One
of my early childhood memories is of watching the mottled green
Conway Stewart pen held in the right hand of my grandmother tracing
its way across the pages of letters to some of the many members
of the Mill Grove family who lived in different parts of the world.
I think I knew most of those to whom she was writing, but the indelible
imprint of this particular remembrance of times past was of the
pen, the ink and the paper. (I can’t say how much this has
contributed to the fact that I always write with a fountain pen,
but it would be no surprise if this were shown to be the case.)
For
the past forty years or so it has been my mother who has continued
this task, though she prefers to write with ballpoint pens (and
happens to be ambidextrous). There are 1,200 people who have lived
at Mill Grove since it began in 1899, and so that makes for a lot
of letters in an average year! Mother still corresponds with several
of these, but the responsibility is beginning to shift my way.
And
it’s a rare privilege. Take last week: among the post that
dropped through the letterbox were two letters from Australia. One
was from a man who had lived at Mill Grove during the 1930s and
early 1940s: the other from a woman who lived here a decade or two
later. I knew them both, the former mostly from photographs and
what others had told me, the latter because we had grown up together.
Barry
(I have changed his name) told me how he was contemplating emigration
permanently to Australia now that he had met a lady there to whom
he was engaged. It was a difficult decision and he was thinking
about it carefully, letting me know some of the issues it entailed.
He also wanted information on his father, and any school reports
that we still had. I found letters from his father to my grandfather
(my grandparents had cared for him while he was here), and quite
a lot of school reports. Copies are hopefully now with him, and
I guess he will read them again and again. It’s possible they
will add substantially to his knowledge of his life-story and family
relationships.
It’s
significant that, in contrast with the prevailing theory and practice
of the time, Mill Grove from the very start sought to encourage
relationships with the birth parent or parents of each child living
here, and kept good records so that as much as possible of a child’s
life could be remembered as and when they chose to do so. There’s
no end to the process of self-knowledge and discovery through a
person’s life, and I can imagine Barry looking in detail at
every mark and comment on each report and comparing his progress,
even though it was over sixty years ago!
Dora
(once again I have changed the name) was letting us know that she
was planning to come back and see us this coming summer. I immediately
told my mother (who had helped to care for her) and before I could
get a letter written, there was already one on the way telling Dora
that she would always know there was a spare bed in my mother’s
home. I managed to get a letter in the post a few days later offering
Dora accommodation as long as she wanted to stay with us at Mill
Grove (just down the road from where mother lives). Our letters
were brimful of memories and associations: I recalled a huge bunch
of bananas that her brother held above his head, a skiffle band
that used an old tea chest, hair styles and jokes; she talked of
her father and her family line with its roots in jazz music. And
we are going to meet after forty years!
In
the past two columns of In Residence I have been attempting to give
the flavour of what goes on at Mill Grove, and no description would
be complete without reference to the considerable amount of contact
there is between family members around the world, in some cases
many decades since we last met.
Something
that helps is the annual newsletter that we call Links, sent once
a year to everyone who has lived as part of our family here. That
keeps the news flowing from continent to continent and generation
to generation. Whatever care of children by adults, there have also
been the bonds that have developed between those who lived here,
and when my father died last year I realised from the many tributes
that the love and care was a two-way process.
At
lunchtime today a couple came to show us their Golden Wedding Anniversary
photos. The wife had come to live at Mill Grove on 31 January 1947.
In case you think I have a remarkable memory let me point out that
this is my date of birth, so it isn’t such a great feat to
remember it! We pored over the carefully organised album, and I
was shown children, grandchildren and a great-grandchild. And so
the Mill Grove family continues to grow, and there will be more
letters to write, and more copies of Links to send each year. (One
of the reasons for the visit was to select a photo for the next
edition of Links.) As my handwriting becomes steadily more illegible
I am getting increasingly unsubtle hints to use emails more often.
Part
of what is taken for granted is that we are always here, generation
by generation, and that every child is significant and known by
name. It’s something we just assume as any family would. But
as I pause to reflect on it, I realise that it’s one of the
most important aspects or dimensions of what happens. Every child
knows that there is someone to whom they are known, and who cares
for them, and a place for them: the very place where they lived,
however long ago.
And
the fact that it’s a two way process is really important as
well: I am already getting excited about the prospect of seeing
Dora again. My parents visited her at her home in Australia in the
1970s but we haven’t seen each other since we were children.
And as it happens I am pretty fond of jazz as well as writing with
a fountain pen. It couldn’t be Dora and her brother who influenced
me, could it? It would be unwise to rule it out, given the number
of years of our lives that we shared as children.
I
hope that it’s becoming just a little clearer what Mill Grove
is all about. If you put it in the category of an institution then
this must all seem remarkable and exceptional, but if you see it
as a family, it all falls into place. A worldwide family of considerable
size, but a family nonetheless…and my fountain pen has been
lying just beside my right hand the whole time I have been typing
this piece!
Keith J. White lives and cares for children and young people
in Mill Grove where his family has lived for four generations.
Since 1899 it has been a family home where children unable
to live with their own parents have been welcomed
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