I helped bury 40 kids at Warwickshire orphanage

May 23 2010 by Adam Aspinall, Sunday Mercury

A PENSIONER has told police how he helped bury the bodies of 40 children in an unmarked grave at a Midland orphanage.

Frank Hadley says the remains were laid beneath an apple orchard at Haseley Hall, Warwickshire in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The former orphanage for sick children closed in the 1970s. It underwent a multi-million pound renovation in 1997 to create luxury flats and hotel accommodation.

But Warwickshire Police are now investigating claims that dozens of bodies were buried in the middle of the complex, after being contacted by former resident Frank.

He was sent to the Birmingham City Council-run home at the age of just two – and says he was helping bury the tragic children in the unconsecrated ground just six years later.

Frank, now 73, said: “A lot of the kids died from pneumonia, tuberculosis and bronchitis. There was very little staff could do for them.

“It was what happened afterwards that has always haunted me.

“When the children died they were buried in an apple orchard in the grounds – not proper marked graves, just a hole in the ground.

“When I got to a certain age it was my job to help the older boys bury the dead. I would wash the bodies and then dry them, then cover them in a powder called DDT, which was a powerful pesticide.

“I would wrap them in white sheets, or sometimes in hessian sacks, and then they would be buried. They were not buried very deep and I must have been involved in at least 40 burials during my time there.

“There were no prayers, no rituals, nothing like that. They were just dumped in the ground, bless them.’’

The retired steeplejack, originally from Birmingham, added: “The children were simply the victims of the time.

‘‘Haseley Hall was a tough place but nothing sinister had happened to the dead kids. They all died of natural causes.

“I just want to die knowing that they had a proper burial.

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