My Life at Sunnyside:
An Orphan's Story Roy Bradley, who contributed all photos and details. July 2016 From 1942 to 1945 I was an orphan in Sunnyside Children's Home, operated by the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society, in the property now occupied by ByBrook Nursing Home.[1] I was fortunate because I was adopted when I was three years old by the couple who lived in the Lodge at the entrance of the Home, Charles William (Bill) Bradley and his wife Phyllis Florence Bradley. |
We lived at Sunnyside Lodge and my father rented the land around the Home, where he ran a gardening, landscaping and smallholding business. We were some of the first people in Middlehill to have a television and you can still see the pole on the roof of the Lodge.
My Parents and Grandparents
My adoptive parents had moved to Box from London in 1938 with their parents. My grandfather worked for the Morley family at Coles Farm looking after the horses and, every week, cleaning all the tackle, boots and shoes kept just inside the hall. My grandmother was the cook there and my grandparents lived in a bungalow called Briary Orchard, opposite Coles, which was staff quarters for Coles (much smaller then).
My adoptive parents had moved to Box from London in 1938 with their parents. My grandfather worked for the Morley family at Coles Farm looking after the horses and, every week, cleaning all the tackle, boots and shoes kept just inside the hall. My grandmother was the cook there and my grandparents lived in a bungalow called Briary Orchard, opposite Coles, which was staff quarters for Coles (much smaller then).
My father grew peaches and lemons at Sunnyside against a south facing wall of the kitchen garden. He rented ground from the Home behind the iron railings for the smallholding and also land from farmer Goulstone which sloped down towards the Box Brook where he grew potatoes, especially during the Second World War.
He used two Trustee Tractors to do the rotovating and ploughing at the smallholding. They were hand pushed and not very mechanised. My mother did a lot of the work in the garden and greenhouses. His main income came from landscaping and gardening. Some of it was local and my father did the landscape gardening of the rockery at Coles also. For a short time he worked at Roundway Mental Hospital, Devizes, where he planted the rosebeds and the herbaceous border. He would go over there every day in his pickup, a Ford Pilot V8. My mother's family had been dogged by mental health issues and my parents decided not to have their own children but to adopt. And I had a most happy childhood with them and my grandparents as a caring, loving family. Left: My father looking smart |
Miss Kathleen Harper
Kathleen Harper was quite a personality. She had lived at Grosvenor, Bath before moving to Middlehill House, where she was closer to the Children's Home which she ran as chairman. My father did contract-work for her personally as well as the Home, often doing it for little or no money in return for the peppercorn rent he paid for his house and smallholding. He built the concrete pond and rockery at Middlehill House, using stones that Miss Harper had brought from Grosvenor.
For some unknown reason, my father regularly chauffeured Miss Harper around and cleaned her car. She would buy a brand new Austin car every three years and always kept the same registration number, AFB 500, which was a Bath registration plate because the initials FB were prescribed to the city until 1974.
Kathleen Harper was quite a personality. She had lived at Grosvenor, Bath before moving to Middlehill House, where she was closer to the Children's Home which she ran as chairman. My father did contract-work for her personally as well as the Home, often doing it for little or no money in return for the peppercorn rent he paid for his house and smallholding. He built the concrete pond and rockery at Middlehill House, using stones that Miss Harper had brought from Grosvenor.
For some unknown reason, my father regularly chauffeured Miss Harper around and cleaned her car. She would buy a brand new Austin car every three years and always kept the same registration number, AFB 500, which was a Bath registration plate because the initials FB were prescribed to the city until 1974.
Memories of Sunnyside
As a child I liked to look around the Home, and I have infant memories of being in the Home for two years until the age of three.
I remember the dormitory in the south wing facing the Brook which had cots for the babies. I would wander in without any challenge. When I was about eight years old, which would have been about 1950, the south wing caught fire. There was obviously a massive amount of panic and we used stirrup pups to put the flames out. The fire brigade took 20 minutes to arrive which annoyed Miss Harper. As a youth the matron, Miss Phillips, let me have access to the cellars, where my father used to stoke the boilers twice a day as part of his rent agreement.
Once a year Sunnyside had a fete in the gardens to raise funds. I believe that one year the Bishop of Bath and Wells came to the fete and was photographed with Miss Harper. My father sold tickets at the gate and ran a vegetable stall which always sold out first with proceeds going to the Home, . But the main attraction at the fete was a mechanical elephant which was half full-size and moved along the ground with a 2-stroke engine. It was owned by Tommy Best, who had a scrap and army surplus yard in Box, but was kept in the summer house at Sunnyside.
The Home had its own swimming pool, made of concrete blocks with boards to retain the water, down a lane at the side of the house going towards a field called The Drumway. It was quite large perhaps 4 x 10 meters and was filled by a stream from Ditteridge which always ran through the pond. It was always a very boggy area, so much so that my father was asked to empty spent coal on the path to the pool as ballast.
I nearly blew up the Home, not once but twice, when I was a teenager. The first was due to the sewage system which had a cesspit with a concrete manhole lid cover and the water went through three filtering lagoons then into the Box Brook. With two mates I lifted the lid cover and put a lighted firework down there. When the methane gas exploded, it blew the concrete lid to smithereens. The second time involved an old Morris car kept in a shed at the bottom of the garden. I put a lighted rag in the petrol tank and, even though the car hadn't been used for decades, the fumes still in the tank nearly blew my arm off. Matron tended me and I was rushed off to hospital. My arm eventually recovered but is still weaker than the other one.
As a child I liked to look around the Home, and I have infant memories of being in the Home for two years until the age of three.
I remember the dormitory in the south wing facing the Brook which had cots for the babies. I would wander in without any challenge. When I was about eight years old, which would have been about 1950, the south wing caught fire. There was obviously a massive amount of panic and we used stirrup pups to put the flames out. The fire brigade took 20 minutes to arrive which annoyed Miss Harper. As a youth the matron, Miss Phillips, let me have access to the cellars, where my father used to stoke the boilers twice a day as part of his rent agreement.
Once a year Sunnyside had a fete in the gardens to raise funds. I believe that one year the Bishop of Bath and Wells came to the fete and was photographed with Miss Harper. My father sold tickets at the gate and ran a vegetable stall which always sold out first with proceeds going to the Home, . But the main attraction at the fete was a mechanical elephant which was half full-size and moved along the ground with a 2-stroke engine. It was owned by Tommy Best, who had a scrap and army surplus yard in Box, but was kept in the summer house at Sunnyside.
The Home had its own swimming pool, made of concrete blocks with boards to retain the water, down a lane at the side of the house going towards a field called The Drumway. It was quite large perhaps 4 x 10 meters and was filled by a stream from Ditteridge which always ran through the pond. It was always a very boggy area, so much so that my father was asked to empty spent coal on the path to the pool as ballast.
I nearly blew up the Home, not once but twice, when I was a teenager. The first was due to the sewage system which had a cesspit with a concrete manhole lid cover and the water went through three filtering lagoons then into the Box Brook. With two mates I lifted the lid cover and put a lighted firework down there. When the methane gas exploded, it blew the concrete lid to smithereens. The second time involved an old Morris car kept in a shed at the bottom of the garden. I put a lighted rag in the petrol tank and, even though the car hadn't been used for decades, the fumes still in the tank nearly blew my arm off. Matron tended me and I was rushed off to hospital. My arm eventually recovered but is still weaker than the other one.
Box in World War 2
My grandmother said that a bomb dropped in the field opposite Toad Hall (then called Toadstools). There is still a depression in the field. She said that my father fell out of an apple tree with the noise when it went off. Opposite the vicarage at Ditteridge is an observation pillbox used in the war. Sometimes the German bombers were looking for Colerne airfield and, even today, I can remember the noise of them going overhead. The airfield was heavily camouflaged and they usually bombed open fields instead. Right: My grandfather and grandmother at Coles Farm |
A strange thing happened to me one summer just after the war when the Box Brook was low. I found some grey-black camouflaged canoes sunken in the Brook, weighed down to sink them. I reported them to the police who said they were 2-man canoes possibly used by spies investigating Box Tunnel. There were permanent guards on the Tunnel throughout the war.
After the war aircraft parts (fuselage, engines etc) from Colerne Lancaster bombers were disposed of by burying them to fill in a slope on the A4 at Ashley. I recall that, for two years, two vehicles a day went down via Ditteridge carrying their loads. The site is now level and used for St Martin's Garage.
Other Memories of Box
I didn't know I was adopted until I was 16 years old. I suppose it never came up in conversation at the right time. It didn't matter to me at all because I had a loving childhood with my adopted parents and grandparents.
After the war aircraft parts (fuselage, engines etc) from Colerne Lancaster bombers were disposed of by burying them to fill in a slope on the A4 at Ashley. I recall that, for two years, two vehicles a day went down via Ditteridge carrying their loads. The site is now level and used for St Martin's Garage.
Other Memories of Box
I didn't know I was adopted until I was 16 years old. I suppose it never came up in conversation at the right time. It didn't matter to me at all because I had a loving childhood with my adopted parents and grandparents.
I left Box in 1963 when I was 21 but my parents continued there until my father died in 1965. Miss Harper got me a job as an apprentice with the Stewart family who ran the Kingsmead Motor Company, a car franchise in Bath. I ran a mobile section which went out to business and domestic customers whose car had issues or required a service. At the Regency Ballroom opposite the Theatre Royal in Bath I met a girl called Marion, we married and I left my parents' house.
All my childhood and teenage years were spent in the village and I still have many memories, often of just odd things that struck me as different as a child. I went to school at Kensington High School and the canteens for lunchtime were at the site of the present Morrisons' supermarket. On the first day I missed my turn from Kensington and carried on walking roads that I knew until I got back to Middlehill. The Somerset and Wiltshire police were both out looking for me. I remember climbing the six-inch ledge on the outside of Middlehill Tunnel as a child. I remember being impressed that Mr Wilson at Spa House, Middlehill, used to be a big game hunter back in the late 1940s.
My memories of Sunnyside and Box have lived with me all my adult life as a wonderful area to be brought up as a child. I still take the parish magazine and frequently visit the village to see friends. I hope that it remains the same for all today's children to enjoy a similarly enjoyable background as mine as a basis for their adult life.
All my childhood and teenage years were spent in the village and I still have many memories, often of just odd things that struck me as different as a child. I went to school at Kensington High School and the canteens for lunchtime were at the site of the present Morrisons' supermarket. On the first day I missed my turn from Kensington and carried on walking roads that I knew until I got back to Middlehill. The Somerset and Wiltshire police were both out looking for me. I remember climbing the six-inch ledge on the outside of Middlehill Tunnel as a child. I remember being impressed that Mr Wilson at Spa House, Middlehill, used to be a big game hunter back in the late 1940s.
My memories of Sunnyside and Box have lived with me all my adult life as a wonderful area to be brought up as a child. I still take the parish magazine and frequently visit the village to see friends. I hope that it remains the same for all today's children to enjoy a similarly enjoyable background as mine as a basis for their adult life.