Assisi Mother & Baby Homes

[dawnsh]

Hi Damian

Welcome to Rootchat and thanks for posting.

Sadly, along with others in this topic, your story is not unusual.

The Assisi (Mother & Baby) Grayshott was previously known as St Josephs.

It was run and used by Portsmouth Catholic Social Service Council, Crusade of Rescue, and St Francis Childrens Society.

Surviving records are from 9 Jan 1952 - 7 Oct 1975 and should be held by Catholic Childrens Society, Arundel & Brighton, Portsmouth & Southwark.

Earlier records are believed to have been destroyed.

If you feel your birth mother, half siblings and other birth relatives may still be alive, it might be worth contacting your local Social Services dept and ask for help from their intermediary service to try and put you in touch with her and them. Television programmes such as Long Lost Family make it appear so easy to do but it is not something to attempt on your own.

At the time of your birth, it was the norm for there not to be any further contact but moralities and sensitivities to this situation have changed over the years.

I wish you good luck.

Dawn

[Damian Keady]

Hi Dawn

Many thanks for your post in response to mine...

The issue of getting access to records of what went on and the full motivation, reasons as to why it went on, has never been fully addressed here in the UK as well as in other countries around the world where this practice went on.

There appears to me to be a concerted effort by those organisations involved, or with the knowledge and the answers to these questions, in leading all of those affected a merry dance with as many twists and turns and smokescreens to cover up what they have done and know, thereby leading to many of those (Babies and Mothers) who are / were affected by their actions to give up.
 
The minimum that should happen is a full public inquiry and an apology for this practice that has exponentially affected many, many lives over the decades, and not just those of us who were born in those institutions and our mothers who gave birth to us, as it has had a much wider impact that still resonates today.

I thank you for the heads up on the organisations you mention and their possible possession of records. I will follow up as this is new information to me that I have not found on my own research, so thanks again. The issue is that these organisations are like chameleons and shut down / change their names, re-create themselves to put people off pursuing the "source of truth" of why they existed and what they were up to by creating obstacles as to accountability for their past actions.

I am in touch with Paul Redmond the author of The Adoption Machine, which is a work by Paul on the forced adoption and practices of the mother and baby homes in Ireland. Paul is a Chairperson of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Homes Survivors of Ireland and was himself born into a M&B in 1964. He has told me he is currently reading up on the UK system.

I think it is about time this whole sorry affair is bought into the open once and for all, to give those who have been through this practice answers to their questions and peace.

Once again, I sincerely thank you for your information and reply to my post, I am not getting any younger and my motivation now is to know why?

Best wishes
Damian

[Damian Keady]

Message for NannySmith....

so sorry I must have hit the wrong thing on my phone to your PM... So you would have got no reply from me to your query and I can't seem to go back.....! Please do contact me again so I can respond to your queries direct..

Best wishes
Damian

[sarah]

Hi Damian,

We just a blank message from you with a "." We received this because you replied to your notification of a PM from NannySmith. To access your pm you just need to log in and click on "My Messages" and it will be there for you to reply to.

Regards

Sarah

[Damian Keady]

Thanks Sarah!

I am still finding my way around this site, so please excuse my clunkiness...

[Damian Keady]

One last post from me today, is that I have now after so long not thinking about things as to why I was in a foster home at the age of 6 weeks old, and for so many years afterwards before being taking into care (a children's Home), is something (a memory) that popped into my head last night!

So my foster mother mentioned once that I had not long been in her care.. still only weeks old, when she received a message to take me to an address on the Chiswick, High Road in SW London and hand me over there to staff...

So she went along and was confronted with a shop front, when she went in she was confronted by member of staff and an old fashioned shop counter. She was apparently supposed to just hand me over, but asked "where is he going"... to which the reply was "it doesn't matter to you", but my foster mother decided that as they would not answer her questions to walk out again with me in her arms... she told me that as she left she heard them saying "you don't know what you are doing, he is better off being left here."

That said, I don't think I ever had a better life in the care of my foster mother thereafter, just that she never handed me over to what was possibly an office / handover point for babies for adoption...

[mullion cove]

Don't give up hope Damian,you already have lots of information regarding your birth Mother ie that she married  etc.  If she is still alive, You may be right and she may not want to have any contact, but she might.  She may have buried you deep in her heart but I am sure that she has never forgotten you.  Times were so different then, these evil places, and they were evil in lots of cases were able to exist with very little controls, purely under the flag of religion.
You almost certainly have half brothers, sisters and wider family who won't be bound by old prejudices and who I am sure would love to know about you.
Keep searching.

[Damian Keady]

Thank you MC....

You mention that your that your husband grew up in Cedar Cottage .... from my own research this was a property that was actually in the grounds of Assisi.. Zoopla the online estate agency data bank and other reference sources also has Cedar Cottage as part of the Assisi estate before it was sold. Apparently it was a self contained property for the gardener of Assisi within the grounds?

Therefore I assume your husbands family may have been employed by the nuns and lived in a property on the grounds of the convent..

If that is the case than maybe there are other avenues to explore re. what was going on there at the time it operated as a M&B home and even maybe previously to it being acquired by the nuns.. ??

Kind regards
Damian

[Damian Keady]

http://www.johnowensmith.co.uk/headley/Cath-Church%20PDF%20book.pdf

Hi all... the above link is to research on a book from the site I got the below extract from.. some people seem to have more info than others! John Owen Smith...!

"Rev. Fr. Mulvaney SJ, the Chaplain at Assisi in Hammer Lane stirring sermons and always on his bike (which went to Charles Cornish in Trunch!). There are at least 7 Baptismal Registers for Assisi at St. Josephs.

Lots of enquiries after the Franciscan Sisters of the Divine Motherhood closed it down from Mothers trying to trace their Children – my cousin Paul Wilkes amongst them. (Who did find my Aunt his Mother – extraordinary story of love and perseverance). We contributed for many years at the Franciscan Sisters home at Mount Alvernia at Bramshott, (Now Shannon Court). Mark and Paul Tantum serving on numerous occasions and Mark nearly always fainting in the heat of the Chapel.
Christ The King was a team effort always."

I draw your attention to the fact he says "We contributed for many years etc" and "There are at least 7 Baptismal Registers for Assisi at St. Josephs. "