Nowhere Else to Go Disowned and Disabled


Nowhere Else to Go

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This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

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In the 20th century, thousands of children found themselves rejected by society

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They were often children who had been abandoned by their families,

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or who had physical or learning disabilities.

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Today, we recognise the need to integrate such children,

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but in the past, attitudes were very different.

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NEWSREEL: 'The boy might have been admitted to hospital many years ago,

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'had Mr Harris had his way.

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'I was inclined to agree with him.

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'For whatever the cause, home has been destroyed.

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'Sometimes it may be better to take the children away

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'to an institution.'

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For many of Britain's rejected children,

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family life was replaced by a childhood behind high walls.

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For years and years,

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I was ashamed to say I'd been in an orphanage, I hated that word

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But 60 years ago, a revolution began

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to change peoples' attitudes towards these children.

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Every child was important, they were no longer a number,

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they were no longer a group. This was wonderful.

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The journey hasn't been easy.

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Along the way there has been trauma, scandal and even horror.

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NEWSREEL: 'Up to five hours a day tied to a post

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'when he's being particularly difficult.'

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It was what I call

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"the drug-them-up-and-shut-them up" routine.

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I was so heavily sedated, I could not stay awake.

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In this series, we follow Britain's progress

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in dealing with disabled or unwanted children.

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This programme looks at the disowned -

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those children, often abandoned

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who grew up without a family of their own.

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CROWS SQUAWK

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BELL TOLLS

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Vast orphanages like the one at Newsham Park in Liverpool

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once haunted Britain's cities.

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They were built to house society's outcasts,

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children who needed to be rescued

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from the destitution of life on the streets.

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They were founded on the 19th century Poor Law

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and run like a barracks.

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Oh, you had to salute them, just like in the forces. Oh, yes.

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You had to salute the master.

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Long way up, short way down, that's what we were taught.

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Slow march, quick march, about turn, all those drills.

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Very, very severe. Very severe

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George Bennett was brought here in 1937 along with his two brothers.

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There was nowhere else for them to go.

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The biggest providers of residential care

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were still the big voluntary societies

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and the kind of children they took in

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were those...

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Basically their parents couldn't cope any longer.

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Orphans.

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A mother whose husband had died ..

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More often, a father whose wife had died

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and he'd got to continue working but he couldn't look after his kids

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One of the prevailing attitudes there was,

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"Your parents have failed, we want you to stay here,

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"we'll try and break the link with your family.

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George's life in the orphanage was one

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that echoed over a century of Victorian tradition.

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But hundreds of miles away,

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the world of pre-war childcare was about to undergo a revolution.

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The O'Neill brothers from Newport in South Wales

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were living in slum conditions

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What happened to them

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would transform the system of care forever.

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There was ten of us in the family.

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And...I was the second youngest ..

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This one social worker had been visiting us over 200 times...

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and then we were taken away.

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Terry O'Neill was five when he was taken into care.

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During the war,

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he and his brother Dennis were moved from one home to another

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But it was their experience of foster care

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which would ultimately lead to a fundamental change in the law

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In 1944, the two of them were delivered to a new foster home

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a remote farm just outside the village of Hope in Shropshire.

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It belonged to a Mr Gough.

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He was a big, brutish fella.

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His idea was to have us

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to be working on the farm, kind of cheap labour, I suppose

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Mr Gough wasted no time.

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Both boys had to be up by six in the morning to bring in the cows.

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He had to have everything done his way.

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If you didn't do what he wanted, he'd punish us.

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Hittings or thrashings.

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You'd get them in the evening.

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50, 100, up to 200 strokes.

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We knew whatever we did, we'd get punished.

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Lots of people say, "Well, why didn't you run away?

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Well, when you were put in these places by...

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..the powers that be,

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you couldn't ask questions or anything,

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you were put there and you were there to stay.

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If unsupervised foster homes were brutal, the other main option

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orphanages - were little better

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Discipline at the Newsham Park orphanage

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was backed by the threat of the cane.

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And at night transgressions were punished by the prefects,

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who would make offenders

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run the gauntlet of the big boys in the dormitory.

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Some boys, they resorted to kicks,

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using a belt, a knotted towel, or even boots thrown down.

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And it was no good a boy trying to dash through

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because somebody would trip him up

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and he'd get twice as much punishment then.

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After they had been put through the ranks,

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everybody jumped into bed,

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the only noise was coming from the boys who'd faced the ordeal

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But the masters never stopped it, because they knew what it was.

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The prefects were doing their job for them.

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The residential care system in the UK

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was intended that it should be a punitive experience.

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Being taken away from home was not intended originally

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to convey very much benefit.

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So there weren't that many people who were

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particularly concerned about what went on

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behind the relatively closed doors of children's homes at the time

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There was no tender loving care or very, very little.

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You sort of rose above it.

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The only way I can describe it I know it's an old cliche,

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"like it and lump it."

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But a change in attitudes to the care of children was on its way

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And it came partly as an accident of war.

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Within weeks of the outbreak of fighting,

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nearly a million children were dispatched from their homes

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to escape the expected bombing

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NEWSREEL: 'The departure of the children in particular

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'has been a triumph of orderly precision.

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'From cities and towns,

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'children in their thousands have left their parents behind

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'and been drafted off to safety zones.'

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The war, or rather the evacuations,

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were a complete turning point in terms of childcare.

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'It is indeed a strange experience

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'for these thousands of children,

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'as well as great responsibility for those who will be caring for them

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'during these dark days.'

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For the first time,

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a lot of middle class people in the rural areas

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and other big cities where the children went to,

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for the first time they saw poor children.

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There were a lot of complaints about children having fleas,

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about being untrained in going to the toilet.

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But they were seeing the children

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and generally, a wave of sympathy...

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came up.

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This new warmth towards evacuees fed into a wider public support

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for changes to the chaotic system of institutions and fostering.

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Back at the Goughs' foster home in Shropshire,

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the calls for reform went unheard.

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The O'Neill boys were facing a life of unyielding cruelty and hunger.

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We'd be starving.

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A round of bread for breakfast

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round of bread for dinner

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and a round of bread for tea,

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and that was our main meals.

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How did the Goughs eat? Well, the Goughs ate well,

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but we never saw any of it, you know.

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The 12-year-old Dennis was so desperate

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that he had taken to sucking the udders of the cows

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As the weather deteriorated,

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Mr Gough made him break the ice on the cattle trough

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and strip down to wash himself in the freezing cold.

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Dennis already had a chest infection,

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and he was getting the worst of the beatings.

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One January night, things came to a head.

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He went out to try to get some wood, and he come back with a few twigs.

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Mrs Gough, she lost her temper she pulled him by the hair,

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and said, "Wait till Gough comes home tonight."

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And that was the night that he used the pig bench.

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Mr Gough forced Terry to tie Dennis down on the bench

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designed to be used for butchering pigs.

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Then he was sent upstairs.

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The sticks that they used,

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they were like rough and knotted and what have you.

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I could hear Dennis having thrashings.

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I could hear Dennis's screams.

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Dennis eventually crept up to bed.

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But he was still whimpering.

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Mr Gough had had enough.

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After a while he came up...

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..held Dennis down...

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and started beating him on the chest.

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When he went back down again, Dennis was crying,

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but as time went on, he stopped

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And I could feel...

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the pain in my back...

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where he was...

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..clawing me. You know...

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In so much pain.

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In the morning, he was cold, still, lifeless.

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Mrs Gough said,

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"Don't worry about him, he can stay in bed this morning "

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Which was something that never happened.

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The Goughs phoned for a doctor but Dennis was already dead.

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The police arrived at the farm the same morning.

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Mr and Mrs Gough were arrested

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Details of the killing soon reached the newspapers.

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The savagery of Dennis's death horrified the nation.

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There was an outpouring of anger that the care system

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could lead to such neglect.

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Dennis O'Neill's death was the catalyst

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behind a change of legislation and a new attitude towards care

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The Children's Act of 1948

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was a very significant point

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in the history of institutional childcare.

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The Poor Law is abolished and there's a whole new system

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to supervise and implement

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the housing of children in need

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The reforms embraced the optimism of the post-war period.

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Alongside the nascent welfare state,

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they looked to banish the ills of the past.

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Every child was important.

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They were no longer a number.

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They were no longer a group,

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it was a duty of the children's department

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to give personal care to every child.

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This was wonderful.

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As Britain moved into the 1950s

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the new legislation was changing the structure of care

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But the science of child development also began to evolve.

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New thinkers were exploring

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the emotions within a child's experience.

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The British psychiatrist John Bowlby pioneered attachment theory

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by looking at groups of difficult children.

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What I noticed was that there were children who were being referred

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for...persistent thieving...

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..truancy, who were regarded as hard-boiled and incorrigible.

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What I spotted was that they had had very, very disruptive childhoods.

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John Bowlby was particularly well-known

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for his theory of attachment disorder and maternal deprivation.

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Through observing children in hospitals

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and through observing delinquent children -

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he did a study of 44 delinquent children -

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and found that the one thing they all had in common

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was that at some point their relationship with

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mostly their mothers had been disrupted in some way

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The 1952 film, A Two-Year-Old Goes To Hospital

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documented the impact of eight days

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in the life of a child taken away from her parents.

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FILM FOOTAGE: 'This is Laura in her garden at home.

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'Laura has never been away from her mother's care.

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'But in two days' time, she will go to hospital to have a minor operation.'

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The film was based on Bowlby's work.

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It sought to demonstrate the impact on the child of removing,

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even temporarily, the main emotional bond.

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'When the nurse says, "Come and see the rocking horse

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'Laura says, "You come too, Mummy."

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'But goes quite cheerfully without her.

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'She resists entering the strange bathroom,

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'and at this moment, just as her face is hidden,

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'she bursts into tears and cries, "I want my mummy."

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' "I want my mummy.

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' "Where has my mummy gone?" '

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The film charts eight days in the little girl's stay in hospital.

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Each day without her mother, Laura becomes more withdrawn.

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'Today it takes longer to make contact,

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'and although the nurse tries hard to cheer her up with toys,

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'Laura doesn't respond.

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'During the morning, she wet her bed.

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'This upset her and she smacked the hospital doll hard and repeatedly,

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'saying, "Naughty dolly." '

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Bowlby studied hundreds of children's early emotional attachments.

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He deduced that they were a critical part

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of their development as individuals.

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His ideas were the building blocks for the care of disowned children.

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'She doesn't respond at all to play.'

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It was a hugely significant theory

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and really is still shaping welfare policy even today.

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"Children deprived of a normal family home,"

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that was the fundamental phrase that was very important

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in shaping institutional childcare in the later 20th century -

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this focus on trying to replicate as much as possible normal family life.

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'Her mother arrives first.

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'Again, there is a period of reserved, unresponsive behaviour

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'with no attempt to get close to her mother.'

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This maternal deprivation was shown to cause serious problems

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for a child's future mental health.

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But the research pointed to an unexpected solution,

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given the still simmering outrage at Dennis O'Neill's death.

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NEWSREEL: 'These children need a home they can call their own

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'They need a normal, boisterous family life.

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'They need foster parents.

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'The finding has to be done by the local authority.

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'They're sending out a new kind of official.'

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In 1950, the government's public information unit

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produced a film encouraging people to take up fostering.

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FILM: 'Now, these two I've been watching for some time.

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'Their mother died recently of TB,

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'their father's disappeared.

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'Nobody but an old grandfather. .'

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Fostering had always been there

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but as a minority part of the care industry.

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Under the new legislation, all this was to change dramatically.

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The '48 act said that fostering was the ideal method.

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They argued that children needed a family.

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They may not have their own families

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but they had more chance of getting a family

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if they were moved into a foster home than into a children's home.

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Bob Holman became one of the first generation of childcare officers,

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a new army of professionals.

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Here was the formation of a new occupation...childcare.

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People just doing childcare.

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NEWSREEL: 'Already 25,000 children are living with foster parents.

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On top of finding new foster families,

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they still had to deal with homes and orphanages.

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Children's departments,

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they had power over voluntary children's homes.

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Power to inspect, power to strike off.

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Within a year of the new legislation,

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Newsham Park was closed,

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and other big orphanages began to be humanised.

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And in the wake of Bowlby's work,

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the homes themselves were becoming smaller, more similar to families.

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Care was softened.

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And efforts were made to banish the institutional feel

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of the old regimes forever.

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WOMAN: 'We look after about 100 children.

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'We have them in small groups, and each group is looked after

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'by two or three of the staff.

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In the 20 years after the war, the chances of an abandoned child

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going into an institution dropped by nearly a third,

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while the chances of finding a foster home

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increased by the same amount.

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The 1950s were a time of increasing affluence in Britain

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But things were not easy for those caring for children

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who had been disowned by their families.

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The end of the war had brought levels of childbirth to a new peak.

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The post-war baby boom put new stresses on the care system

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There was a massive surge of children coming into care from 1 48.

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This was partly because a lot more soldiers had come home,

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got family, had children, there was a great rise in the birth rate

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Also, there was a larger number of family break-ups.

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So the departments were just struggling to get children in care.

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The question was how to cope with this glut of unwanted children?

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In post-war Britain,

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giving birth out of wedlock was still a powerful taboo.

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Unmarried mothers were stigmatised.

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Stomach's turning over a bit.

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Frightening.

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When Lyn Rodden became pregnant in 1956,

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she was brought here to Rosemundy House,

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a mother and baby home in Cornwall.

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Basically you were a slapper.

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That is the only way I can describe it.

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You were the worst in the world

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And they treated you like that

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They sort of said, "Oh, she's pregnant,

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"she got what she deserves."

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You know, that type of attitude and...

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you were a social outcast basically.

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Rosemundy was just one of a network of homes

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where thousands of unmarried mothers gave birth in secret.

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Six weeks after her baby was born, Lyn was told

0:21:500:21:53

she had to take him by train on her own to Bath,

0:21:530:21:56

to be handed over to new parents.

0:21:560:21:58

The worst day of my life.

0:22:000:22:03

I got to this office and I walked in.

0:22:030:22:07

There was a chair and I sat there, and she eventually came out.

0:22:070:22:11

And she said "Name", so I gave me name...

0:22:110:22:14

"Baby's name", gave the name.

0:22:140:22:17

"Right, bring him over here," took him over.

0:22:170:22:20

She said, "Just one moment, don't go away."

0:22:200:22:23

She went into another room, she came back out.

0:22:230:22:26

"Right, you better go now," she said.

0:22:260:22:29

"Get the taxi and get back to your train

0:22:290:22:31

"and get back as quick as you can.

0:22:310:22:32

"Thank you very much, goodbye.

0:22:320:22:35

It was just like handing a parcel over at the Post Office.

0:22:350:22:38

I walked out of that door and I wanted to run back,

0:22:390:22:43

but I knew that if I did, I wouldn't have got anywhere.

0:22:430:22:45

So I got back up to the station got on the train

0:22:460:22:50

and I cried all the way back here.

0:22:500:22:53

And it stills hurts.

0:22:530:22:54

NEWSREEL: Babies are easy of course.

0:23:000:23:03

Always plenty of people who want young, cuddly ones.

0:23:030:23:06

The surge in numbers of illegitimate births fuelled a baby industry

0:23:060:23:10

as childless couples found a natural supply of takeaway babies to adopt.

0:23:100:23:15

NEWSREEL: 'The London offices of the National Adoption Society,

0:23:170:23:20

'a society which has one of the pleasantest jobs in the world

0:23:200:23:22

'to create happy families.

0:23:220:23:25

'It's a wrench to part from your baby

0:23:250:23:27

'but this mother had decided it would be better off with parents

0:23:270:23:30

'who could give it all the things she can't.'

0:23:300:23:32

This contemporary film portrays adoption

0:23:320:23:35

as a common sense solution for all involved.

0:23:350:23:38

'It may be fancy of course,

0:23:380:23:40

'but he seems to take to his new parents straight away.'

0:23:400:23:43

In the documentary's idealised vision of adoption,

0:23:440:23:48

babies come with no strings attached.

0:23:480:23:50

'There are one or two formalities -

0:23:500:23:52

'a child's ration book and identity card have to be handed over -

0:23:520:23:55

'and in three months' time, if everything goes well,

0:23:550:23:58

'the name on them will be changed to that of his new mother and father.'

0:23:580:24:01

At Rosemundy House,

0:24:010:24:03

mothers and adopters were kept strictly separate.

0:24:030:24:07

Visits from adopting couples were carefully choreographed.

0:24:070:24:10

When prospective parents were due to visit,

0:24:120:24:14

you were sent...upstairs to a room and you could look out the window

0:24:140:24:19

and watch them looking at the babies.

0:24:190:24:21

But you weren't allowed out while they were there.

0:24:220:24:26

It was a process sanitised for the adopters.

0:24:300:24:33

A showroom for disowned babies

0:24:330:24:36

But it left a trail of emotional turmoil.

0:24:360:24:39

You're wondering, all the time "Where did he go?"

0:24:390:24:44

And every little boy you see who should be his age,

0:24:440:24:48

you look and you think, "I wonder what he's doing now.

0:24:480:24:51

It's just heart-wrenching, it's just...

0:24:530:24:56

It's like somebody pulling pieces out of you.

0:24:560:24:59

The system kept mothers and adopters apart at every level.

0:24:590:25:03

There were persuasive reasons to preserve anonymity.

0:25:030:25:07

The need for secrecy arose

0:25:120:25:14

because having an adopted child could be a visible sign

0:25:140:25:18

that you had fertility problems

0:25:180:25:20

Which, obviously, in a period when people were much more private

0:25:200:25:23

about their medical issues, they didn't want to broadcast.

0:25:230:25:27

NEWSREEL: 'One more of the thousands of families

0:25:270:25:30

'which owe their happiness to the National Adoption Society.

0:25:300:25:32

'The demand for babies is far greater than the supply

0:25:340:25:36

'as you can see from these files of people

0:25:360:25:39

'waiting to adopt children.'

0:25:390:25:40

Finding babies new parents was seen as a way

0:25:400:25:43

of laundering the stigma of their birth.

0:25:430:25:45

But adoption was not the only route to a fresh start.

0:25:450:25:48

The majority of disowned children were still in the hands

0:25:500:25:53

of large care homes.

0:25:530:25:54

Many of the homes were also seeking new ways

0:25:540:25:57

to cope with the surge in numbers.

0:25:570:25:59

'Yes, they're feeling happy, their hopes are high, their future bright.'

0:25:590:26:04

Shipping children to Britain's former colonies -

0:26:040:26:07

particularly Australia and Canada -

0:26:070:26:09

was one way for the churches and charities

0:26:090:26:11

to remove some of the surplus youngsters.

0:26:110:26:15

One of the things I do remember is somebody

0:26:150:26:17

coming into the classroom one day

0:26:170:26:19

and saying, "Who wants to go to Australia?"

0:26:190:26:21

Well, we all hated where we were so we all put our hands up, I think.

0:26:210:26:25

NEWSREEL: 'At the Overseas League HQ, a number of young emigrants

0:26:280:26:31

'to Australia were recently entertained before their departure.'

0:26:310:26:34

This migration of children in care began in the 19th century,

0:26:340:26:38

but it was still going on in the 1960s.

0:26:380:26:41

It was felt that these children were tainted, their prospects poor.

0:26:410:26:45

'That, in the midst of all her troubles, she's able to...'

0:26:450:26:49

We have the attitude from the British end of...

0:26:490:26:52

Almost a fear of these children from the wrong side of the tracks,

0:26:520:26:56

setting down a path that will lead to crime and social problems,

0:26:560:26:59

and they need to be redeemed from that in some way.

0:26:590:27:03

And they were a problem for us here in the UK,

0:27:030:27:06

because they would be the kinds of children

0:27:060:27:09

who would create social problems, given their position in society

0:27:090:27:13

Patrick McGowan had been living in a Catholic orphanage

0:27:150:27:18

in Belfast for eight years.

0:27:180:27:20

An official came to his classroom

0:27:200:27:22

with an offer that was pure deception.

0:27:220:27:25

We were told, "You'll be riding to school on a horse,

0:27:250:27:28

"and you'll be picking bananas off the trees on the way to school."

0:27:280:27:32

Anybody would have gone for that,

0:27:320:27:34

even people with parents would have jumped at that one.

0:27:340:27:38

NEWSREEL: 'White sands and blue waters.

0:27:380:27:40

'When the kiddies get to the beaches, they become real diggers.'

0:27:400:27:43

But the reality of life in Australia proved very different.

0:27:450:27:49

When the boys got off the boat in Fremantle,

0:27:490:27:52

they were swiftly moved to Bindoon, a Catholic home,

0:27:520:27:55

where the 11-year-old Patrick

0:27:550:27:57

was given hard manual labour, along with the other children.

0:27:570:28:00

Bindoon was pretty tough.

0:28:030:28:05

When I got to Bindoon, I got a khaki shirt,

0:28:050:28:08

a khaki pair of pants and that was it.

0:28:080:28:10

No underwear, bare feet.

0:28:100:28:11

For the first couple of years that I was at Bindoon

0:28:110:28:13

we worked and worked and worked on the buildings.

0:28:130:28:16

But there wasn't any education and that was the big one.

0:28:160:28:19

One of the mottos of Bindoon was,

0:28:190:28:22

"If you can work with your hands, you don't need your brains."

0:28:220:28:25

Over the years, 150,000 children were transported

0:28:250:28:29

to Britain's former colonies.

0:28:290:28:31

Many of them faced harsh lives at best, and often abuse.

0:28:310:28:35

But for the councils and charities mainly responsible for childcare,

0:28:350:28:39

it was an ideal solution.

0:28:390:28:41

NEWSREEL: 'Across the continent in Perth, Western Australia,

0:28:410:28:44

'child migrants in the Fairbridge Farm School

0:28:440:28:46

'started their celebrations.'

0:28:460:28:48

Voluntary societies, such as Barnardo's,

0:28:480:28:50

thought they were doing work, not only for child rescue

0:28:500:28:53

but also something that was for the benefit of empire.

0:28:530:28:56

So with that extra political spin,

0:28:560:28:58

they were able to convince governments

0:28:580:29:01

that this was something that the British state should finance.

0:29:010:29:04

And they did.

0:29:040:29:05

For five decades, Britain sponsored the migration of children

0:29:050:29:09

to the former colonies, paying as much as three quarters of the costs.

0:29:090:29:13

The practice came to an end in 1970,

0:29:130:29:16

but the advantages throughout were conspicuous.

0:29:160:29:20

The theory was to populate empty nations with "good white stock.

0:29:200:29:25

I think they saw an opportunity to get rid

0:29:250:29:28

of all these kids from England and they sent them to other colonies

0:29:280:29:31

where they could populate...

0:29:310:29:33

..and breed and work.

0:29:350:29:37

Far from the fun and fresh air they had been promised,

0:29:380:29:41

many of these children had nothing to look forward to but brutality.

0:29:410:29:45

Worst of all, attempts to trace their families

0:29:450:29:48

were often met with lies.

0:29:480:29:50

My records are just nothing, there's nothing there.

0:29:510:29:55

You know, medical history, you name it.

0:29:550:29:58

I can't find anything about myself.

0:29:580:30:01

I don't think I'll ever find out who my forbears are.

0:30:020:30:06

In my darkest moments I think, "Why the secrecy?"

0:30:080:30:11

I mean, I'm a human being,

0:30:120:30:15

I'm worth something.

0:30:150:30:17

I need to be identified, I need to identify where I come from.

0:30:170:30:21

"Dear Mr and Mrs Steinson...

0:30:250:30:28

"we can now offer you a baby boy.

0:30:280:30:30

"Baby Burrows was born on the 17th of the 9th, 1956..."

0:30:310:30:35

'Lyn's son Mark was luckier than Patrick.

0:30:350:30:39

'He could at least trace his birth mother.

0:30:390:30:41

'The documents he has found seem mainly concerned

0:30:410:30:45

'with reassuring the new parents about Lyn's moral fitness.'

0:30:450:30:49

"Her medical is good and the doctor says she is a healthy girl

0:30:490:30:52

"and comes from a decent type of family.

0:30:520:30:55

"She was jilted by the punitive father shortly before the wedding.

0:30:550:31:00

"If you would like to have this baby,

0:31:000:31:02

"will you please come to this office

0:31:020:31:04

"at 2:30PM on Friday the 7th of November, 1956.

0:31:040:31:09

"Please confirm this appointment.

0:31:100:31:12

"Yours sincerely..."

0:31:120:31:14

There you go.

0:31:140:31:16

I was treated like a parcel,

0:31:190:31:22

it was very matter of fact.

0:31:220:31:24

They weren't married...

0:31:240:31:27

they had an accident...

0:31:270:31:29

and I'm the product of it.

0:31:290:31:31

Like many adopted children, and indeed those fostered,

0:31:340:31:37

Mark found loving parents and a happy home.

0:31:370:31:40

But he still felt a need to trace his origins.

0:31:400:31:43

It's nice to know where you came from.

0:31:460:31:48

It was, sort of, like a big relief...

0:31:490:31:52

that I found...

0:31:520:31:55

you know, my...

0:31:550:31:56

you know, my...

0:31:570:31:57

place.

0:31:570:31:59

KLAXON SOUNDS

0:32:080:32:09

By the early 1960s, mass immigration was well established.

0:32:110:32:15

As well as West Indian and Asian migrants,

0:32:150:32:17

there was a boost in arrivals from Britain's former African colonies.

0:32:170:32:21

These new families would have a dramatic impact on the care system,

0:32:270:32:31

as they did on many parts of British society.

0:32:310:32:34

# Happy birthday to you... #

0:32:380:32:42

In 1968, the BBC made a ground-breaking film

0:32:420:32:46

about the experience of black children in a care home.

0:32:460:32:49

WOMAN: There you are, that's for the other table.

0:32:500:32:52

Sometimes I wonder if we are overprotecting our children

0:32:540:32:59

because I have 14 in my care..

0:32:590:33:01

..and I do feel the responsibility quite a lot.

0:33:030:33:06

But things have changed in the past two or three years in childcare

0:33:060:33:12

and this is very much a family home.

0:33:120:33:16

The impact of immigration on homes like this was immediately visible.

0:33:170:33:21

A disproportionate number of black and mixed race children

0:33:210:33:24

were taken into care,

0:33:240:33:26

partly as a result of high levels of family breakdown.

0:33:260:33:30

One former resident of a similar children's home

0:33:300:33:33

was the athlete Kriss Akabusi.

0:33:330:33:35

Akabusi won fame as a sprinter in the 1984 Olympics,

0:33:360:33:40

and became one of our best-known athletes.

0:33:400:33:43

When he arrived in Britain in the early '60s, aged four,

0:33:430:33:47

he and his brother were handed over to private carers,

0:33:470:33:50

while his parents returned to newly-independent Nigeria.

0:33:500:33:53

I remember...

0:33:550:33:56

jumping on a plane during the day...

0:33:560:33:59

..and landing in the UK at night.

0:34:010:34:05

And I remember the change in the atmosphere

0:34:050:34:07

and I remember standing outside the home in Brighton looking up at it

0:34:070:34:11

and my mother was telling me

0:34:110:34:14

this was going to be my new home...

0:34:140:34:16

..and then turning round and my mum was gone.

0:34:180:34:20

After four years, the money to pay the unregistered carers dried up,

0:34:210:34:26

and the two Akabusi boys were abandoned.

0:34:260:34:30

They ended up wandering the streets

0:34:300:34:32

until they were picked up by a local authority

0:34:320:34:34

children's home in Enfield.

0:34:340:34:36

At that time, most of the carers -

0:34:370:34:40

they were all white and most of the incumbents,

0:34:400:34:43

the young people there, were black children.

0:34:430:34:47

Anywhere you go, you knew you were very different.

0:34:480:34:52

People would stop and stare at you.

0:34:520:34:54

Kids would say stuff... Adults would say stuff.

0:34:540:34:56

I mean gosh, all the jokes that you would be getting

0:34:570:35:00

about your lips and your nose.

0:35:000:35:02

WOMAN: Do you mind if I drive, Raymond?

0:35:020:35:05

Once lodged in a children's home,

0:35:050:35:08

black or mixed race kids often found it hard to leave.

0:35:080:35:11

The most likely exit - into fostering - was often blocked

0:35:110:35:14

because foster parents were almost exclusively white.

0:35:140:35:17

My bedroom was over...

0:35:200:35:23

Over the gravel drive...

0:35:230:35:25

and two or three times in a year, there would be a day

0:35:250:35:30

where adults would come to have a look at the children.

0:35:300:35:33

After a while, you begin to understand what's going on -

0:35:340:35:36

it's an interview process going on.

0:35:360:35:38

And of course the younger children would get fostered or adopted,

0:35:380:35:42

and my brother and I always got overlooked, every time, overlooked.

0:35:420:35:46

As you get to 8, 10, 12, no-one wants two black kids...

0:35:470:35:51

..and you knew really that this was your life.

0:35:530:35:57

MUSIC: "Silence Is Golden" by The Tremeloes

0:35:570:35:59

# Don't it hurt deep inside

0:35:590:36:04

# To see someone

0:36:040:36:07

# Do something

0:36:070:36:09

# To her... #

0:36:090:36:12

The BBC's film presented the care system

0:36:120:36:14

in the midst of a cultural transformation,

0:36:140:36:17

as the country embraced the permissive society.

0:36:170:36:20

# Silence is golden

0:36:230:36:26

# But my eyes still see

0:36:270:36:30

# But my eyes still see. #

0:36:320:36:37

This was a decade of radical change.

0:36:390:36:42

Social and sexual attitudes became more relaxed.

0:36:420:36:46

Much of the stigma of illegitimacy began to disappear

0:36:460:36:49

with the arrival of the birth control pill and legalised abortion.

0:36:490:36:54

'But more liberal ideas had also begun to affect

0:36:560:36:59

'how society approached juvenile delinquency and youth crime.'

0:36:590:37:02

Young offenders had always been treated separately

0:37:040:37:06

from most of those in care.

0:37:060:37:08

Delinquents were often held in approved schools.

0:37:080:37:12

One piece of landmark legislation changed all this.

0:37:120:37:16

It brought to an end the network of approved schools

0:37:160:37:19

and brought their inmates into the care system.

0:37:190:37:22

The 1969 Children and Young Person's Act

0:37:220:37:25

introduced a whole range of new powers

0:37:250:37:29

and measures that enabled local authorities

0:37:290:37:32

to bring and take children into care.

0:37:320:37:35

That included children who were committing crime.

0:37:350:37:39

Under the 1969 Act, the whole nature of residential care changed.

0:37:410:37:46

It was briefly described

0:37:460:37:48

as bringing together the depraved and the deprived.

0:37:480:37:52

Up until that point,

0:37:520:37:53

the care system had been characterised by very much a focus

0:37:530:37:57

on the welfare of children from the early '70s onward,

0:37:570:38:02

what I think we saw was the steady criminalisation of the care system.

0:38:020:38:06

So what you actually create is a broad and wide perspective

0:38:060:38:11

that the care system

0:38:110:38:14

and children's homes in particular are for children

0:38:140:38:18

who must be there because they've done something wrong,

0:38:180:38:21

they've done something bad, they've done something naughty

0:38:210:38:25

'With younger children increasingly being fostered,

0:38:250:38:28

'many of the difficult adolescents now arriving in children's homes

0:38:280:38:32

'tended to confirm society's prejudices.'

0:38:320:38:35

There was really a dramatic change in that time

0:38:350:38:38

and it did cause problems and these older children,

0:38:380:38:41

some of them were, their behaviour deteriorated quite considerably

0:38:410:38:47

in the community and people

0:38:470:38:49

did not like having children's homes as their neighbours.

0:38:490:38:53

While some children were becoming hard to control,

0:38:540:38:57

they were all about

0:38:570:38:59

to face a massive reorganisation of the system.

0:38:590:39:02

From the start of the 1970s, a new breed of social worker

0:39:020:39:06

replaced the old childcare officers.

0:39:060:39:09

Many of them lacked training and childcare experience.

0:39:090:39:13

Kids like Kriss Akabusi felt the personal touch was missing

0:39:130:39:17

No-one's going to turn up for your prize day, no-one's going to turn up

0:39:170:39:20

for your sports day, no-one's going to...

0:39:200:39:22

speak to the teachers on your behalf.

0:39:220:39:25

You just got accustomed to it, you realised that you...

0:39:250:39:28

I tell you what, I think you realise

0:39:280:39:29

that you are on your own in this world.

0:39:290:39:32

What the structure, form and order in the children's home

0:39:320:39:35

provides is the safety but it doesn't provide intimacy

0:39:350:39:40

You've got the regularity

0:39:400:39:41

but you've got nobody that is interested in YOU,

0:39:410:39:44

you're not a person,

0:39:440:39:46

you're just one of number of kids that come through the system.

0:39:460:39:49

A children's home could provide

0:39:490:39:51

close, caring relationships, and security.

0:39:510:39:54

But not love.

0:39:540:39:56

The BBC film featured Raymond, wondering about his prospects.

0:39:560:40:00

RAYMOND: I'm 15 and I'm leaving school. .

0:40:000:40:03

and I'm glad I'm leaving school

0:40:030:40:04

I mean, I'm not learning anything

0:40:040:40:07

and it doesn't seem to be about much.

0:40:070:40:09

For Raymond, the future meant another form of regimentation.

0:40:090:40:13

I think being in the army's a man's job,

0:40:150:40:17

if there isn't a war, that is,

0:40:170:40:19

because I don't want to kill anybody like.

0:40:190:40:22

Kriss Akabusi did the same thing.

0:40:230:40:25

He joined the army in 1975.

0:40:250:40:28

When I made that transition, I had to join the army

0:40:280:40:33

because when I was 16? and I started looking at jobs

0:40:330:40:36

mechanical engineer, lathing, Eastern Gas,

0:40:360:40:38

all that sort of stuff, the thing that petrified me

0:40:380:40:41

was that I was going to have to go to bedsit land,

0:40:410:40:43

I am going to have to go out of the children's home,

0:40:430:40:45

into a bedsit, cook for myself

0:40:450:40:48

wash my clothes, secure my room

0:40:480:40:51

It was frightening.

0:40:510:40:52

KIDS LAUGH

0:40:540:40:57

MAN: Come on.

0:40:570:40:59

I don't worry about the future

0:40:590:41:01

I don't worry too much about the present either.

0:41:010:41:04

All I want is for things to keep changing,

0:41:040:41:06

so that you don't have to get bored.

0:41:060:41:08

Kriss Akabusi's later career

0:41:120:41:14

showed that care could be a pathway to success,

0:41:140:41:17

even if it left its mark.

0:41:170:41:19

But throughout that time,

0:41:190:41:20

belief was growing among children's workers

0:41:200:41:22

that it was almost always better

0:41:220:41:24

to send those in care back to their birth parents.

0:41:240:41:27

John Bowlby's work on attachment was sometimes used

0:41:270:41:30

to justify this approach.

0:41:300:41:33

As a childcare officer, I was amongst those

0:41:330:41:36

who began to put children back in touch with their natural parents.

0:41:360:41:40

This sometimes caused conflict some foster parents didn't like it,

0:41:400:41:44

but, by and large, it worked out.

0:41:440:41:46

Re-uniting children in care with their birth parents -

0:41:460:41:50

rehabilitating them - became the guiding principle of the profession.

0:41:500:41:53

But 30 years after the O'Neill case,

0:41:530:41:56

a new tragedy was about to challenge this thinking.

0:41:560:41:59

The Colwell case occurs at a really interesting time

0:41:590:42:03

in the history of childcare in the UK.

0:42:030:42:06

We've always, seemed to me, to be oscillating

0:42:060:42:08

somewhere between a rescue model,

0:42:080:42:11

whereby the answer to familial problems

0:42:110:42:14

is to remove children, to break the cycle that way.

0:42:140:42:18

The other approach, the rehabilitation approach

0:42:180:42:20

is to do everything we can

0:42:200:42:22

to work with the child and family in situ.

0:42:220:42:24

And the Colwell case occurs

0:42:240:42:26

just at the point where that pendulum was swinging.

0:42:260:42:29

Maria Colwell was a seven-year-old girl

0:42:320:42:35

from the Whitehawk council estate in Brighton,

0:42:350:42:37

who had been in care for most of her life.

0:42:370:42:40

She had been fostered by her aunt for several years.

0:42:400:42:44

She appeared to be a happy, normal little girl.

0:42:440:42:46

But in accordance with the now-standard policy,

0:42:470:42:51

in 1971 she was returned to her birth mother.

0:42:510:42:55

Two years later, she was introduced to a new teacher at school.

0:42:550:42:59

I can remember now...

0:43:000:43:01

..the secretary bringing her in

0:43:020:43:05

in the middle of one morning and saying, "Oh, this is Maria.

0:43:050:43:08

And she said something about, she'd been fostered.

0:43:100:43:14

I got the impression that she'd been in and out of foster care

0:43:140:43:18

I was immediately struck...

0:43:180:43:20

by how withdrawn she was.

0:43:200:43:23

It wasn't that she was just a quiet child and sat there...

0:43:230:43:26

..and didn't cause any problems

0:43:280:43:30

She was withdrawn.

0:43:300:43:31

Ann Turner had just started working

0:43:330:43:35

as a teacher at Whitehawk Primary School.

0:43:350:43:38

Maria was often hungry,

0:43:380:43:40

and one day, came to her after class with a confession.

0:43:400:43:43

She came up and said, "I'm sorry, Mrs Turner,

0:43:450:43:48

"I took the sweets..."

0:43:480:43:50

And she started crying...

0:43:540:43:56

..and I got hold of her, I gave her a hug,

0:43:570:44:00

I put her on my lap

0:44:000:44:02

and I gave her a cuddle and I could FEEL her bones.

0:44:020:44:06

I realised she was just bones.

0:44:090:44:12

Ann Turner had started to ask questions

0:44:140:44:16

about Maria's home life with her mother and stepfather

0:44:160:44:20

Reports of the family's cruelty were everywhere on the estate.

0:44:200:44:24

Several times, Maria was sent to buy coal,

0:44:310:44:34

and seen pushing the heavy bags up the hill to her house in a pram

0:44:340:44:38

She must have been a tough little thing in a way...

0:44:400:44:43

..but I can't comprehend how anybody...

0:44:450:44:47

could ask a child to do that.

0:44:470:44:49

Despite repeated visits by social workers,

0:44:520:44:54

and reports from neighbours, nothing was done.

0:44:540:44:58

At the start of the spring term, 1973,

0:45:010:45:05

Maria failed to turn up to school.

0:45:050:45:07

When break time came,

0:45:090:45:11

I started to cross the playground,

0:45:110:45:13

I was going to the headmaster to say,

0:45:130:45:16

"I'm staying in your office until you find out where she is "

0:45:160:45:20

As I crossed the playground, a child from another class came up to me

0:45:200:45:25

and said, "Mrs Turner, Maria won't be in school today.

0:45:250:45:29

"Oh", I said, "She's poorly?"

0:45:310:45:34

"No, Mrs Turner, she's dead."

0:45:340:45:36

Maria had been starved

0:45:380:45:39

and ferociously beaten by her stepfather.

0:45:390:45:42

Despite all the suspicions, nobody was prepared

0:45:420:45:45

to challenge the basic principle that birth mother is best.

0:45:450:45:48

Maria's death was a turning point.

0:45:500:45:52

It showed shockingly that a child's natural mother

0:45:520:45:55

was not always the best protector

0:45:550:45:57

and that taking children from their parents

0:45:570:46:00

could be in their best interest

0:46:000:46:02

In our changing society,

0:46:030:46:04

child abuse within the family was emerging as a horrific possibility

0:46:040:46:09

from which vulnerable children had to be protected.

0:46:090:46:12

You've got to remember that child abuse and child harm

0:46:130:46:16

were still relatively new concepts at the time.

0:46:160:46:20

One of the important legacies of the Colwell case was the fact that

0:46:200:46:24

based on the recommendations, the government issued

0:46:240:46:27

guidance and guidelines for local authorities to follow

0:46:270:46:30

in cases where child abuse, child harm was being suspected

0:46:300:46:34

and that formed the basis for guidance

0:46:340:46:36

that survived almost intact from then until now.

0:46:360:46:40

In the 1970s, the new guidelines drew more troubled

0:46:450:46:48

and vulnerable youngsters into homes

0:46:480:46:51

and foster care for their own protection.

0:46:510:46:53

As a result, many care homes were dealing almost exclusively

0:46:560:46:59

with unruly teenagers and the system was close to breakdown.

0:46:590:47:03

For some, the critical priority was controlling the residents

0:47:070:47:10

at any cost, sometimes with brutal consequences.

0:47:100:47:14

Well, it brings back a lot of memories,

0:47:180:47:20

bad ones, to be honest with you

0:47:200:47:22

When I was first in here I was like a teenager.

0:47:220:47:25

Some of the things that happened in here...

0:47:250:47:27

were just horrible.

0:47:270:47:29

I mean, no kid should go through that.

0:47:290:47:31

Jason Carroll from Stoke had been repeatedly in care

0:47:310:47:34

from the age of five.

0:47:340:47:36

His father was a single parent whose frequent stays in hospital

0:47:360:47:39

meant his children were removed to local homes.

0:47:390:47:43

When he arrived at the Hartshill Road home,

0:47:430:47:45

he was given what was regarded as a form of treatment

0:47:450:47:48

The first time I ever went there, me dad was actually with me.

0:47:500:47:53

Then the next thing I know, my dad had left

0:47:530:47:56

and I'm being escorted up the stairs, so to speak...

0:47:560:48:00

..and chucked in a room...

0:48:010:48:04

removed of all me clothes, just left with me pants.

0:48:040:48:07

There was nothing in the room, just a bed, no covers or nothing.

0:48:070:48:11

And I was given a sleeping bag and that was it.

0:48:110:48:13

So, yeah, I was locked up.

0:48:140:48:17

This was Pindown - a method of control by isolation

0:48:200:48:24

devised by a social worker to deal with unruly teenagers.

0:48:240:48:28

At weekends, while I wasn't able to go to school,

0:48:280:48:31

they just used to give me the phonebook.

0:48:310:48:33

That was my entertainment.

0:48:350:48:36

For six years, Pindown would be common practice

0:48:390:48:41

across four of the main Staffordshire homes.

0:48:410:48:44

But in another part of the country, another authority

0:48:480:48:51

was experimenting with even more radical forms of restraint

0:48:510:48:56

I knew that place was bad once I was inside it.

0:48:560:48:59

I sat on the stairs crying and one of the girls said to me -

0:49:000:49:04

it was actually one of the girls that told me -

0:49:040:49:06

that if I didn't stop crying that I will find myself being drugged.

0:49:060:49:11

She was right because I got there at four o'clock

0:49:110:49:13

and I was being drugged by the next morning.

0:49:130:49:15

Teresa Cooper had been in care all her life.

0:49:170:49:21

In 1981, aged 14, she was moved from a Wandsworth children's home

0:49:210:49:26

and taken to a girls' secure unit in Kent.

0:49:260:49:29

Although troubled, she was not a particularly difficult teenager,

0:49:290:49:33

but while there she was subjected to massive doses of psychotropic drugs,

0:49:330:49:37

intended for the mentally ill.

0:49:370:49:39

It was what I call

0:49:400:49:42

the "drug-them-up-and-shut-them up routine".

0:49:420:49:45

I was so heavily sedated, I could not stay awake.

0:49:450:49:47

Nobody, adults could not stay awake on those levels of drugs

0:49:480:49:52

and they punished me for that quite a lot.

0:49:520:49:54

Teresa was given a number of very powerful drugs,

0:49:560:49:59

including the psychiatric drug Largactil

0:49:590:50:02

and large amounts of Valium.

0:50:020:50:04

Her records show she was administered 11 separate drugs

0:50:040:50:08

in quantities far above the recommended levels.

0:50:080:50:11

Such experimental methods were by now a part of childcare

0:50:110:50:15

as social workers tried to cope with a system in crisis.

0:50:150:50:19

As far as I was concerned, I didn't really know what they were doing.

0:50:200:50:24

But...

0:50:240:50:25

Every time I knocked on the door or asked for something

0:50:250:50:28

or asked to go to the toilet..

0:50:280:50:31

you wouldn't get a response sometimes for hours.

0:50:310:50:33

Or probably the next day.

0:50:330:50:35

And if you kept on banging, they'd come in and give you a good hiding.

0:50:350:50:38

Pindown was brutal in its simplicity.

0:50:410:50:44

It was supposed to head off potential aggression

0:50:440:50:46

but it mainly appeared to inflict it.

0:50:460:50:49

Kicking, punching, stamping on. .

0:50:510:50:54

..hitting you with stuff.

0:50:550:50:57

The staff there didn't deal with you,

0:50:570:50:59

they just gave you a good hiding and locked you up.

0:50:590:51:02

And that was it. Basically it was prison, it was lock up.

0:51:020:51:05

This ruthless approach seemed to be based on solid research

0:51:070:51:10

and consequently gained acceptance in some quarters.

0:51:100:51:14

The one thing that is impossible to say about the Pindown experience

0:51:150:51:19

is that it wasn't very widely known because it was.

0:51:190:51:24

What becomes a scandal, what becomes headline news,

0:51:240:51:27

to most people who were involved at the time,

0:51:270:51:30

seems very much business as usual.

0:51:300:51:32

It seems very routine, very ordinary.

0:51:320:51:34

Three, four, five, six members of staff

0:51:390:51:42

just appear from nowhere.

0:51:420:51:44

They would inject me in my back in my arms, in my legs, in my buttocks.

0:51:470:51:51

My neck, they got me once, they got me in my neck once.

0:51:530:51:56

The famous words they used every time they done it

0:52:010:52:05

was "Just think of England" and that was their famous words

0:52:050:52:08

"Just think of England."

0:52:080:52:10

The Kendall House regime was not a secret either.

0:52:130:52:16

Only a year before Teresa arrived, an ITV film crew had come here

0:52:160:52:20

to report on the notorious drug policies emerging in care

0:52:200:52:25

They used archive footage of disturbed children

0:52:250:52:27

to make a key point.

0:52:270:52:28

ITV PROGRAMME: It's children like these,

0:52:280:52:31

severely disturbed and often violent,

0:52:310:52:33

who are most likely to be subjected to treatment with drugs,

0:52:330:52:36

although few of them have been diagnosed

0:52:360:52:38

as having specific mental disorders.

0:52:380:52:40

These are all used primarily in the treatment of schizophrenia.

0:52:410:52:44

They CAN certainly be used for calming,

0:52:440:52:48

but you need very high doses

0:52:480:52:49

and you tend to get very unpleasant side effects at that sort of dose.

0:52:490:52:53

Teresa remained at Kendall House for three years

0:52:540:52:57

and was administered drugs on 1,248 separate occasions.

0:52:570:53:02

She has campaigned for many years for the government

0:53:040:53:06

to recognise its role in the abuse

0:53:060:53:08

that was carried out on hundreds of children in care.

0:53:080:53:11

They were trying to find, I believe, some miracle...

0:53:130:53:17

..answer, some unique method to control children.

0:53:180:53:23

They were experimenting.

0:53:240:53:26

They wanted to find a cure for delinquency,

0:53:260:53:28

I think that's what it was.

0:53:280:53:29

Such radical approaches for controlling wayward children

0:53:310:53:35

were eventually rejected, but the authorities were slow to act.

0:53:350:53:38

It took six years for Pindown to be recognised for what it was.

0:53:400:53:44

The inquiry, when it came, was damning.

0:53:440:53:47

I think it was totally unacceptable.

0:53:470:53:49

It was, in our view, unlawful

0:53:490:53:52

and it's something that ought never, ever again, to recur.

0:53:520:53:56

The use of drugs was investigated by social services

0:53:560:54:00

and Kendall House closed in 198 .

0:54:000:54:04

Drugs were being used in care

0:54:040:54:05

as a means, primarily as a means of controlling children's behaviour.

0:54:050:54:10

So we do know it went on but it's very difficult to say

0:54:100:54:13

how prevalent it was.

0:54:130:54:14

Certainly by comparison to the other types of abuse

0:54:140:54:17

that we know were pretty much pervasive throughout...

0:54:170:54:20

not just England but throughout the United Kingdom.

0:54:200:54:23

By the 1990s, the abuse of children in care

0:54:250:54:28

was becoming more public, as brutal stories began to filter out.

0:54:280:54:32

Enough harrowing evidence has emerged to make Terry O'Neill

0:54:370:54:40

sceptical about whether any real progress

0:54:400:54:43

has been made since his brother's death.

0:54:430:54:45

Somebody said to me, "Your case brought it out into the open."

0:54:480:54:53

It hasn't brought it anywhere.

0:54:530:54:55

NEWS REPORTER: A judge says he used his considerable talent

0:54:550:54:59

in pursuit of "evil and lustful desires."

0:54:590:55:01

The incidents, both sexual and physical,

0:55:010:55:03

are said to have occurred at children's homes

0:55:030:55:05

in North Wales over more than 20 years.

0:55:050:55:07

But Anna died because she was tortured with boiling water...

0:55:070:55:11

'60 years on, the abuse of children has become a familiar reality.

0:55:110:55:16

Child deaths, paedophile rings, and abuse inquiries seem commonplace.

0:55:160:55:20

What was once invisible has become a background

0:55:210:55:24

to the same barbaric story.

0:55:240:55:26

MAN: "I want my mummy."

0:55:270:55:28

But progress had been made.

0:55:300:55:33

John Bowlby's lasting influence is clear.

0:55:330:55:36

Its fundamental truth goes to the heart of the care experience.

0:55:360:55:40

People who have a first impression on me,

0:55:460:55:49

see a very gregarious...

0:55:490:55:51

..enthusiastic, happy-go-lucky person and that is me.

0:55:530:55:58

But if you speak to my...

0:55:590:56:01

family, they know...

0:56:010:56:03

that I am actually quite an introvert, and quite withdrawn

0:56:030:56:06

I'm quite cold, quite distant.

0:56:060:56:08

My survival technique...

0:56:100:56:14

was to withdraw into a private world.

0:56:140:56:16

I've been able to cut off...

0:56:160:56:19

those emotional and psychological receptors...

0:56:190:56:22

..you know, and have that wall around me...

0:56:230:56:27

that means you are impregnable, in that respect.

0:56:270:56:30

NEWSREEL: But when her mother says, "Are you coming home?"

0:56:330:56:37

Laura replies, "Oh, yes, yes."

0:56:370:56:39

She is still cautious, however

0:56:410:56:43

and only the sight of her outdoor shoes seems to convince her.

0:56:430:56:46

She cries happily to the observer, "I'm going home with my mummy.

0:56:470:56:52

The plan to empty Britain of its soulless institutions

0:56:550:56:58

has been realised, though it has taken over half a century.

0:56:580:57:01

By the turn of the millennium,

0:57:030:57:05

two thirds of all children in care were being fostered.

0:57:050:57:08

We have learned to put the child at the centre of our thinking.

0:57:080:57:13

But for many of those involved

0:57:130:57:15

the journey has been one of pain and loss.

0:57:150:57:17

For years and years,

0:57:260:57:28

I was ashamed to say I'd been in an orphanage or an institution.

0:57:280:57:33

I hated that word.

0:57:330:57:34

It's that guilty feeling.

0:57:360:57:38

You've got it all your life, when you see other boys running around

0:57:380:57:43

and you think, "I gave mine away "

0:57:430:57:45

I don't quite know what else I could have done but...

0:57:470:57:50

..I do feel I let her down.

0:57:520:57:54

MAN SIGHS

0:57:550:57:57

I don't know, maybe it's fate but I did end up in prison.

0:57:570:58:00

This might sound strange but..

0:58:020:58:04

it did feel like home.

0:58:040:58:06

Next time, the story of how disabled children growing up

0:58:100:58:14

after the war challenged the old order of institutions,

0:58:140:58:18

poor education and patronising care.

0:58:180:58:20

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0:58:240:58:27

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