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Francis Batchelor was brought up in children's home. After nearly 70 years she returns to the house that was home ...

"Well here it is. Number 4 , Westbank Terrace York. Do you remember that address?" The house, Home Truths reporter Ray Kershaw and Francis Batchelor returned to in York, has now been converted into flats and has a comfortably well-off air. This was the children’s home in which Francis spent her childhood, "My mother died when she was only 28. I was 4 and my brother was 2. My father couldn’t go to work and look after us, so we had to be put in homes. Father only had miner’s money, and he paid for us to stay in there. People don’t realise that we had to pay."

Francis lived in the home from the age of 6 to 15. Far from being a den of Dickensian cruelty, Francis remembers being treated with kindness - but also remembers life could be pretty monotonous, "We got up about half seven, we had breakfast, and it was porridge and I used to be sick with it. We went to church school and were called the 'Home Girls' there." Inexplicably, the 'Home Girls' weren’t allowed to make friends. "A boy gave me a slate for my birthday and I had to give it back - ooh I was annoyed!" But far worse than relinquishing the slate, was having to give up her own name - twice! On two separate occasions, a new girl joined the home, also called Francis. On the pretext that the new girl would cry if she couldn't keep her name, Francis Batchelor had to change hers and endure being called 'Joan', and, worst of all 'Fanny', which she loathed.

At a nearby hotel, Ray Kershaw took Francis along to be re-united with Gladys Wilson, who also used to live at the same children’s home. They hadn't seen each other for 69 years. Gladys’ father had died at the age of 29. Her mother was left with three children, all of whom were sent into homes. Although, when her mother re-married, Gladys and her siblings ended up 6 step-brothers and sisters from that union. None of the three were taken out of the home. When asked if she feels a sense of shame or guilt about being brought up in a home, Gladys replies, "My step brothers and sisters don’t even talk about it, nor my mother. Perhaps she felt a sense of guilt or something like that ...I’ve really been grateful for being looked after in the home. We had some happy times, but it can be lonely with a past like that..."

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