My Time in Styal Prison in The 1950s and my return 13 July 2022 to Visit the Clink restaurant

My Time in Styal Women’s Prison First I must say I hope you have your hankie or tissues at the ready Well folks I knew this would make you think & hopefully have a read of my blog, yes its true when I was very young I used to live there, but the reality is that it used to be the local children’s home & after my parents divorced,( strangely enough my mother left me with my father which still seems very strange for the fact I was only just over two at the time) my father for a time could not cope so I went to live there, as did my brother & sister I was prompted to write this blog after reading another persons experiences at the same home, in a book they had written, sadly their time was described as terrible with beatings, lack of care & no positive experiences. Well for me sadly they did separate me from my older brother & sister and yes I did not see them for some years, wish I could ask someone now why, but I got used to it & now its to late But what was life really like there, was it as bad as others talk about living in care & the next best thing to the workhouse, was that other mans terrible experience the same for me (forgot to say he was there at the same time as me but he was older) Well for me as much as I can remember I was fed three meals a day, after eating kippers for the first time got bone stuck in my throat that has put me off fish that have bones in ever since, but that was not their fault, also I do remember someone pushing my head in a bowl of rice pudding, just cant remember who or why (did not put me off LOL) definitely not the staff The place was in its own grounds with fields of grass to play in, unlike the homes most other local children lived in, in the community, we had believe it or not regular holidays to places like Colwyn Bay, Lowestoft, plus other places I cannot remember which was at a time other children were lucky if they went for a day out to the seaside Whilst on one of the holidays I have always remembered us all going into a room to see the Queens coronation on a TELEVISION 1953, I had never seen one before in my life, plus they also showed Hilary climbing Mount Everest, what a thing to see, so much for the deprivation LOL What about those beatings, no I have to say at no time did anyone treat me like that & my recollection was only of kindness, one of the ladies known as Miss Mac, I later met in the local village & got to know her as a really nice person, she was particularly kind to me I also remember getting some sort of nasty illness (now think it was chickenpox)that was contagious so had to stay in the hospital there, the only other person was a little girl, but soon we both got better & returned to the main home. My dad used to know when we were playing out in the fields of the grounds & would sometimes come to the railings at the bottom to say hello, it was always a lovely thing for me, why he could not, or did not visit me in the home I never asked in later years, so its to late now so will never find out. Whilst in there I had a special friend called Billy ( I don’t know his surname ) and we used to play together, also whilst in there I had one of my three starring roles on stage in my life, I was one of the children in the Nutcracker suite dressed in my pyjamas, don’t know what I actually had to do, obviously it did not lead to a career on the stage. Well it doesn’t sound that bad does it, would I of been better as a latch door kid, being passed from friend to friend seeing little of my family with not enough food on the table as many other families were, I don’t know just it was one of those things that happened in a period in my life. I forgot to talk about Christmas, well it must have been terrible mustn’t it, because surely I had a terrible time with no parties or presents brought by Father Christmas, well wrong again, what a lovely time it was & so specially made for us, we were taken to pantomimes, to all sorts of parties at places like the fire brigade headquarters or the TA & as for presents well kind people made sure we did not miss out In relation to Christmas, many years later when working with young people in care, kind people would write in or phone asking if they could take in a child for that period from the home, often they were shocked when told no it was the most enjoyable time of the year & please come back in the new year & get to know the child for twelve months first, which I could truly relate to. Well I hope this has been an enjoyable read, it was my experience of that time I know my brother & sister came out of it at the age of 15 with very different views, my brother found it a positive experience & went on to have a great deal of success & a well rounded personality, in his sadly short life, whereas my sister never forgave my father & had a chip on her shoulder for the rest of her life So what’s the message in all of this, maybe life is what you make of it, we can either see it as a positive if at times sad, or we can spend the rest of our lives forgetting all the good bits as my sister & the author of the book did Sorry it just occurred to me, the funny little story many years later when my sister was with her husband & they were in the area, she got him to drive past the place & said to him hey guess what this is where I used to live, there was a silence before she had to explain that it was not the now women’s prison, but she had been there when it was a children’s home, they dined out on this many times. Another coincidence was that in the 1980s whilst working for British Rail as a booking clerk I used to go to do the accounts at Styal Station which is still open, as the tiny village has grown and grown, on a Thursday morning, inmates from the prison are released and some used to use a free rail pass to get home again partly on the train, but the village seems to of lost its sweet shop and war memorial and is now close to Manchester Airport which has grown and grown Update 13 July 2022, , after it closed as a children’s home 1n the 1950s, the buildings for a period housed Hungarian refugees, but when they left it changed into a women’s prison , which it still is A charity was created to help rehabilitate some offenders and is called Clink and a project at a number of prisons including Styal, was to open a restaurant and train inmates in a range of skills to improve their chances of getting employment when they leave the prison The former chapel at Styal is now a restaurant Today I went there with my friend Jane for a meal. What a beautiful setting and the menu although small contained some marvellous and very tasty dishes very well presented by the staff In the course of the meal, I mentioned I used to live there and the manager brought out a book of articles and photos that people had donated, whilst looking through it I found a photo of my brother Keith as a young boy, it really touched me, there were Also photos of the boys brigade, but of poor quality so I was unale to tell if any showed my brother who had beloned there. I have offered to return with a copy of this blog and some other notes as well as photos I have still in my possession, a nice touch was that the manager suggested coming earlier next time so we could have a longer chat about the material I will take, so yes another happy experience. I have recently discovered that at Manchester Library they have records of the children who were resident so I will arrange to visit there in the near future