RootsChat.Com

Wow!  I can't believe I've found this about Elmleigh!  My mother worked at this mother and baby home when I was about 9 years old in 1977.  She was a kind of "in house" mother and we lived in a couple of rooms in the home and my mother was the one that the pregnant girls would come and wake up if they went into labour during the night when no other staff were around.  I can remember the cook at the home was called Mrs Thorpe or Thorn and her daughter, who was a similar age to me, was called Emily.  I can't remember any of the names of the very young mothers but I can remember being very intrigued by all these young mums and I used to lay awake at night listening to some of them crying through the night because their babies had been taken away from them or hearing parents rowing with the teenagers about the disgrace and shame they had brought on the family by getting pregnant out of wedlock etc.  I don't know how long we lived there for but I have never forgotten the time.  There was a children's home next door and I went to school locally somewhere with Emily and some of the children from next door.  Memories.