Southfield Maternity Home, Bowden

[Tomps]

Thank you ! How interesting that the nuns were ‘suddenly’ employed at Southfield by the late 60s, though it was nhs run and not officially religiously affiliated. Maybe cheap / free labour ? Maybe they were in training for looking after babies at Nazareth house ? Interesting that there seems to be a connection between the two, though Southfield not the closest maternity hospital to Nazareth house, which probably wasn’t the nearest community of catholic nuns to Southfield.

[LizzieW]

I had no idea (and I guess most people hadn't) that in the late 1960s onwards there was a tie up with Southfields and Nazareth House.  I'm sure my mum would have known had she still lived near enough to drop in on the Matron, which she used to do, and would have said something.  (Too late to ask her now, if she was still alive she would have been 112 last week!)

As you say, it was probably to train them in looking after babies or even meeting the mums giving their babies up for adoption.  I'm sure they received babies from other maternity homes too but, presumably, only from mothers who were Roman Catholic.  I can't imagine other mothers who were giving up their babies for adoption would have agreed to their babies going to a Roman Catholic home.