Last week I recived an e-mail from an international publisher who wanted to use one of the photographs in the article for a book that it due to be published next year.The photograph in question was of 15 Ranmoor Park Road, Sheffield. It is the location of the events that led to the social disgrace and disinheritance of the Mr and Mrs Pochin.
I revisited the article and decided to find out if anymore information had come to light in the interim about the victim of their cruel and vicious assaults - "the lad Wilkinson" as he was refered to by the court. He was in fact William Clarke Wilkinson who was only a 12 years old at the time of the beatings. He had been orphaned the previos year.
A combination of newspaper reports, census and BMD data enabled me to piece his life together after the assaults. It was a fascinating and at times sad journey
If this is the former nurses' home of my youth I spent a very unhappy three months here in 1971 and I always thought it was haunted! Miserable and creepy, young nurses were always sick or leaving because it was so depressing.
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