Environment

Tara Flood: Sleeping in Cots


Tara was born in 1966 in Preston, Lancashire. She was sent to a residential special school in East Sussex at just sixteen months of age and remained there until she was sixteen. She then returned to Preston and attended a local mainstream college.

Here Tara describes sleeping in cots with covered sides.

  • Tara Flood
  • Tara Flood
  • Tara Flood
https://howwasschool.allfie.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/sleeping-in-cots.mp3

Transcript

So the cots, which I find a difficult word to use to describe what it is we slept in, were large kind of metal – well, cots, I will use that word, but small beds essentially with metal cage like sides on all four sides, that if any of us stood up couldn’t reach the top, so we weren’t able to kind of like lean over. And to stop us sort of seeing each other – because we were all very close together, you know, in this kind of half in, half outdoor space, they used to put sheets over the sides of the cots to prevent us looking at each other or talking to each other.

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