Hi,
I was sent to St. Philip's House in 1956 with my brother after the death of my father. My mother was, at the time going to visit relatives in Kenya and so she felt it necesarry to find temporary accommodation for us at the home and since she knew the Sister Superior from her school days, it was so arranged for us to go there on a short term basis.
My mother, however returned to England after a couple of months and Sister Joseph(Superior), who was also the headteacher of the Oratory School, offered my mother a teaching job there which she took readily because of her financial situation. This meant that we, my brother and I, had to stay on at the home for the next five and a half years.
My mother had to pay for us to stay at the home, and reading her diary's of the time, she would send money to the home monthly. Did we like it there? No, I hated being away from home, but at least after some months there, we were allowed to travel home to Sutton Coldfield on some weekends. Most of the boys came from distant places and didn't go home until holiday times.
Remembering some of the things we got up to, I believe the sisters must have had a difficult time keeping some of the boys under control. I found it a difficult time in my life and though there were some fun times, we were very regimented, having to walk to school in a line with a sister watching at the back of us younger ones. We weren't allowed to stay for school meals so had to walk back for lunch and being about a mile there and back we walked about four miles each day in all weathers.
The home was very large, you can see the size of it if you go onto Google Earth. We slept in dormitories of varying sizes from two beds to seven or eight beds. Our sheets were changed regularly and the place, with the boys help was kept very clean. We had meals in a very large dining room we called the 'ref'' and if the food was not to our liking we tried to off-load it to someone else on the same table or throw it out of the window when it was open in the summer otherwise you were expected to clean your plate by the end of the meal, like it or not. Most of my memories of the home are either bad ones or ones where we got into mischief.
If there are any questions you would like to ask, I will gladly answer them, though the times your father was at the home may have been a little different to the period I was there.
Best wishes
Humph