Christine O'Mahony: Nazareth House

Transcript

My dad was at a loss what to do with us and there was a children’s home, a convent just down the road from us on the same road as ours and he took us there and he asked them to have us for a few nights while he tried to think what to do. We landed up staying in the children’s home for nine months. From there we went to another children’s home, there were three of them, Sister Convents, and we went to another one in Ealing, they were called Nazareth House and there was mostly children whose parents were dead. My brother I should say, first of all he went from the maternity hospital to my mum’s sister and then he got moved to Ireland to my dad’s brother’s family, so he wasn’t with us, but us three girls were in this children’s home together for about nine months. And I honestly did think my mother was dead because … well nobody’s sick that long, I wasn’t stupid, you know. I was four and I just thought adults were liars but you had to pretend to believe them or you got in big trouble if you didn’t, you know. And I remember starting to cry and my seven year old sister just begging me not to cry ‘cause you really, really were not allowed to.

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