An Orphans Tale
Turning seventeen meant I must leave Hillington House Children’s Home that had been home since, well, forever. As soon as a place opened up in sheltered accommodation I would be moved on - on and up Matron said, it was her way of trying to make leaving Hillington feel less scary. But leaving Hillington was scary. What Matron called a home for young men was, in reality, a house of multiple occupation where majority of sharers were older men and/or those with dependancy or other issues. As if that was not sufficient upheaval I needed to find another job, it would be my seventh since leaving school a year earlier. I had done well at school for a Hillington boy, leaving with enough qualifications for the careers advisor to suggest a factory job, suggest I had the potential to make leading hand one day if I set my mind to it. I tried, I really did. Lucky for me jobs were easy to come by in 1970. Easy come, easy go I thought at the end of yet another unsuccessful trial week...