I jointly dedicate my song today to my Facebook friends, Jackie Peggy Hartley and Joan McDonald, both of whom celebrate their birthdays today.
Today’s song is ‘Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)’. This song was by Edison Lighthouse and was originally recorded by Jefferson. The single reached the Number-1 spot on the ‘UK Singles Chart’ in January 1970, where it remained for a total of five weeks.
‘Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)’ was written by Tony Macaulay and Barry Mason. Essentially, they were a studio group with prolific session singer Tony Burrows providing the vocals. When the song became a hit, a group needed to be assembled rapidly to feature the song on ‘Top of The Pops’, a popular TV show. Mason and Macaulay found a group called ‘Greenfield Hammer’ and brought them to Tony's auditions a week before their appearance on ‘Top of The Pops’. Once chosen and rehearsed, they appeared on the show as 'Edison Lighthouse' to mime to the fastest climbing Number 1 hit record in history. Burrows sang the song on the programme during his third appearance on the same show with three different groups.
‘Love Grows’ reached Number 5 on ‘US Pop Chart’, Number 3 in Canada, and Number 1 on the ‘UK Singles Chart’ for five weeks in January and February 1970. It reached Number 3 in South Africa in February 1970. Edison Lighthouse entered the US Billboard Hot 100' top 40 charts at Number 28 on 28 February 1970.
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This song used to be a favourite song of a young woman who was a client of mine in the mid-70s when I was a Probation Officer in Huddersfield. She was in her early 20s, married with a child but very unhappy with her life. Rosemary had been brought up in Care ever since her mother abandoned her in childhood. She had gone through numerous foster home placements and had been a resident of at least one dozen Children’s Homes; most of which she had run away from at least once and the majority in which she claimed that she had been sexually abused by workers.
Rosemary could never initiate contact with either her mother or father as nobody knew who or where either of her parents were. I will always recall her crying in my office once as she tried to describe what it felt like to be of orphan status. She said, “It’s like having no country; no place to belong!”
As many children raised in Care during the 1950s and 60s, the degree of sexual abuse that took place between the Care Workers and their child charges is simply unbelievable. She told me that she was first abused in Foster Care and was then systematically sexually abused by a Worker or a resident in every Children’s Home she had resided in between the ages of 11 and 16 years when she finally ran away and finished up in Scotland making beds in an hotel.
Rosemary eventually came to equate sex as being no more or less than a human commodity that was given, exchanged or sold in either the flesh markets of the community or within the bond of marriage. She said that her husband had also been brought in in Care of the Social Services and had been a resident of Barnardo Homes. Rosemary was exceptionally good looking in every shape and form; something that proved more of a curse to her in Care more than a blessing it would appear. She had an uncanny likeness to that of the film star, Marylin Monroe, but I could always see a cold loneliness in her eyes that seemed to beg attention from whomever she was looking at. She said she liked her husband and said he was a good man and father to their young child but added that she could never love him. Her most haunting of revelations to me wasn’t the long string of periodical sexual abuse she had endured at the hands of men who were paid by the state to look out for her, help her and protect her from all harm, but how such experiences had affected her. On one occasion, she told me, “I can’t love anyone, Mr Forde. I never could. I have no love in me!”
I’d like to say that I was able to significantly help Rosemary, but I wasn’t. I knew her for about nine months before she suddenly left her husband and child and ran off to another part of the country half-way through her period of Probation Order Supervision. I don’t know if another man was involved but her husband always suspected so. I never heard of her again. I had been able to give her a present though, about three months after I had started supervising her. It was a cassette of the song ‘Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes).
I jointly dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Jackie Peggy Hartley who lives in Dewsbury in West Yorkshire. Jackie celebrates her birthday today. I also dedicate my song to Joan McDonald who hails from Halifax in West Yorkshire but who now lives in Sidney in Australia. Joan is also celebrating her birthday today. May you both have a super birthday that is filled with love, happiness…and…lots of cake and suitable refreshments. Thank you, Peggy and Joan, for being my Facebook friends. Bill x
Love and peace Bill xxx
Today’s song is ‘Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)’. This song was by Edison Lighthouse and was originally recorded by Jefferson. The single reached the Number-1 spot on the ‘UK Singles Chart’ in January 1970, where it remained for a total of five weeks.
‘Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)’ was written by Tony Macaulay and Barry Mason. Essentially, they were a studio group with prolific session singer Tony Burrows providing the vocals. When the song became a hit, a group needed to be assembled rapidly to feature the song on ‘Top of The Pops’, a popular TV show. Mason and Macaulay found a group called ‘Greenfield Hammer’ and brought them to Tony's auditions a week before their appearance on ‘Top of The Pops’. Once chosen and rehearsed, they appeared on the show as 'Edison Lighthouse' to mime to the fastest climbing Number 1 hit record in history. Burrows sang the song on the programme during his third appearance on the same show with three different groups.
‘Love Grows’ reached Number 5 on ‘US Pop Chart’, Number 3 in Canada, and Number 1 on the ‘UK Singles Chart’ for five weeks in January and February 1970. It reached Number 3 in South Africa in February 1970. Edison Lighthouse entered the US Billboard Hot 100' top 40 charts at Number 28 on 28 February 1970.
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This song used to be a favourite song of a young woman who was a client of mine in the mid-70s when I was a Probation Officer in Huddersfield. She was in her early 20s, married with a child but very unhappy with her life. Rosemary had been brought up in Care ever since her mother abandoned her in childhood. She had gone through numerous foster home placements and had been a resident of at least one dozen Children’s Homes; most of which she had run away from at least once and the majority in which she claimed that she had been sexually abused by workers.
Rosemary could never initiate contact with either her mother or father as nobody knew who or where either of her parents were. I will always recall her crying in my office once as she tried to describe what it felt like to be of orphan status. She said, “It’s like having no country; no place to belong!”
As many children raised in Care during the 1950s and 60s, the degree of sexual abuse that took place between the Care Workers and their child charges is simply unbelievable. She told me that she was first abused in Foster Care and was then systematically sexually abused by a Worker or a resident in every Children’s Home she had resided in between the ages of 11 and 16 years when she finally ran away and finished up in Scotland making beds in an hotel.
Rosemary eventually came to equate sex as being no more or less than a human commodity that was given, exchanged or sold in either the flesh markets of the community or within the bond of marriage. She said that her husband had also been brought in in Care of the Social Services and had been a resident of Barnardo Homes. Rosemary was exceptionally good looking in every shape and form; something that proved more of a curse to her in Care more than a blessing it would appear. She had an uncanny likeness to that of the film star, Marylin Monroe, but I could always see a cold loneliness in her eyes that seemed to beg attention from whomever she was looking at. She said she liked her husband and said he was a good man and father to their young child but added that she could never love him. Her most haunting of revelations to me wasn’t the long string of periodical sexual abuse she had endured at the hands of men who were paid by the state to look out for her, help her and protect her from all harm, but how such experiences had affected her. On one occasion, she told me, “I can’t love anyone, Mr Forde. I never could. I have no love in me!”
I’d like to say that I was able to significantly help Rosemary, but I wasn’t. I knew her for about nine months before she suddenly left her husband and child and ran off to another part of the country half-way through her period of Probation Order Supervision. I don’t know if another man was involved but her husband always suspected so. I never heard of her again. I had been able to give her a present though, about three months after I had started supervising her. It was a cassette of the song ‘Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes).
I jointly dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Jackie Peggy Hartley who lives in Dewsbury in West Yorkshire. Jackie celebrates her birthday today. I also dedicate my song to Joan McDonald who hails from Halifax in West Yorkshire but who now lives in Sidney in Australia. Joan is also celebrating her birthday today. May you both have a super birthday that is filled with love, happiness…and…lots of cake and suitable refreshments. Thank you, Peggy and Joan, for being my Facebook friends. Bill x
Love and peace Bill xxx
