Nina was born with what we'd nowadays call Downs Syndrome. She was kept by her parents which was against the norm of the time, when she was 6 her Father David William Roberts died and her Mother Harriet Angela Roberts was left with 6 children and no means of financial support. The doctor at the time said she had to go out to work to support her children and put Nina in a home. There was no NHS or support then and she had to reluctantly give her up. The home wasn't even close at over 30 miles from Harriet's home. The home also said not to visit when she went in as Nina would find it distressing.
Harriet's Father-in-law offered to take her two oldest Children, David & Anne to "help her out" but Harriet refused. I think because she had lost her husband and was losing one of her children she didn't want to lose anymore of her family. My Grandmother was so family orientated.
When Nina died in 1965 my Grandmother couldn't afford to bring her body back to be buried in the family grave as she didn't have the money to transport Nina over county lines. My Mum and my Aunt have told me they remember seeing her after she died and she had beautiful jet black hair. Nina was buried in Brockhall Hospital Cemetery. No markers remain, there were only tiny slabs with numbers on my Aunt said originally. But she is on this memorial, I've seen stories saying how sad this graveyard was, the lost and not wanted, families leaving the bodies unclaimed. Not in my Aunt's case, all my Mums family went to her funeral and she was loved and has never been forgotten.
Bio : (Nephew) Paul Doodson (#48461077)
Nina was born with what we'd nowadays call Downs Syndrome. She was kept by her parents which was against the norm of the time, when she was 6 her Father David William Roberts died and her Mother Harriet Angela Roberts was left with 6 children and no means of financial support. The doctor at the time said she had to go out to work to support her children and put Nina in a home. There was no NHS or support then and she had to reluctantly give her up. The home wasn't even close at over 30 miles from Harriet's home. The home also said not to visit when she went in as Nina would find it distressing.
Harriet's Father-in-law offered to take her two oldest Children, David & Anne to "help her out" but Harriet refused. I think because she had lost her husband and was losing one of her children she didn't want to lose anymore of her family. My Grandmother was so family orientated.
When Nina died in 1965 my Grandmother couldn't afford to bring her body back to be buried in the family grave as she didn't have the money to transport Nina over county lines. My Mum and my Aunt have told me they remember seeing her after she died and she had beautiful jet black hair. Nina was buried in Brockhall Hospital Cemetery. No markers remain, there were only tiny slabs with numbers on my Aunt said originally. But she is on this memorial, I've seen stories saying how sad this graveyard was, the lost and not wanted, families leaving the bodies unclaimed. Not in my Aunt's case, all my Mums family went to her funeral and she was loved and has never been forgotten.
Bio : (Nephew) Paul Doodson (#48461077)
Inscription
This is the top of the memorial in the graveyard of Brockhall it's next to the actual church graveyard
In an isolated institution located to the north east of this stone there lived from 1904 to 1992 a large number of people thought to be too strange, too difficult or too challenging to be cared for in their own communities. The institution in turn was called Lancashire Inebriates Reformatory (1904) Brockhall Hospital for Mental Defectives (1915) Brockhall Hospital for the Mentally Subnormal (1959) Brockhall Hospital for Mentally Handicapped People (1974) and Brockhall Hospital for People with Learning Disabilities (1991). Although those who lived there carried heavier burdens than most they were part of our common family.
Brockhall Hospital closed its doors in 1992 and the land on which it stood was acquired by Gerald Shimon Hitman of Newcastle Upon Tyne who raised this stone as a memorial to those who ended their days in the hospital and are buried here. God full of compassion grant perfect rest beneath the shelter of your presence to these your children who have gone to their eternal home. Master of mercy, cover them in the shelter of your wings forever and bind their souls into the gathering of life. It is the Lord who is their heritage. May they be at peace in their place of rest.
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