The first episode that I remember about my earliest years of my life occurred in Saint Joseph‘s orphanage located on Magdala Road (now Magdala Place), Middleton, Christchurch. It was a two-storied wooden building built in 1921, by the Sisters of Nazareth and accommodated about 100 children, initially boys and girls then later boys only. I can vaguely recall the nursery and moderate sized room with eight to ten cots.

We loved looking at the babies through the window in the toddler’s room which was an offshoot to a much bigger room. It contained small beds in rows buttressed together, maybe four to five rows with two feet of space in between each row. In the middle of the room was an adult bed for a woman who was in charge of us at night. I have no real memory of her.

The only memory I do clearly recall is one night she woke me up in the middle of the night and took me into her bed. There is every possibility that I would have forgotten this but one of the nuns found us in bed together next morning, and she quickly dragged me out of the bed. I was so young, just four or five years old. There was no major blow up that I recall but although I did not understand why, I knew that I was in big trouble. I assume that the woman, whoever she was, was probably dismissed, vanished, but then so was I. I was vanished to Nazareth House.

Over the years of my life this occurrence popped up in my mind whenever I heard of young people being mistreated. So, it has lingered despite my pushing it to the back of my mind. No one spoke to me about it and I spoke to no one - was something to be ashamed of and although obviously not my blame this episode had an impact on my life. I hated hugging women, even my own daughters when they develop breasts and I always kept a gap between us. No tight cuddles, very unloving. Sorry girls.

I was so young that possibly I would not even recall this incident at all but for what followed, the fear of being in trouble and the transfer to Nazareth House which I spent crying, crying endlessly, pathetically.