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Janet in the Foundling Hospital at age five |
Inquest into the death of foundling ‘Noni’
A GREAT-grandmother suffered severe burns after collapsing while running a bath in her West Hampstead home, an inquest heard.
Janet Bushell, who lived in Gondar Gardens with her retired electrician husband for more than 50 years, died in July aged 92.
Her husband Lionel died in 1979.
At her inquest at St Pancras Coroner’s Court last week, the coroner ruled she died of natural causes after suffering abnormal heart rhythms while bathing.
Mrs Bushell’s nurse, Ada Abundo, told the court how she let herself into the flat to find the television on and steam pouring from under the bathroom door.
She said: “I opened the door and picked up the paper.
“Everything in the house was open. The TV was on, the bed was made and unslept in.
“I noticed the water coming from the bathroom, I paced up and down saying ‘no, not me’ but in the end I had to look in the bathroom. It was very hot.”
Alfred Bird, Mrs Bushell’s son-in-law, told the New Journal how she had been brought up in the Foundling Hospital, a much-celebrated home for abandoned children, after her unmarried mother gave her up.
Born in 1914, she later went into domestic service in Middlesex before becoming a housewife and mother-of-four.
When Mrs Bushell first arrived at the King’s Cross hospital she was just eight weeks old and dressed in a “beautiful” velvet cloak.
According to anecdotes from staff there, she was called Noni.
Her mysterious background sparked the curiosity of friends and they uncovered the roots of her exotic name.
It transpired that Mrs Bushell’s father was an Indian medical student at Edinburgh University who had a relationship with her 18-year-old mother, Violet.
They planned to marry – and Violet fell pregnant – but before they could walk down the aisle Mrs Bushell’s father went back to India, allegedly when his father died, and never returned.
Little Noni was renamed Janet Appleby at the hospital.
Speaking outside court, Mr Bird said: “She had a very wry sense of humour.
“You thought she was a very quiet, demure woman, but if someone made a comment she’d give a little grin as if to say ‘I understand that’.”
Mr Bird, a retired telephone engineer who worked in West Hampstead, recalled how she always had a paper in her hand – the Daily Mail – but speculated on how often she read it.
He said she “never seemed that bothered” about whether her mother got married or had children after her, possibly because she was so well looked after at the hospital.
“She always said the school was good,” he said. “It is very good what they did for her.”
The Foundling Hospital, which overlooked Coram’s Fields, was demolished in 1926 and a museum sits next to its former site today.
Mrs Bushell’s photograph adorns the cover of its historical pamphlet.
Coroner Dr Andrew Reid said: “She was in the process of running a bath when she collapsed so couldn’t gain control of the water which continued to burn her after she died.”
She leaves four daughters, 12 grand-children and four great-grandchildren. |
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