I was a regular visitor at the Harris Orphanage for the four years to 1953. I got to know most of the boys and their house parents as well as the Governor. I suppose that there were about thirty or forty boys accommodated in three or four houses, each with a married couple designated as house-parents. The first thing I should say was that the houses or homes for the boys were well run; the food was good, the parents were well-chosen and the boys seemed happy.

The majority of boys had quite serious problems: some had had the traumatic experience of parents dying: some came from families where they were not wanted and were completely unloved and uncared for. On the whole the boys were very likeable and pleasant. Most had a sense of humour, were helpful and considerate, and were daring.

They envied others who belonged to a proper family and most of them had a sort of inferiority complex as regards this matter. Amongst other boys, who were not members of the orphanage, they would appear shy and retiring and this was very noticeable.

One’s father was killed when HMS Hood, the battleship, was blown up in the war. His distraught mother committed suicide. He wanted more than anything to join the marines like his father. Then there was Roger who never knew his father and used to fantasise about him. One week his father had been an aircraft pilot, the next the captain of a ship, next a lumberjack and then a parachutist and so on. Richard was very small and was once told that small boys made good jockeys; for years he used to dream about riding racehorses. Jimmy was lame and used to envy everyone who could run normally. There was Brian who loved fishing and I once tasted a trout that he had caught, gutted and cooked!

Another boy was taken into care because his father was too fond of the drink and used to unmercifully beat him. Because of their abnormal up-bringing, most of the boys were perhaps slightly below an average educational ability, with the exception of Alan, who went to the local grammar school and was much admired by his contemporaries.

There were ‘adoption days’ when couples who were thinking of adopting would visit the orphanage to see if there was anyone that they might consider. These were important days: all the boys would be scrubbed and dressed in their ‘best’ clothes, especially those who were eligible for adoption. Excitement was intense but it could be very much of an anti-climax; often no one would be chosen or even considered. The ‘eligible’ boys were down-hearted.

Because the boys never had been on a picnic, I was asked to take them. One very hot Saturday afternoon, I and twenty odd boys (all clutching a packet of sandwiches in grease-proof paper) boarded a ‘bus to Broughton Church.

We slowly walked along the stream and after about two miles or so we had our sandwiches on the banks of the stream. Then all the boys rushed into the water and had a marvellous time swimming and splashing. Of course, it was far removed from a conventional picnic – the boys dashing here and there and being ‘commandos’! Then back on the ’bus to the orphanage.

I haven’t mentioned the girls who lived in similar houses on the ‘Preston’ side of the orphanage. I think that most of the girls knew who I was, but I didn’t know any of them and only got to know one set of their house-parents.

Overseeing all these activities and all the children was the Governor, Captain Watkins, assisted by his wife. He was a kind and well-educated individual and his wife was very much a lady! However, I once surprised her in an outhouse towards the back of the premises where she was doing the laundry. She was sweating amongst the steam and looked like a mill-girl. After that I appreciated her more! Captain Watkins was very concerned for all the children in his charge; he went far to build up their characters and he certainly understood them. The children liked him. Once a year he organised a gala to which all the nearby inhabitants were invited and this was usually a very successful money-raising event. I remember one year he had a premonition that it was going to be a wash-out, so he insured the success of the event against rain. And it did rain!

Captain Watkins was also very concerned with what happened to the boys when they left the orphanage, usually at 15 years old, and they started working. Many parents of boys who had been taken into care (about one third of them), had refused to relinquish control of the boys and ensured that they returned home – in reality to appropriate their wages. As regards the other two thirds, Captain Watkins had a network of farmers and their wives who lived within sixty miles or so, and who were more than happy to employ these young lads as farm labourers. As far as I could understand, this was not to say these boys would be farm workers for ever. It was regarded as a sort of holding operation and any boy who did not take to farming, had the opportunity to move elsewhere as they matured. Mind you, most of the boys were keen to become farmers and were attracted by the outdoor life. I remember Jimmy telling me that it was one thing helping a farmer with haymaking in the height of summer and a completely different kettle of fish when you had to get up at six o’clock in the morning and break the ice from the water buckets. This was the Jimmy who was lame. Thanks to the hospital, he told me proudly, he could now run with the best of them. He told me this when I met him as a ’bus conductor a year or so after he had found that farming was not for him!

When it came to the summer holidays, Captain Watkins took all the children and their house-parents camping. I visited them at one of their camps at Dolphinholme and on what looked like a couple of army field kitchen stoves. The whole camp had camp fire sing-songs at nights and I can recall that the favourite song of the children was ‘I used to live in monkey-land, the place where I was born.!’

We now come to the sad part of the story: Captain Watkins, the well-respected Governor, embezzled money from the Orphanage. I can not recall how much, but it was not a great deal. He was jailed, lost his military rank and disappeared from the scene. At the time the magistrates were very caustic about the very low salary that he received I was very sad that this person, who must have earned a million ‘Brownie points’ in his job – should have been flung into jail notwithstanding all his goodness and care. Some years later, I met one of the boys, then a young man of about 25, who agreed with my views.

As you may know, the Harris Orphanage is gone but the buildings remain and are part of the local university. It seems a shame that such a well-run orphanage and first class care-home should be no more.