Alice was born in July 1938 and went to the Foundling Hospital School in Berkhamsted in 1943. She is married with two children and five grandchildren, and has stayed in contact with many of her school friends.
Early Life
‘We have… little bonnets, which… my foster… parents’ daughter used to make for us. She made all our clothes, and she used to knit all these bonnets, and we were obviously about two and a half, three there, I would imagine, so they had to take the centre of the pram, the base out, to put our legs down. And it was such– just such a lovely pram, you know, and I remember my foster parents taking us out all through the country lanes.’
Into the World
‘We went into London, and bought clothes and this funny hat I bought, I shall never forget it now. Pale blue coat, and this sort of… mustard coloured case, it was like one of these cardboard things you had, and I thought it was, you know, quite important, I got all these clothes, so they did kit you out, rather than sending you out with your school uniform.’
Reflections
‘I remember we went to Poland one day, and we went to Auschwitz, and I thought, “My life was heaven to that.” But it doesn’t make things go away.’
School Life
‘I remember sitting on this coach and I was happy all the way, until we got there, and we went into what was the big concert hall, with all these blue chairs, and I sat there, and then she said, “I have to go now,” well I just froze. I know I did. Pearl said that they brought her out to see me when I got there, but I don’t remember that, she said I looked absolutely petrified, she remembers that. I just could not believe it when all the mothers got up to go. Previous to that I’d been to Tunbridge Wells and I was bought a beautiful blue dress…and with lovely white socks and brown shoes, and I was so proud of this pretty dress, and I really– and I had a teddy as well, I remember holding this teddy, and the next minute, with this massive building, which appeared to be– having ‘(a)’ lived in a house, was taken upstairs, how I ever got there I don’t know, and all your beautiful clothes were taken off of you, and you were taken into this bathroom with six baths, well we didn’t even have a bathroom. And I– I must have just froze, but we had a bath and it– taken into the dormitory. And it was just…I look back and I would never ever want a child to go through that.’
Search for Birth Families
‘She wouldn’t even recognise me, that I was her daughter … I had to pretend I just wasn’t anybody. It was very difficult, because her younger sister was married to a probation officer. And often people used to come that were on probation, or they’d come out of prison to the house. He was awfully good to them, and we used to give them clothes, and it wasn’t until one day somebody said to me, “Oh, are you one of the ex-prisoners?” And I thought– I’d had enough by then, and I said, you know, to the probation officer– well, he was just uncle by marriage, “I can take the children’s home, I can take all that, but I am not taking this as well.” I said “enough is enough.”‘
