Homes in the Country?
A recent government initiative suggests Britain is failing in its policies towards children in care. Jad Adams explains how similar concerns a hundred years ago lay behind the development of the first children’s ‘village homes’.
'I was wearing a red dress and holding tight to a lady’s hand. I was four years old. We came to some very large iron gates. The lady rang the bell and a man came out to unlock the gates and let us in. Bang went the gates behind us. We were taken into a room known as the gatehouse. A woman in a nurse’s uniform came in. She asked the lady to leave. I started to scream and scream. I was told later that the lady had been my mother – I never saw her again from that day to this.’
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