- Danny Chambers – St Mary’s Home Boy 1953 to 1964 -
I never imagined I would have this opportunity; the chance to tell of my memories of life in ‘care’ to people who would be interested and maybe even believe me.
I never imagined I would have this opportunity; the chance to tell of my memories of life in ‘care’ to people who would be interested and maybe even believe me.
What I have to say comes as answers to 10 key questions, the first being HOW?
1. HOW DID I END UP IN ST MARY’S HOME? When my father died in 1953, my brothers, sisters and myself were put into homes by the Catholic Church: brothers David, Harry, and myself in St Mary's, sisters Rosemary and Kathleen in St Joseph's, Darlington. HOW this happened, I do not know. Back home – our real home - in Hebburn, we had all been placed with a family member YET we were taken from our relations by the Catholic authorities and put into childrens’ homes - the Catholic idea seemingly being it would be better for us if we were kept together: boys with the boys, girls with the girls. Our older brother Frankie, the eldest, got to stay with our nana – perhaps he was of an age where it would not be easy to intimidate, manipulate and brain-wash him? |
2. WHY? WHY, AS CHILDREN, WERE WE DE-HUMANISED?
Once in the homes we were given a number and told to forget our names – we were stripped of our identities. When many children came to leave the homes at the age of 15 or 16 they didn’t even know that they had brothers or sisters – or worse still - that they had actually grown up in the same home. This ‘unimportant’ information was kept from us. Upon arrival at the homes, and on countless occasions over the years, the nuns and their helpers actually give us their version of why we were there: WE WERE THE DEVIL’S CHILDREN! NOBODY LOVED US! NOBODY CARED FOR US! NOBODY WANTED US! The Sisters of Mercy showed NONE, and indeed that’s what we used to call the nuns: SISTERS OF NO MERCY Saint Francis of Assisi Suffer Little Children to come unto Me [SUFFER WE DID] |
3. WHY WAS OUR CHILDHOOD STOLEN FROM US?
In the home we were TOLD many things; to be pure of mind, to tell the truth and so on, AND YET by the examples of behavior we witnessed and the treatment we received, we were also TAUGHT how to be deceitful and lie – a nun could give a child a beating and yet, unperturbed, smile at the public minutes later at church, patting the same child on the head!
We learned how to be violent, how to fight, how to bully.
We learned how to survive, how to be a lone survivor that is – friendship was prevented and forbidden.
Why it had to be like that I don’t know. I can only suppose that their aim was to break our spirit.
At a very early age we came to hate authority. We were forever being punished for doing nothing wrong - some nuns and helpers – on a daily basis - would just strike you as you walked passed them. If you were brave enough to dare ask what you’d done wrong, the answer was always the same: "That’s for when you do DO something!"
They seemed to get great pleasure out of this, sometimes smiling as they hit us.
In the home we were TOLD many things; to be pure of mind, to tell the truth and so on, AND YET by the examples of behavior we witnessed and the treatment we received, we were also TAUGHT how to be deceitful and lie – a nun could give a child a beating and yet, unperturbed, smile at the public minutes later at church, patting the same child on the head!
We learned how to be violent, how to fight, how to bully.
We learned how to survive, how to be a lone survivor that is – friendship was prevented and forbidden.
Why it had to be like that I don’t know. I can only suppose that their aim was to break our spirit.
At a very early age we came to hate authority. We were forever being punished for doing nothing wrong - some nuns and helpers – on a daily basis - would just strike you as you walked passed them. If you were brave enough to dare ask what you’d done wrong, the answer was always the same: "That’s for when you do DO something!"
They seemed to get great pleasure out of this, sometimes smiling as they hit us.
4. WHY DID WE NOT SPEAK OUT? We were, of course, always told to say nothing about what went on inside the home to ‘outsiders’ – for one we would be punished if we did, two nobody would believe us - and sadly this turned out to be true. |
5. WHY DID NOBODY DO ANYTHING?
As children with no one to turn to, we couldn't understand how even those adults who were regularly there, witnessing the beatings and abuse did nothing to help us.
6. WHAT / WHO WERE THEY AFRAID OF? Why did no adult speak up? We had no chance! Did they also think we were really the Devil’s children? Since this was drummed into us so much, and since no one came to our aid, I’m sure some of us started to believe that maybe we were the Devil’s children after all, and that was why the witnesses were condoning the beatings and those beating us were really trying to beat the devil out of us to save our souls. Had these individuals been brought up the same way with violence an everyday event for them? Each beating created more hatred and even caused some children to become mentally unbalanced: created by what I would call the twisted minds of our adult carers who the outside world believed were right in all things, good people of the cloth, caring, upright and honest - and we the children were all just liars. |
7. WHY WERE WE NEVER GIVEN THE BENFIT OF THE DOUBT?
When we’d left the homes, if we happened to be asked – say by a friend, a work colleague or someone in authority - what the homes were like and how we’d been treated there - our natural reaction was to tell the truth, again hoping to be believed …
In most cases, we met the same response: ‘Priests, nuns, and their helpers could not possibly have treated us like that!’
I always found this reaction so frustrating and soul-destroying; because if you don’t believe that I am telling the truth, then I must be lying!
When I was in the home – 11 years in my case - I couldn't wait to get out and tell the world how we’d been treated. Countless children ran away hoping that when they got where they were going and people heard how bad things were, someone, somewhere would listen and help us … no one ever did.
Unfortunately this led to a general mistrust of all people and the feeling that we were on our own – it was us against the world, not one world but TWO: the ‘inside’ world of the home along with that of the ‘outside’.
For our entire lives, up until now, we home children have believed that most people did not want to know our stories and didn’t care. We thought we would never been seen as anything other than liars.
8. WHAT AFTER THE HOME? From innocent children, turned into emotionally & mentally disturbed adolescents, many home children were sent out into the outside world of which they knew absolutely nothing – totally ill-prepared for their new reality. Little wonder many former home children rode straight into trouble. The “luckier” ones were sent to stay or live with families appointed by the same authorities in whose ‘care’ we had suffered, who we had come to fear and in many cases hate! Others were placed in hostels, run according to the same regime as the homes. I know now how bad the hostels really were. |
9. HOW DID SOME OF US MAKE IT?
Some of us were fortunate to have family or other people we met along the way we could turn to. We made friends who gave us support and guidance or sometimes just a kind word; all helped us adapt and fit into society.
In my case, I will be forever indebted to Aunt Rene & Uncle Tommy and all the Mc Cumisky's: they asked me to call them Aunt & Uncle and I loved them for that! It was the first time I was ever shown any love!
I also want to thank the Mills, the Brett's and the Johnson family whom I married into.
And thank you, of course, to my wife Chris for all the understanding & support you have given me since the day we met.
Friends, family, acquaintances, thank you for caring and for the huge part you played, often unknowingly, in our transition from the Devil’s children to semi-normal, young (or not so young) adults.
10. MY CONCLUSION? Is it any wonder that so many home children ended up mentally disturbed, unable to ‘fit in’ – here I sadly include my own brothers and sisters? As young adults many felt misfits & misunderstood, often taking to drink, often ending up in remand homes, borstal, or even prison. Some, sadly, unable to cope, took their own lives. All this in our home boys’/girls’ minds is unforgivable and our hearts bleed for our home brothers and sisters who suffered in the past as well as those children and young adults who, even today, suffer a similar fate in the hands of religious and other institutions. Suffer Little Children to come unto Me SUFFER WE DID AND SADLY A LOT MORE STILL WILL Whilst I appreciate that many Catholics are good Christians and I acknowledge that there must be many good priests and nuns, the one concern I have is the Catholic Church’s reluctance to defrock their representatives even when they are proven child abusers. In some cases, clergy have been retired into rest homes or into the Vatican and given protection from prosecution. In our case, some of our abusers have been located and are still living but we are told that when questioned about allegations they claim not to remember anything about the homes. These people who caused so much unjust suffering to so many are now safe in Catholic retirement homes and I’m sure, knowing part of their background, that they sleep soundly each night. SADLY MOST OF US HOME CHILDREN STILL DO NOT I, personally, have had years of sleepless nights and today I still feel guilty for not personally doing anything about this. |
Thank you for reading. Danny Chambers, June 2016.