Charles attended the Foundling School at Berkhamsted. He served in the Catering Corps and after taking an engineering course, worked in a factory producing parts for industrial vehicles. He never met his mother but has formed a close relationship with his half-sister Valerie after being persuaded to find his birth family by his wife Anne and daughter Jacqueline.
School Life
‘I was a prefect, and this lad called Emerson, can’t think of his first name off the top of my head. Because we only referred to each other as– by our surnames at school, you know, and I said to Emerson, “Come on, back to classroom now” as it was after playtime, sort of thing, and he gave me a bit of lip, you see, so I give him a clip under the ear. So I got back to my class, you see, and about ten minutes later, kiddie came into the classroom and said to the teacher that Mr Rawlinson wanted to see me. Anyway, he said, “Did you just hit Emerson?” And I said, “Yes,” and he said “Why did you do that?” I said, “He gave me some cheek, sir, after telling him to get back to his classroom and that.” So he says, “Well, that’s bullying,” he says. “Well, sir, I didn’t think it was bullying, just give him a clip under the ear.” He says, “Well, I think it’s bullying,” he said, and with that, he got down the cane, and he wasn’t at that time allowed to give us the cane. The only person in the school allowed to give us the cane was the Headmaster, and he came round with the punishment book, every– every– every day– to who’s going to get the cane. Anyway, he said “Hold your hands out.” I held my hands out. He gave me six cuts of the cane. Three on each, yeah, and he said, “Not crying, then,” and I said, “No, I’m not crying.” “Ooh, better give you another six,” he said, and he gave me 12 cuts. “Still not crying.” 18 cuts of the cane, he gave me, to try and make me cry, because my pride wouldn’t– in front of children, you know, two year gap, you know, you can’t be seen blubbing in front of children younger than you, can you. See, so… but I never ever forgot that. I had the cane so many times, when I was at school, and… I knew I had the cane, but I don’t sort of remember it, but that instance, I’ve never forgotten, and he said that I was bullying, and I thought to myself, “If I was bullying, what was he doing?”
Into the World
‘The idea of the Coram Family, in a sense, was to get the boys ready for the military, and the girls ready for private service.’
Reflections
‘The shame of my birth, it’s not there now, you know, it– you know, forty– in the forties and fifties, if you said you were illegitimate, you know… you’d sort of feel really… ashamed. Not that the person who was illegitimate’s got anything to be ashamed of, because there’s nothing he can do about it, is there? But… even so, it’s… it’s hard to sort of… get that into someone’s mind, you know. Still, it was always that sort of… shame attached to it, as such, you know.’
Search for Birth Families
‘I’ve subsequently found a– a wha– a sister I never knew I had, who lives in Broadstairs, Valerie. She’s nine years my junior, and we have met and she’s stayed at our place, and I’ve stayed at– at her place and we get on very well together.
I always had the idea that I’d been rejected, I wasn’t wanted and I felt I’d been abandoned as a child and you know, therefore, I didn’t want to do any follow up on it and wife and my daughter both want me to chase up, but I was adamant about it, I wouldn’t do it. I– I suppose that the main reason is the feeling of rejection again, you see, there was a classic case on a program once where a lady had found a father and got on very… very well with her, and she subsequently found her mother and when mother came to the door, she said, “I di– I didn’t want you then, and I don’t want you now.” I mean, what kind of a rejection is that? You see, it’s a– you know, I couldn’t face that. And… not that I had that kind of– thinking that would be the sort of response I’d get. I didn’t have any sort of… bitterness or resentment to… to anybody, I just thought they had abandoned me, so be it.
I often had grandiose ideas that I was the son of a duke or a baron or something. I must admit, in the early years of my life, right up until about 20, 30 years ago, maybe, I lied a lot, you know. Anyone asked me about my parents and that, I just used to say, “Oh, they died when I was a child,” and things like that, you know, and, “I don’t of any living relatives,” things like that, you know, there was– there was a shame about being born out of wedlock.
Like I said, I didn’t want to be rejected again, as I– if I come up against someone, I mean… when I got all this paraphernalia here, from Val Malloy and I found out about Valerie, and Jacqueline, my daughter, had managed to find out where her address was in Broadstairs, and so between the four of us, we wro– wrote a letter and… my birthday’s 24th of January and on the 24th of January, that was about a month to nearly five weeks later, I hadn’t heard anything and I said to Anne, I said, “Nah, she just doesn’t want to know,” I said, “let it go.” Anyway, I said to Anne– I like fishing, you see, I said “I– I’m off fishing,” I said. So, I went off to about 15 miles away from here, and was tackled up there, and then the phone went, and Anne says, “You’ve got two birthday cards arrived.” I said, “Oh?” She said “Yeah,” she said, “One from your sister,” my adopted sister, Evelyn, and– that’s that one that’s just had a diamond wedding anniversary, one from her, and she said, “You’ve got– you’ve got one from Broadstairs! Got the address on the back.” So, I said, “Oh, I’m fishing now. Oh, I– I’m staying here,” and I carried on fishing until the end of the day, you see. Well, I was– I was in– interested, but I suppose to a degree, I was a bit… probably a little bit wary, or– you know, of what to expect.
I got back here in the evening, opened it up, and it was a lovely birthday card, and, you know, “To My Brother” and that sort of thing and… she’d– she’d put, at the bottom, a telephone number, you see. It’s– it was a warm card, you know, sent with warmth and that, and I phoned up Evelyn, that’s my other sister, you know, and I said about it, and I said, “I don’t know what to do about it, now.” So she says– I says “She’s put her phone number on,” and she says, “Well phone her back, you silly fool!” she says. “If she didn’t want you to phone her, she wouldn’t have put her phone number there.” So… so I got– I got on and phoned her up, you know. I phoned and… I had to leave a message, phoned again, had to leave a message, and then the ph– the phone went, and it was Valerie on the phone to me, and we– we sat there, I think we… chatted for about an hour and a half, you know, as though we’d known each other all our lives, sort of thing.‘
