A FORMER Barnardo’s child and resident of a ‘home for girls’ in Malvern in the 1950s is appealling to local people for information about the home and about the order of nuns that were in charge.

Phyllis Bridges, who is now 74, was placed in the care of Barnardo’s when she was just four-years-old and as a 17-year-old was sent to the Home of the Good Shepherd in Ranelagh Road, Malvern, a home for teenage girls, where she was put to work in the laundry.

The home was run by nuns, who lived in a convent next door, the Convent of the Holy Name, and Phyllis remembers them as very strict and life in the convent laundry washing nuns habits and starching wimples as very hard. She and the other teenage girls were only allowed out on Sundays and then only when accompanied by the nuns.

Phyllis is writing her life story, which is entitled Tears of a Guardian Angel, and she is looking for information about the convent.

“My life story is quite traumatic in parts and I still feel a tremendous sense of injustice about what happened to me. I am writing my story to find closure,” she said.

Phyllis was marked by Barnardo’s as being in need of “spiritual and moral guidance” and in 1952 was sent to the nuns in Malvern and put to work.

“I felt like I was being punished,” she added.

To continue her research Phyllis would be interested in any information or records about the home or the convent or to hear from anyone else who lived at the home or worked in the laundry.

The Convent of the Holy Name closed in 1990 and the Anglican order moved to Derby. The building is now used as a Christian conference centre and the grounds and laundry are now the site of Focus DIY, a hostel and flats. The nuns’ cemetery is next to the Focus carpark.

Phyllis can be contacted at Honeypot Cottage, Wigton, Cumbria, CA7 0EP, or emailed at glengary@blueyonder.co.uk.