A Crisis At Cherrytree Orphanage

by Jack Handley

"Damn!" said the Matron in her most refined, yet emphatic manner, "What shall we do now?" Then, in a slightly less fiery vein, for matrons are not really supposed to use a big, big D---, she continued after a few moments reflection, "There really is nothing else for it. We shall have to manage till breakfast time, but then ---- Yes, then drastic action is definitely called for." 
 
And so it came about that early the next morning a long crocodile of the children formed up outside the kitchen door. Most of the children were girls, as by this time there were only a few boys living in the Orphanage and some of these were only about four or five years old. It was a beautiful summer morning. The sun was shining brightly, even though there was something of a haze over the fields. Everything looked idyllic. Each of the children was carrying a bucket and it just looked as if everything was set for a wonderful day's outing. 
 
Then the crocodile set off under the strict control of the senior girl up the yard and down the hill to the bottom of Mickley Lane. At the stream, known as the Totley Brook, just where it passes under the narrow bridge carrying Mickley Lane, the crocodile stopped. The crocodile broke up, and each of the children went to the stream and filled the bucket with stream water. But this was no picnic for the children. It was a routine that was to be repeated many times before the crisis would be over. Then the crocodile formed up once more and set off back up the steep hill of Mickley Lane, a distance of some 300 yards or so, to take the buckets full of water to the Orphanage. 
 
So what devastating event, or events, had brought about this crisis. The problem, as is so often the case, could be stated quite simply. The solution, as also is often the case, was clearly going to be much more intractable, short of a special manifestation of Divine Providence taking place. The problem, stated in its most basic form, was simply that the well on which the Orphanage relied completely for its normal water supply had dried up. And since there were nearly sixty people, children and staff, who relied on the water from this well, it clearly was a crisis of the highest order. And what was so particularly galling about it all was that the Orphanage had pinned such high hopes on this well for providing for their every need. 
 
When the children formed up in the crocodile each morning none of them could know that this was just a repeat performance of some previous occurrence. If any of them, a girl of course, stayed for the maximum length of time in the Orphanage then she would be there for eleven years, i.e. from age five to sixteen. Boys left at fifteen years, at the latest so none of the children would know, still less remember, that thirteen or fourteen years previously the children had been obliged to do exactly the same thing in fetching water for each day's supply. The circumstances were quite different, but the effect on the children was precisely the same. And it was in response to this earlier crisis that the well, on which such high hopes was pinned, was sunk at considerable expense. After due consideration, it was clear that the only solution which had any hope of providing adequate security of the water supply to the Orphanage lay in the provision at a connection to the to the Water Company's mains. 
 
The village of Dore had been connected to the Water Company's mains a year or two earlier. But Dore Village was about two miles away. And even if the new development near Dore & Totley Station was connected to those mains, that was about a mile and a half away. What was worse was that the Water Company regarded Totley as beyond the pale; they had told the Rural Sanitary Authority that there was no prospect of Totley being connected to their mains, as the financial return would nowhere near justify this. And, depending on the route of any connecting main, the Orphanage might even be yet further beyond the pale. 
 
The crisis was indeed extremely acute. Connection to the Water Company's mains was the only really satisfactory long term solution. A special fund was set up. And by the great efforts of Mr. Roberts and Ebenezer Hall, ably assisted by the Hon. Secretary of the Orphanage, the connecting main was constructed. Nine months later, at the Annual Meeting of the Orphanage, the management could report that the crisis had been dealt with.

September 1995