Drafts and Dreams

I must thank my first manager Cyprian Lunga who acted as my guide and Mentor and advised me that I would be a less powerful force for the benefit of the children for whom I worked if I failed to become qualified as a social worker. This, then, became my number one aim, quickly followed by the self-understanding that I also needed to be as expert as possible in the legislation within which I was working at any one time. Cyprian also introduced me to the Family Rights Group. I attended many of their meetings at Gatland House as well as a few of their residential courses. For reasons that I hope that I have explained in my pages I made a firm choice never to read children’s files. Basically, they were regularly poor, unbalanced examples of the genre. I did, however, always read very carefully any official report on a child, of an incident or for a meeting regarding a child. I believe that you will read. about one or two cases where my careful reading, of a report had avoided an injustice.

I was incredibly lucky in the top quality and support that I received from three managers: Cyprian, Mark, and Ian. Mark was the second, Manager under whom I worked and learned. Mark is not his real name; I have changed Mark’s name simply because I have no way of contacting him to seek his permission to use his actual name. I have to say though. that for reasons I explain in the book, Mark was just about the best Children’s Home Manager I ever met in Kent. He was clear and concise as well as firm with his principals which meant that there was clarity as far as the management of the home was concerned. He would also never, ever have permitted some of the punishment regimes that existed in some children’s homes in those days. I hated the word “Absconder” when Cyprian first used that in a conversation with me after only a couple of weeks working at Gatland I told him bluntly that I saw it as a “Policeman’s Word.” Read the book for more depth on these matters!

‘I was persistently lucky with the staff groups with which I worked. I have given the actual names of just a few of those fellow workers and that is because I know that they would not disapprove of being named. Among these primarily are Cyprian Lunga and Don Brown. I came to love and appreciate these two men the longer I worked with them and know them. In fact, I enjoyed working with and appreciated all the other people with whom I worked without exception even though we sometimes, often in fact, had quite different opinions on some matters. I intend to move among my different experiences of care, one or two of which may surprise you. I worked all over Kent and did experience one or two practice situations that I felt the need to butt heads with. One must do that sometimes.

From the moment that I began working at Gatland House and for the rest of my working life I enjoyed every moment. For me, this added weight to the old saying that when you find work that you enjoy you never work another day in your life.  Again, it was exciting, and it was now my day’s work and what I had to talk about when I was away from it. During that period, to the final part of my working life I actually wanted to get up in the morning, every morning. During heavy snows one year Joyce and I decided to sort ourselves out and walk to work. For me that was a journey of some seventeen miles in the snow. I tell the story later in this volume. I gained four major educational qualifications, the CSS, two Ba honours degrees and an MSc degree and I am fortunate to have wonderful children, grandchildren plus my, new-ish, great grandson although he doesn’t seem too sure about me yet!