I had my baby in 1980, who was put into foster care because my parents wanted me to adopt my daughter. They would not allow me to return home with my child.
I had nowhere to live so social services put me into The Grange, I presumed until I found somewhere to live.
Neither the authorities or my parents could adopt my baby because I was 18, when I gave birth.
The Grange was run by nuns. The woman in charge was Ms Green. They made us attend church on Sundays, and I couldn’t understand how such religious woman could be so unkind.
They did make us do chores every day, but I was OK with that, it was just housekeeping.
After breakfast they made us put the babies in their prams and put them in the garden and we had to leave them there until WW completed our chores.
The night staff were not nuns, they were care workers and were friendly.
It was an unpleasant place to be in. Girls were visited by social workers. Private adoptions took place. Girls had babies one day and were then taken home by parents. Parents who didn’t want neighbours to see their pregnant daughter.
I was lucky, I was 18. I had the law on my side. And I gained mental strength and someone’s else’s social worker who helped me leave.
No mother was in The Grange by choice, from my experience young girls were traumatised. Social workers took the babies away, and the left.
Me and my daughter, who is now 45 and a solicitor, made it. I got back with her father when she was one year old. I have a happy ending because of my age at the time I gave birth, they could not force an adoption, they did try but somehow I was able to stop it.
I visited the house, years later but it had been turned into flats.
Because of what I went through and my lack of knowledge of my rights at the time, I trained as a solicitor and never wanted to be in position when I had to rely on someone else to tell me what my rights were.
The Grange had one purpose, to take babies, give them to social services for adoption.