Bert Bunt was born in 1927. After attending the Foundling School at Berkhamsted, he joined the army where he was trained as an electrician. He travelled to Germany, Italy and Malaysia with the army, then returned to Britain where he met his wife of 58 years, Ivy. He worked in the building trade and finally retired at the age of 73. He had two children, a son and a daughter. Bert died in 2015.
Early Life
‘Do remember Sunday mornings, having to tear the newspaper in squares, and then put the holes and a bit of string and then tie them and hanging them in the toilet up the garden. That was our Sunday morning job.’
Into the World
‘I swore that when I came out of the army that nobody would ever pin another number on me.’
Reflections
‘There was no love whatsoever, and my whole life, even now I have been married for fifty-eight years, I still don’t really know what love is. I have never been able to cuddle my kids, my grandchildren, I have never cuddled my grandchildren. Or anything like like that. Because of something that has been bred into me.’
School Life
‘People say that they give me an education, yes. They didn’t give me any love, they gave- there was nothing you could build your life on, there was no love, no- you had the kids at school, you were all- but once you come to fourteen you were all going to go anyway. And there was just nothing in your life, you just lived day to day, and when you think, today if I was put in the army, I was fourteen years and eight months, and if I had gone, a kid today weighing seven stone two, they’d, parents would be done for malnutrition. As simple as that.’
Search for Birth Families
‘Who am I? I am a man with a family now. A man with a name, not just a- somebody that is nobody. Any- every kid from the school comes out, really is immobile, is a person standing alone, isn’t he? Now I am a one of a big crowd of a family. I don’t stand alone anymore.’
