Beatrice was born in Nottingham, fostered in Chertsey during the Second World War and went to the Foundling Hospital at Berkhamsted. On leaving school she returned to her foster family and worked in a number of different jobs. She has three daughters and is now living in Australia with her husband.
As I was saying before, a lot of the children, when they went to school for the first time, it, it was so traumatic, because their mothers and fathers didn't tell them that they were going. They just were packed this little suitcase that we had to have and, off we went to school and we were just left in this big auditorium, which was really the theatre with the, the stage and everything there, but we didn't know. And of course it was enormous that school. And, we, we had to sit there until we were called, and, then this very severe lady came and told us her name was Nurse Stamford and to follow her and she called out our surnames - because once we were at school we only had a surname - and, we had to follow her. And out of the...theatre, along a great long corridor, which seemed to be for miles, and we had to be in twos and not talk and then we'd turned right, and then right again, and a really long corridor, until we came to this set of stairs, and we all had to stop. And Nurse Stamford was-- went halfway up the stairs and with her folded arms, she had a bun, very severe lady and she said that we-- 'You are mine, what I say goes, doesn't matter what your mother said, what I say goes and, so you will follow me to your dormitory.' And then when we got to the dormitory she told us which bed we had to go in, and it was according to our birth date. And, and that's how we all knew where-- who's was the next birthday because we always knew it was the one next to us. And we then had to be stripped off and go in a bathroom, which had the most enormous bath - three children in a bath, six baths in there - and we were scrubbed from head to toe. You can imagine.
