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My grandmother was returning from shopping one day in 1933 when she passed a group inmates from the Devizes Workhouse out on their exercise walk, recalls Elsie Watts. They were brought out at a set time everyday and they walked in crocodiles, one of the boys and men and one of girls and women.
When she got home she told us that she was sure she had recognised one of her grandsons with them! We decided to wait until my father came home from work and to decide then what to do. When he came home he said that if she was sure that it was him then we should go down there straight away and get him out.
We went to the workhouse and picked him out and after arrangements had been made he came home to live with us. He was about fifteen, but as he didn't have a birth certificate and didn't know how old he was, we had to choose a birthday for him. My grandmother said that we should pick 11 November 1918 as that was a day to celebrate, it being the day the war finished, so that became his birthday.
I can't remember how long he had been living in workhouses, but we found out how he had come to be there. He had been brought up in South Wales and my family had not seen him for a long time. When his mother died his father had chosen to keep his sister with him but to admit Gary to the local workhouse.
The workhouse only gave support to people who were born in the parish, so eventually he was sent to Devizes because he was born in Chirton. He had arrived in a hopeless state and didn't know us. He was not used to people being nice to him and it was a long time before he settled down.
He was confused and cried a lot at first, and took a long time to get used to being offered food or drink when it wasn't a meal time. He joined the army when he was eighteen, but stayed with us until he got married. We became his family.
 | From:
Devizes Voices compiled by David Buxton
Tempus Publishing
ISBN 0 7524 0661 2
£9.99
For a complete list of local history books published by Tempus Publishing visit: www.tempus-publishing.com |
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