A second video follows below this description.
Fornessey House was left to the children of Glasgow by the Court family. From 1961 to 1991 the building was used as a convalescent children's home, providing disadvantaged primary school girls with short breaks and holidays in the beautiful Angus Glens.
Far from being a place of fun, beauty and innocent enjoyment, Fornesy was run in the cruellest way imaginable. Far from being an uplifting place to escape the smoke and grime of Glasgow's industry, Fornesy was a place of nightmare, abuse and sadistic mistreatment..
Within weeks, or even days, the girls' lives were changed and they suffered lifelong trauma.
Ignored and shunned by those in power, the people whose duty it is to deal with what happened. Fornesy Ladies They came together in meetings to share and discuss what they had experienced, who was to blame, and what needed to be done to address the harm inflicted on them in their innocent youth.
The two videos from the conference presented here provide a moving and often horrifying account of what the girls had to endure – but their stories, their courage and their love for one another shine through.
Fornessey House is one of the UK's biggest scandals because it was an abusive institution that existed from the start and continued for 30 years. Thousands of girls attended every year, but an unknown number were traumatised by their experiences. The victims of the Glasgow girls may number in the tens of thousands. Their story deserves to be heard. The crimes committed against them must be recognised. We cannot remain silent any longer.
The conference was organised by the Fresh Start Foundation and funded by UK Corum News and is a milestone in the journey towards recognition of Fornessy survivors.
The speech David Scott refers to in these recordings is the one given to the Scottish Parliament in 2019 which saw him dismissed as a trustee of Wellbeing Scotland for telling untested truths about obstruction in the civil service. This timestamp.
