Angels who took loyalty and lost.. and built a family | books | entertainment

Now in her mid-90s, Queenie Clapton walks with a bow and an uncertain stride. Although her eyesight was cloudy at times, her eyes still shone. However, her memories of growing up in a children’s home in the Berkshire countryside during World War II are still very sharp.

“I was so happy there,” she sighs. “We were loved and nurtured, and after that, I felt like I would eventually make something of myself.”

For some young people, a children’s home in the 1930s meant misery and slavery. But Englemere Wood, a rambling Victorian building with tall chimneys and graceful turrets, was a happy place that opened its doors throughout the fighting to help give girls like Queenie a “wonderful life.”

She spent the first seven years of Queenie’s life with her parents, brother and sister in an apartment block in Wandsworth, south London. A dust factor by day, her father, Hector Clapton, worked overtime underground, digging an extension of the Northern Line.

“It was very thirsty work,” Queenie recalls. “He and his colleagues used to go to the pub for a drink. But the more money he earned, the more money he had to spend. He used to get drunk.”

Hector came home the whole time, snoring and yelling. One day Queenie and her sister visited a well-dressed woman and asked a difficult question: “Who do you love more, your mother or your father?”

Nearly nine decades later, Queenie’s voice exploded with emotion as she recalled the incident: “I didn’t understand the question because I loved them both. The day we left, my mom put on the best clothes we owned and told us we were going on vacation.”

In fact, the girls were about to move into the first house of a succession of children’s roles. Later that day, Queenie was escorted into a home car in Chem, Surrey, clutching tightly to Gladys’ sister’s pouch.

Upon arriving at St Mary’s, home of the Waifs and Strays Society, she was given a number to replace her name, a set of used clothes and a set of household chores to be completed in silence each day. “I wouldn’t say I was unhappy there, but it was all a bit impersonal,” Queenie stoically recalls.

“I missed my mum for a while, though she didn’t write. My dad tried to visit several times but he was always fired because he was drunk.”

On November 30, 1936, the flames destroying the Crystal Palace Exhibition Center in south London were visible from the Bay of the Sick in St Mary’s. In one family, Queenie was also on fire, with an unknown illness that nearly took her life.

At her side was Doris Bailey, a nurse by name albeit not medically qualified. Nurse Bailey was a middle-class woman who gave up a well-paid job in the city to help poor children she saw stalking the streets of London.

The bond she had with Queenie that night was to last a lifetime – although they would soon break up. Queenie eventually recovered and went on to a string of other child roles.

Meanwhile, Nurse Bailey was promoted to Matron and took charge of the Waifs and Strays’ Maurice House in Ealing, west London. And when war broke out, she transferred her charges to Engelmere Wood, set in the Royal Forest of Windsor.

The owner of the house, Dorothy Peyton, was a wealthy entertainer, accustomed to tea parties and servants. “She was a lady of high society and had a lot of influential friends,” Queenie recalls.

But Mrs. Peyton was alone in her spacious Victorian house. Her youngest son died in infancy and she recently lost her husband, Ivor. Two of the eldest sons were already in uniform and preparing to serve their homeland.

So, when war seemed inevitable, she offered her home to the Waifs and Strays Society, as a lightning bolt for children at risk from Luftwaffe bombs. A coach took the girls of Morris Home to drive two days before the outbreak of war in 1939.

At first Mrs Beeton was wary of the newcomers, but the fears that they might infested with lice or be noisy were quickly quelled, as she watched them from the windows of her house; Singing, jumping and having fun in its spacious gardens.

She became close with Matron Bailey and 25 girls. Even after her eldest son John was captured and imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp, Mrs. Peyton took the girls on trips in her chauffeured car to see friends on the vast estates with farm animals and fancy foods.

The girls even met King George VI’s wife Queen Elizabeth, her daughters Princess Elizabeth – our current Queen – and Princess Margaret, when they called at Englemere Wood.

At the time, Queenie was struggling under the harsh regime of a monastery in Lymington Spa, Warwickshire, after she was branded “troublemakers”. When she threatened to drown herself in Abbey Lake, she was taken to Englemere Wood as a last resort for dice.

Arriving there in April 1941, she was stunned to meet her old friend Matron Bailey, who warned her vehemently: “Queenie Clapton. I wish you would behave with me. For if not, your next place would be unfamiliar.”

In response, a smile spread across 14-year-old Queenie’s face at the sight of the woman who had taken care of her five years earlier. Here was someone you loved and trusted.

“I recognized her right away and knew that everything would be fine because she was there. That was the beginning of what I call a life for me, where I could actually belong somewhere.” The adventures the girls enjoyed at Englemere Wood still made Queenie smile to this day. “Down the road was a place we used to call the White House, even bigger than our home,” she recalls.

‘She was the property of Lords and Mrs. Wiggall and they also received the evacuees, but these were the evacuees of the royal family; Princess Mary Louise and Princess Helena Victoria. Mrs Peyton was a lady-waiting for the princesses and organized a knitting circle for everyone.’

“Every Friday night we would put on our best dresses and go to the White House with knitting sacks. We were all provided with knitting needles and khaki wool for socks, scarves, and masks for the men fighting in the war.

Princesses used to join us, telling such wonderful stories of their childhood, when their grandmother, Queen Victoria, was on the throne. They were very interested in us, our hopes and our dreams.”

During the week, the youngest Morris Home Girls packed the small village school with other evacuees and local children. The older girls stayed at Englemere Wood to be educated as laundry, laundromat or parlor maids.

On Saturdays, the girls collected twigs from the grounds of the house to refuel the old hot-water boiler for bathing twice a week. They also played with Mrs. Peyton’s donkeys – Jackie and Jenny – and the domestic dogs.

Sometimes they went for walks in Windsor Great Park, led by Matron Bailey and her staff, perched in chipped Macintosh boxes before enjoying a picnic made up of meager rations. They weren’t always “little angels”.

Starving in the face of shortages, some succumbed to the temptation to steal food. When this happened, the girls were forced to sit with Matron until the offender possessed.

There were three trips to church on Sundays, followed by tea with Mrs. Peyton, who soon formed a committee among her neighbors to help the girls, and to give gifts at Christmas and Christmas. It also pushed the bright girls into more education.

Matron wanted to have a family, not an institution. Together, she and Mrs Peyton have made life so much better for girls.”

The war seemed distant until March 29, 1942, when they awoke to the news that Tommy Grenfell Peyton, second lieutenant in the newly formed commando, was involved in the bombing raid on Saint-Nazaire in German-occupied France. The goal was to keep Hitler’s prestigious warship Tirpitz away from the Atlantic Ocean by destroying the docks.

At first, the girls were told that the handsome Tommy had survived the raid, and they celebrated happily with a party in one of Mrs Peyton’s rooms, dancing on gramophone drums. Later it was confirmed that he was one of the 169 men killed in the operation, and at the age of 20, the youngest officer to die.

“It was horrific news for Mrs. Peyton,” Queenie recalls. We haven’t seen her in weeks because she stayed behind closed doors. We would sneak through her residence so as not to disturb her.”

In the wave of grief that surrounded them, Matron and the girls vowed together that they would always live a decent life, in order to honor their dead hero. Eventually, life at Englemere Wood returned to normal, although Queenie left later that year to meet her mother and work at a nursery in Balham, south London.

She spent nights in underground shelters during the raid, sadly dreaming of the family she left behind in the quiet Englemere Wood. But Matron Bailey kept in touch and helped her find a job as a nanny after the war ended.

By this time, the children’s home had moved to a new building across the road, called Grenville House in honor of Tommy Peyton. The Waifs and Strays Association also had a new name, the Church of England Children’s Association.

Matron has kept in touch with all of her girls, often reminding them of the promises they made after Tommy’s death. Mrs. Peyton also continued to write to her former residents. When she became a mother of four, Queenie finally realized that the unconditional love shown by both women was a gift she, in turn, could hand over to her children.

“Over the [Matron’s] She never gave up on her life pursuit, and to help all children wherever they come, so that they could live a better life,” adds Queenie.

She would say, “These are my girls.” She was a spinster who became a mother to many, and a grandmother to their children. We have been very fortunate to have her in our lives.”