on about the institutional houses, like Randall House and Gordon House; they had multi-storey buildings, long corridors, echoey corridors. And I think there’s a few people out there who’ve most probably been to boarding schools, and that would bring back memories, I suppose. And there might be even some old boys or old girls that [who] might share with us their experiences this morning, because our lines are open for their calls, as well. But what was it that changed your philosophy to move from the institutional style of accommodation to the Family Homes?

Mack: Well, this was a change in the whole social atmosphere of the time – this was in the fifties and the early sixties. We found the type of child coming in was changing; we were no longer getting children whose parents couldn’t keep them for one reason or another, mainly finance, I think. Instead we were getting children with emotional upsets, and they were much more difficult to deal with, and we didn’t have the staff, either in numbers or in training. And as the numbers of children fell, so the cost went up … cost per child … and towards the finish it was becoming obvious we could no longer afford to keep these institution-type Homes going, nor were they serving the original purpose for which they were formed. So it was felt preferable that the children should be in smaller groups in homes, if possible indistinguishable from ordinary homes, with a married couple looking after them with the husband going out to work and the wife doing the housework, just like an ordinary family. We felt this would give the children a better and more secure background, and a better chance to get the training and experience they would need when they went out on their own. It proved quite successful, really. Staffing at times was a problem, although we were fortunate in two of the homes who had very good couples, and they’re still there – they’ve been there for years. But on the whole there was no doubt this was a good move, and we carried on with those until the new legislation came in.

The legislation you’re talking about is the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act, isn’t it?

That’s right.

Yeah, right. So what were those Homes, you know, that people might remember? I mean, what were some of the Homes that you’ve operated in the area?

We had three Family Homes; the first one to be established was Rochfort in Havelock North. This was followed by Edgley in Taradale, and a couple of years later we had Nelson House in Flaxmere.

What was the difference between these homes and some of the Social Welfare homes that have been in the area?

Not very much, although I think the staff would say the Social Welfare homes had much better quarters for their staff – they had self-contained flats – which we weren’t in a position to provide.

I see.

But the principle was much the same, although the numbers in our Homes probably weren’t as many as in the Social Welfare homes.

How many children were you catering for at this time? This is about from 1966 on, isn’t it?

Yes. Well the two first Homes were designed to take six children; usually there were about four. Nelson was bigger – that was designed to take eight. And the usual numbers were around about six … we’ve had a few more or a few less from time to time, but that was about the maximum we could expect any married couple to look after.

Yeah. Well of course there was a move also to Day Care, which was instituted around 1978, and I want to deal with that very shortly, ’cause I want to talk to you about that, Judy. I want to also talk about, you know, Swinburn House too, that you’re associated with. We would like to hear from maybe old boys or old girls, and I know that there are a few that we’ll be talking to in about five minutes’ time.

Talk to me a bit about the move now, from the Family Homes to Day Care … why was it thought that there had to be Day Care, rather than maybe just care in the Homes?

Judy: The Hawke’s Bay Children’s Homes saw that there was a need in the community to relieve stress, particularly for solo parents, which was becoming a significant need at that time, and the centre I was involved in prior to that had also picked up that need, so the two joined together to form the same network, and Swinburn House came from that.

So you don’t have anybody staying there overnight, so to speak?

No, it’s a day centre.

Purely a day centre?

Yes. The children go back to the Homes in the evening.

What is down at that centre?

We have what we could call a whole programme; we provide the educational needs of the children in a heavily structured educational programme. We provide for their health needs – for example we have our own doctor; we provide for their nutritional needs by providing meals, and their social needs and their emotional needs.

What ages are we talking about?

So we’re talking about children from the age of two up ’til about five or six.

Pre-school, pretty well.

Pre-school children.

Tell me about some of the children that come to you and the reasons for them coming to you.

All the children who come to Swinburn House have to’ve been referred in by a social worker – for example, from Social Welfare or Community Health Services, or the Napier Family Centre, or a health nurse from, once again, Community Health or Plunket, or a doctor or a psychologist or a teacher … somebody from one of those agencies. And they have to meet specific criteria to enter so they’re put on the waiting list initially. So we can have children who are coming in because of high stress levels in the home where under normal circumstances it would be a normal home.

What sort of things are causing the stress?

Well, unemployment today is causing stress – a great deal of stress as we’re all aware of. But there are also other factors – it might be illness; the mother may have cancer for example, and be hospitalised; and these days Dad needs to keep his job if he’s got one. And it’s not always feasible for a child to go into private care these days.

Do you deal with children who are abused in any way?

We also deal with children who are abused.

That’s physically and sexually abused?

Physically, sexually and emotionally abused, yes.

And is that increasing at all?

Yes, that has increased during the last couple of years. Instead of having a referral on a basis of about once every two or three months, we can anticipate one every month now.

Can you cope with the number that are being referred to you?

We are at the moment.

Just?

Yes.

Do you have a waiting list?

Yes, we’ve always had a waiting list, actually, but it is a containable waiting list at the moment. Yes. What I mean is that given the number of children who will leave to go to school, the children who are on the waiting list should be able to come in within a reasonable period of time. However, we always maintain two emergency places for emergency situations.

Right. Now the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act – now that changed things a lot really, didn’t it, for the Children’s Home[s]?

Mack: Yes, it was a major change for us. Obviously the policies of the government – or the Department – were swinging right back to where they were in the in the early 1900s, where institution-type Homes were going out of fashion and children in need of care were placed in foster homes. This meant that our Family Homes would have to go out; in fact their registrations were withdrawn and passed out of our care. We still own the buildings, and the couples in two of the Homes are still there, and most of the children are still there at their own request. And that will continue for another year or two I imagine, until the children pass out and go out into the world.

Then there’ll be no more referrals, there’ll be no more children taken on?

We can’t accept any children for Family Homes now, that’s all done through Social Welfare.

How do you feel about that, Mack, you know, putting government policy aside?

We’re glad to see that they weren’t closed completely, because we feel they have served a very useful purpose during the time they’ve been in existence. It’s given a lot of children a chance to settle down, get their confidence back, and receive the affection that a lot of them needed. Yes, we were sorry to see them go, but perhaps the new arrangements that the Department are making may prove more successful in the future. Time will tell.

We’ll talk to some of the old boys [and] old girls, of some of the institu[tional homes]; and also I guess pay tribute to the work that they’ve done over the last one hundred years.

John’s on the line at the moment – hello, John. [Talkback caller]

John: Yeah, gidday, how are you?

Tell us a little bit about your involvement with the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Homes.

Yeah, I could write a book about it.

When did it start for you?

’Bout 1939-40; I was about two and a half years of age.

Why were you in the Home?

Well my mother got kicked out of the house ’cause she was pregnant with me. And unfortunately she ended up by getting married to somebody that I didn’t want to really know, and … well she put me in; she knew that she was in a bad way herself, and she died when she was about twenty-three with an enlarged heart. And I think that the guy that she married wouldn’t have anything to do with me or anything, and so they had to try and find, I think, five shillings [5/-] a month or five shillings a year or something like this, to … you know, to get me into a Home. But basically, that’s how it started, anyway.

What Home were you in?

Well I was in the old Gordon House.

What do you remember most about Gordon House?

Miss MacRae, Miss McAuslin, would’ve been the most vicious, nastiest, rottenist people that I could ever wish to meet. Now I know I’ve got the backing for this from just about everybody else that went through there, you know, I mean, in a way – if they were in a bad mood of course in the middle of the night, and if you wanted to go to the toilet you had to walk down the outside banister stairs – you know, the fire place [fire escape] – to get down three storeys to toilets that were right across the yard underneath the big bank.

Ooh, tough times …

Oh, tough times.

Were there good times, though, John?

Oh, we had some great times, you know – I mean to us they sounded good times. But I think the most important thing is that on 3rd February 1949 I left there and went to France House. And that’s when life to me actually really started. The loyalty and the comradeship of the boys at France House was second to none. You know, I mean you never let France House down; if you did you went through a gauntlet from the boys themselves.

Hey, you sound like a tough bunch of lads there …

We were; we had to be. But we were looked after by two very, very wonderful people, Mr & Mrs Shaw. Now these two people, they taught us literally anything and everything we wanted to know., from gardening to … we had a farm out there with cows, you know. We had about twenty-odd cows at one stage there – all hand-milked. And then we had orchards; they’d even sit down and even teach us how to sew, knit … you know, anything, and we were literally taught that, and also cooking.

Well, a couple of things that happened while we were at Gordon House … we used to be taken once a year or twice a year out to France House, and the boys would take us down to what we called the ’flats’ near the river and they’d cook us a meal. And this was done every Saturday afternoon. And I can always remember that because I can remember I was in this hut, and we had to wait an extra hour longer than anybody else, because the two boys that were cooking for me and themselves had this cake, and it was done on an open fire. And everybody was hangin’ around, and everybody wanted my piece and there was no way in the world anyone was going to get my piece. Yeah.

But France House itself, though … you know, I left there four years after that and went out farming. Some people took me from … people by the name of Richmond; actually their father was the one that opened Richmond Meat Company out in Hastings.

Ah yes. D’you get together with any of the other old boys at France House?

Oh yeah, we’ve had quite a few reunions.

How’ve they all turned out?

Not too bad; there’s an awful lot that haven’t come along, but those who’ve come along have been, you know – well some of them are a hell of a lot older than I am; but no – really, really nice guys. And a lot of them are in their own businesses now, you know, they’ve done very, very well for themselves.

But I also knew a lot of the girls too that were at the old Randall House that used to be just underneath, down from where Gordon House is.

Right – it sounds as if you could write a book, and I think you should actually, John.

Oh, jeez, could we ever! I mean a couple of us here, we could go on for hours.

Well, and I think it’d be most entertaining, too. Thanks for sharing just those few little memories with us this morning, John, and you know, helping mark I guess the centenary of the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Homes.

Yeah, yeah. I hope a couple of the others ring up too.

Bye-bye. We’re taking your calls this morning.

Harry, good morning. [New caller]

Henry: Hello there.

Henry … sorry, Henry, I just wrote it down wrong.

That’s all right.

What are your memories?

Oh well, I have very, very mixed memories. I went into Gordon House in 1940, and I spent about a year there. And all I can say is that it was just a terrible, terrible place. You’ve heard about the old Charles Dickens’ stories about the homes, and Oliver Twist asked for more and got his backside caned for asking, and all that sort of thing. Well, that’s the sort of place it was.

So really, you know … I mean, Mack, I guess I’m going to put it to you – the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Home has had a chequered history as far as that is concerned; I mean, this is the second call we’ve had pointing the finger and wagging it at Gordon House.

Well I must say, and I’m not telling stories out of school or anything like that, but I don’t think there was [were] many boys who went through that particular Home that were very, very happy. They had Miss MacRae there, and she was a very, very hard, vicious woman. Miss McAuslin – she had great pleasure in slapping you with sticks and all that sort of thing – they were just two terrible people, and the boys and the girls there, they were mixed, they got a terrible, terrible hard time.

Did you move on from there, though?

Yes. I was lucky enough to get out; I left when I was ten – you were supposed to go to France House when you were eleven, but luckily I got out of it when I was ten, and I went to France House. And as John says, life changed from there on. We learnt everything that there was to learn, and it was a lovely place under Mr & Mrs Shaw. They were a great couple, and I was out there for seven years. And at the time we thought we were pretty hard done by being in the Home, you know – other kids had privileges and went to the pictures and all those sort[s] of things. We were stuck out there. We thought we were pretty hard done by at the time, but now that you stop and look back on those days, they were hell of a good days.

Was there some sort of a stigma attached to being a ’France House’ boy?

Well … yes. Some of the outside kids used to call us ’Home kids’, and if we ever caught any of those kids that called us a ’Home kid’, they got a bloody good hiding.

[Chuckle] You were a tough lot, weren’t you? Not to be mixed with …

No. We were a hard lot, but we had to be hard because no one looked after you other than yourself. You sort of had to … sort of bring yourself up. We were guided, and guided very well, but we had to bring ourselves up. We had to be tough, and we were. We were always fair, and they were fair. But we had some terrible, terrible [terribly, terribly] nice times out there. I look back on it with very fond memories.

Henry, can you tell me the reason why you ended up in the Home?

Yes. My father went to the First World War. He came back; he was choked with gas in a very, very critical way. My mother died when I was four, and [of] course there was [were] seven in the family, and of course he just couldn’t look after us all.

What would’ve happened if there hadn’t been the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Home?

Well, goodness only knows. I had two other brothers that [who] were in the Home, so the three of us were in the Home there all at once. But no, that’s how we put there, and that’s how things went.

Henry, thanks for calling us.

You’re welcome.

Hello, Connie. [New caller]

Connie: Hi.

Are you an old girl?

I am, yes, I was at Randall House. Yes, my mother [and] my grandmother, they both died of the flu in 1918. And I was only four at the time and there were two girls and two boys; and the boys went into the Home up the hill, and we both went to Randall House because – we had aunties, but they had families of their own. And I mean, it was pretty hard times, we didn’t expect them to take another four children.

What was Randall House like?

Well, it was spotlessly clean; the girls all had to work. We had dormitories, and there were about thirty-four girls, I think, altogether.

And were you treated better than Gordon House ..?

Yes. It was very strict; we weren’t allowed to talk in bed, nor at the table.

Same sort of thing happens at any boarding school round the country …

Right. Right, well if we were caught talking in bed they used to make us go down and stand with a blanket over our heads for about an hour, [chuckle] so we didn’t do that very often. But we had a lot of sneaky fun; sometimes we used to put a blanket across from one bed to another and make out it was a tent. We used to have to get up at six [o’clock] every morning, and straight into a cold bath; you didn’t have to stay in it long. But everything was beautifully kept – we all had our own flannel and towel and soap in a little bag, and a comb, so everything was personalised. Our clothes were all neatly folded into little cubbyholes, sort of put away in the winter and brought out in the summer.

D’you get together with some of the old girls of Randall House?

No, I haven’t actually, I went to England when I was eighteen, so I sort of lost out on them; I was over there for twenty-five years, married over there. I had two daughters.

Well Connie, nice to hear from you and that little memory this morning.

But anyway, as I say, it was spotlessly clean. We had our jobs, but we were well looked after.

Thanks for calling. That was back in the thirties and the forties, wasn’t it, you know, and I suppose the treatment like that of children in those days wasn’t exceptional, was it? It wasn’t unusual?

Judy: No – that actually could’ve been considered to be a norm for that time.

In just ordinary homes?

In just ordinary homes, although today of course it would be completely unacceptable behaviour.

Thank goodness for that – I mean things have changed; I mean we may get a chance to hear from people who were in Family Homes …

That’s right; it’d be quite different.

… these are from 1966, and it’d be a totally different story that they would have. And those people also that [who] have used the Day Care facilities at your Swinburn House … I fear that we’re not going to have time to take all those calls, so I just thought I’d put that in perspective; that although that is part of the history – you know, Gordon House and Randall House and so forth, it’s a part of the history of the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Homes. It’s a part of history, I guess, that one feels a little bit embarrassed about, in hindsight.

That’s right.

Hello, Colin. [New caller]

Con: Yeah, gidday, [?]. Yeah, I went into Gordon House at the age of four in about 1945.

For what reason?

Just because our parents were unable to bring us up properly.

Yeah, what’s your memory of Gordon House?

I can remember my very first day there getting told to empty my pockets out, and I had three of my pockets full of stones. I don’t know what I was doing with them in my pocket …

At four years of age?

Four years old – I can remember that very clearly, and then getting stood at the big wash basin to have a wash.

Gosh – and people think, you know, that today’s youth are bad …

Oohhh, we’ve done all the things they’re doing … or not all the things, but a lot of them.

[Chuckle] How long did you stay there for, anyway, Colin?

Well in the late forties we shifted to Randall House, which at that stage was next to Central School; and we had a very nice matron by the name of Miss Hall – she was a real nice lady, we had a great time with her – and then went out to France House ’til about 1953.

And you enjoyed that?

Yeah, oh, Les and Hazel Shaw – they were a terrific couple – great people.

Well that’s all we’ve heard ’bout the Shaws of course, this morning, are tributes paid to them, the love and affection that they gave the kids out there.

Yes. Now I think Miss Hall, she deserves a special mention too, because she was a real nice lady.

Well thanks for your call, Colin.

Hello, Florence. [New caller]

Florence: Yes, good morning. I went into the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Home in 1927, with my younger sister. We lost our mother a fortnight after our youngest brother was born, and there were five of us altogether. And I agree with John and the other boy who spoke about MacRae and the other woman. I was sent from a girls’ Home up there because they reckoned that I knew too much; but I will agree that they were very, very cruel. Equally, at the girls’ Home we had Miss McLean who was an ex-army person, and she was cruellest person that I’ve ever had anything to do with.

Yeah, there were a lot of people like that, you know – any boarding schools and you know, even in families – very much like that as well.

Yes.

Florence, thanks for calling us.

Thank you.

Hello, Jill. [New caller]

Jill: Oh yes, hello. Oh, well I was in Randall House for a while, and I’ll just say that the others were just as terrible. But then we got shifted to Abbotsford Home in Waipawa, and they were absolutely wonderful to us.

That’s a wonderful Home there, too, isn’t it?

Five years I spent there, and I think the best five years of my life.

Jill, thanks for calling us.

Rosalie, I believe you worked in Randall House, was it? [New caller]

Rosalie: Yes, that’s right, yes.

How long ago?

Oh, it’d be ’bout the beginning of the sixties … ’60, ’62, 63.

Give us one memory, ’cause we’re running out of time.

Oh, well there was about twenty-three, twenty-four children there in those days. They ranged from about … I think the youngest was about four and a half, up to about eighteen, I think our oldest girl was. And I was also at France House for a little while, later on.

A good time?

There were good times, yes, busy times …

Tough kids?

Some of them were tough; some of them were very good. We used to take them out a lot … take them to all different things that were on, and I wasn’t very old those days, I was only about eighteen, I suppose, and some of them were the same age as me.

Bit of an education for you no doubt, Rosalie …

Yes it was, it was very good; it was marvellous, yes.

We must leave that, and thank you for all those memories too, folks. And unfortunately we haven’t got time to take more.

Thank you for coming in; Mack Swinburn, thank you for coming in, and I know you’ve got pretty low-key celebrations for the centenary, but it’s one way anyway, of marking and saying ’Well done’ to the Hawke’s Bay Children’s Home. Thank you, Judy, for coming in as well.