The Scattered Homes children

Freda Millett with her latest and final book about Oldham’s history

Freda’s moving story of hardship

A poignant tale of orphaned and unwanted children sent to Oldham’s Scattered Homes is local historian Freda Millett’s 12th and final book before she puts down her pen.

Freda, who was Oldham’s assistant curator and keeper of local history until she retired in 1994, has just published the book which was launched at Oldham Local Studies Library.

She tells of the homes created all over Oldham to save children from the workhouse, around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. They were in Haworth Street, Coldhurst; Castleshaw; Hollins; Firbank Road and Albert Street, Royton; Belgrave Road, Oldham; Suffolk Street, Werneth; and more around the town.

Some of the matrons loved their charges, but more were harsh and cruel.

Children sometimes never saw their parents again, some were sent abroad to learn a trade, brothers and sisters were separated, and daily chores were gruelling.

Some matrons were kind, like Mother Heywood at Coldhurst No 2 Home, who held Christmas parties and made mince pies, jam tarts, and puddings.

But next-door, Mother Hilton used the cane and children dreaded chores such as shovelling coal into the cellar, cleaning the outside steps and five toilets, or black-leading the grate.

Freda said that as a girl she was threatened by her grandmother with ‘”You’ll go to the Scattered Homes!” when she quarrelled with her sister.

She added: “This resulted in us running past the Scattered Homes in Coldhurst before the door opened and someone could capture us on our way to play out on Oldham Edge.”

And she added: “The memories of the people I interviewed will always remain with me.

“Would these children, if they had a choice, have preferred to live in squalor rather than feel rejection?

“Would hunger be forgotten, would it be erased quicker than the scars left behind?

“Many of the people I spoke to are gone now. One person said ‘Nobody knew you and you felt nobody cared’.

“Sadly, this person is no longer with us but I promised I would tell the story sometime of the Scattered Homes children.”

Among Freda’s other works there are best sellers on the Guernsey Boys who were evacuated to Oldham in the Second World War; a major exhibition on Oldham’s International Brigade volunteers in the Spanish Civil War; and a book on Going Up Town, which was also accompanied by a magnificent display of a shopping street in Victorian Oldham at the former museum in Greaves Street.

The book is available from the Chronicle offices priced £6.99.