A home from home.
Publisher: Longmans
Published: 1967
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 192
First sentence: 'In the summer garden my children were playing Mothers and Fathers.......'
Description: Sheila Stewart was the illegitimate child of a servant. From the age of three, she was brought up in Homes belonging to what was then known as 'The Waifs and Strays Society'. This is the story of her growing up under the supervision of Committees and various Patrons - some of them Royal. She eventually trained as a teacher. She doesn't supply dates in her story, but as she went through the Second World war as a teenager, was probably born about 1930. The 'Waifs and Strays' - which name was hated by the children in its Homes - later became the 'The Church of England Children's Society'. Her first three years were spent with relations who lived in a fishing community in Devon. She made contact with some of them again, but seems never to have met her mother, Maisie - who may even have been already dead.  Moving account of a life lived as an outsider, but within a structure that gave security and a sort of love, particularly from 'Matron Bailey', to whom the book is dedicated. The Society even gave her a fancy wedding, when she married - with heirloom veil and couture dress!
At the time the book was written, she was still married to a farmer in the Cotswolds and had three chldren.
Notes: During the Second World War the 'waifs and strays' were evacuated to Englemere Wood, Ascot - Sheila was there educated at the local schools. Some of the 'waifs' were trained up as servants in the household of Lady Weigall, who lived nearby. She was housing Princess Marie Louise and Princess Helena Victoria (granddaughters of Queen Victoria), who had been bombed out of London. Sheila's best friend became lady's maid to them, but became pregnant by a married man and ran away.