BRIAN PERRIER

Brian Perrier arrived at Goldings in Winter 1962, from Kingston Barnardo Home, and
was placed in MacAndrew House at Goldings, and in late 1964 when MacAndrew House
was closed was moved to Somerset House, Brian enjoyed working in the kitchens with
Jack Cooper and so asked to be placed there, therefore did not take up a recognised school
trade.
He was a strong swimmer and achieved with 2 others the notable achievement of
swimming the mile in our outdoor swimming pool, also made his
house football team, also a Army Cadet and not forgetting he was also a Wimbledon Ball
boy.
He left Goldings in February 1965 to take a job as shop assistant.
Later to work with young people for Social Services a job I know he loved, until ill
health intervened which he had to give up.
Brian now lives in Stevenage and is an invaluable member of the Reunion team,
representing Goldings boys on all occasions, and fully supportive to the Reunion with
his wife Ellen, and family all working hard helping on the day.

This next quote I wasn’t given permission to put on the profile it’s from John, Brian’s manager at Welling Social Services,
I’m sure Brian or John won’t mind.
I asked John how did you meet Brian and he replied I was his manager at Welling, my reply was how on earth did you manage
that with Brian?
his reply is below

[ “Oh he was incredible, I met Brian when he was transferred by Social Services to Welling, we worked with children who had
problems, and we had, had no success getting any response from these kids, we had so called expert! and got nowhere with
them trying to teach them maths in order to get a relationship and trust with these kids.
Brian arrived and within 2-3 days he had them working out betting odds and all sorts, so without realising these kids were
learning Maths. He had such a way with them it was amazing to see, I hadn’t seen anyone get that response from them.
He just seemed to know how to handle them and they just responded to him” ]

An insight of Brian he doesn’t always let us see.