First blog post

 

• I want to tell the story of my life, the circumstances of my beginnings and events that led to my somewhat unorthodox, private adoption and the untruths tangled within it. It was the start of a complicated and chaotic life in a large mixed up family. There was hard work, tears, abuse and oppression, but also love, immense laughter, enduring relationships and a rich tapestry of memories.

The eventual search for my natural family has resulted in a combination of heartache and happiness. It has answered some questions and raised others. Ultimately it has provided me with a history, unbreakable blood ties and a sense that, at last, I am not purely defined defined by my status of ‘the adopted one’.

After my time in the Care Home.

I started a new school, as prior to my time in the care home, I had a short spell at a private school. Despite the financial difficulties, Sylvie and Larry had started Sally there and must have felt they should send me too to justify it. By the time I arrived back home, Lizzie was also at the private school, but this time I was enrolled at the local junior school.

I wasn’t allowed to play out or meet friends after school and again would be kept home to help with dog grooming when the diary was full. At first I stayed for school dinners and loved this, it gave me an hour in the day at lunch break when I could join my friends, play and pretend at normality. Also it meant that once I went to school in the morning I was there for the day.

There was a constant battle to get dinner money from Sylvie, I would wake her on Monday mornings before leaving for school to ask her for it, but never once did she give it to me then. She would always have to hand it to me sometime later in the week, very begrudgingly and probably after a note from the school or a telephone call.

Every week I would have to stand in the dinner money queue and whilst everyone else handed over their coins, I would feel embarrassed that once again I had to make an excuse for not having the money with me.

Eventually Sylvie put an end to the school dinners and I would have to hurry to make the twenty minute trek home, hastily get something to eat and trek back to school again. I hated that I had to come home for lunch as this meant I may not return to school in the afternoons, if I was needed to stay at home and help. This would happen on a frequent and regular basis. Although Sylvie was happy to keep me at home, she wouldn’t write notes to the teachers to explain my absence and I would have to make up excuses as to why I didn’t have a note from my parents.

Far from thinking that life might be anything like ‘normal,’ after my return home, the next few years were to see things go from bad to worse.

 

Seperated from my Peers.

Popular

School was always something I loved; right from the first day I had skipped along to nursery school until the day I finished college. For obvious reasons it became a refuge from home life, a place where I could escape it all.

More than that though, I liked learning, I was generally popular, with both teachers and pupils, and had I had several good friends. However, my love of school was marred by the knock on effects of my home life and my forced absences, meaning that chances to excel in any way were often scuppered.

As far back as junior school, I was never allowed to go on any school trips. I would always bring home the letters dished out by the teachers, detailing the days away, the activities to be enjoyed, and the payments needed. Every time I would hand them to Sylvie with a cautious hopefulness, that this time, just this once, she might let me go. She would never allow me the money for the trips, always  justifying it by informing me that, “ I certainly didn’t f*****g deserve it!”  or that it was a punishment for my bad behaviour.

Along with the sickly kids, the ones with asthma, bronchitis or weak constitutions, whose paranoid parents dare not allow their precious off-spring  to participate in any outward bound activities, I would have to remain at school.

The days, and on one occasion, a whole week, would be spent sitting in the classroom, usually two or three of us, bored as there were no formal lessons, and so reading, colouring and painting, only able to imagine the fun and activities enjoyed by our classmates.

Still, it was still preferable to being at home, away from the gruelling hard work and constant abuse. Even though, once again, I was isolated, made to feel different, that I didn’t fit in. Once more separated from my peers.

Returning Home.

 

After a few months in the children’s home, I was outside playing when one of the staff came to me and said, “There’s someone here to see you.” I had watched other children having visitors, parents and siblings, aunts and uncles, but it was the first time anyone had come to visit me. I was led into a playroom, off from the tv lounge and there sat Sylvie’s eldest daughter, Gina.

She smiled broadly and gave me a hug but I didn’t know what to say. She had left home when I was only two, and having three children of her own and had been busy taking care of them. Consequently we hadn’t been terribly close.

It would transpire that she hadn’t known about my being in care, having been fobbed off with “Oh, she’s at school,” or “She’s in town with Lily.” Gina had only found out when Sylvie could no longer hide the truth and had to tell her where I was. Gina had gone mad and insisted that I be bought home, stating that if Sylvie didn’t want me she would take me home herself.

A few days later I was to receive my second visitors. Sylvie and Larry had arrived and were waiting in the dining room for me, ready to take me home. I have to admit that the news that I was going home did not fill me with dread or horror. I think that in my naïve, young mind I imagined that life was going to continue in the way it had the past few months, that this is how life was now. It just seemed normal to me that my family would have missed me and would be glad to have me home.

There was no ceremony to my return home, it was a though I’d never been away. There was no indication that I’d been missed or that they were happy to see me. Within days the old regime was restored and it was sinking in that I had returned to exactly the same situation I had left several months before.

In recent times I have had reason to recall my feelings after my return home.  A few years ago, when we moved to the country, my husband and I were invited by our new neighbours to a dinner party, along with another set of neighbours, a couple who were foster parents.

They had talked about their latest foster children, a brother and sister, and although they didn’t go into detail, they spoke of them coming from a poor housing area and living in a family with ‘difficult circumstances.’ They  were a pompous couple and spoke with an air of smugness that they could  ‘take the children away from it all and show them how decent people live- if only for a short time.’

The host of the dinner party was quite an opinionated and straight talking man and immediately exclaimed, “Well it’s all well and good for you, but as I see it, it’s like getting a kick in the goolies twice over!”

“You get the first kick from living a shit life.  Then you get taken away to a big house in the country, with horses and big four wheel drive cars and going to the nice little village school. Then just when you’ve been given a taste of the nicer things in life, you have to go back to your old life and things must seem worse than ever. Like I said, like getting kicked in the goolies twice over!”

Everyone else present had seemed stunned by his opinion but it was to strike a chord deep within me. It perfectly summed up my feelings soon after my return home. Having gone from the hard work, physical and mental abuse, I had been shown a different side of life, kindness and freedom and privileges.

Then to have it all taken away again and be returned to my previous life, I could agree entirely;

‘It was like being kicked in the goolies twice over!’

‘Normality’ – my time in care.

 

My time with foster  parents came to an end. Again the social workers visited and the next thing I knew, I had arrived  at another children’s home. This time it was a council run home,  and this was one of the homes where the infamous Frank Beck was officer-in-charge.

I never recall meeting him and cannot be sure if he was actually working there during my time, but he was employed to run this and other homes from 1973 to 1986,which fits with the time-frame of my stay there.  Beck went on to be convicted and sentenced to five life terms for physical and sexual assaults against more than one hundred children in his care. A further twenty four years for seventeen charges of abuse, including rape, at his trial in 1991.

The fact that I could well have been there at that home during his time and potentially, I could have be at risk of becoming one of his victims is something that sends shivers through me and causes a deep resentment and anger towards Larry, that he may have, albeit unknowingly, placed me at such risk. Sylvie too, for having gone along with his wishes and not protecting me.

Like the holiday children’s home and my time with foster parents, my time at the home was to seem like a great holiday.

The main house was grand and imposing, of brown brick and had a large wood paneled hall with a heavy wooded staircase. An extension extended out from a living room and this was used mainly as a tv area. I recall sitting in there and watching ‘Top of the Pops’ and Suzi Quatro, leather clad and singing ‘Devil Gate Drive.’

I slept in a separate small building from the main house, a more modern building. I was in a large room upstairs and there were four beds in there. Each of us had a small chest of draws with a small hanging space attached. We were expected to make ours beds and keep the room tidy but that was about it. There were four of us girls of varying ages and these would come and go,  as one went home or elsewhere, to be replaced by another. The care staff would sleep in their own room on the same floor.

Meals were eaten in another extension to the main house, a large dining room, with a wide serving hatch type opening through to the kitchen, from where meals where handed out. We were expected to clear the tables after meals, placing used plates and dishes back onto the serving area.

I must have been there for at least part of the summer as I recall playing on the swings in the late warm evenings with girls my own age. There was a purpose built classroom along one side of the garden and children of various junior school age where taught here.

Once again, I was allowed pocket money and we were taken in groups into town and to the market to spend our money on sweets, trinkets, records or anything else we wished, something I had never experienced at home. We were taken swimming, treated to hot chocolate afterwards and traveled back to the home on the top of a double-decker bus chatting and joking.

During my time in the homes and foster care, I felt wonderfully lucky to be allowed what I thought to be great privileges, pocket money, sweets, and the freedom to speak and say what I thought. Not having to spend my days working away in the house, grooming dogs, fearing tongue lashings and head slaps. This time had given me a glimpse of ‘normality’ and a little bit of what life should be like.

Money would Ooze from their Wallets.

Ooze

The couple who ran the children’s home were quiet, kind and patient and always had time to talk, explain and help me with anything. Whether or not they asked me about my home situation I cannot remember, but they must have been curious.

I wasn’t expected to do anything in the way of work or chores and was allowed the freedom to play in the gardens and even to wander into the sand dunes, so long as I didn’t go far. They had a little terrier type dog called Sandy who loved my attention and would follow along at my heels as I ran through the grasses of the sand dunes.

Although I was there a few months, I find it hard to recall much happening there. Unlike life at home, things were peaceful and calm; I would read books, watch tv, and do drawing and colouring.

The couple, Tommy and Edna,would busy themselves getting prepared for the influx of children in the summer. Tommy would do bits of maintenance or decorating and gardening. Edna would clean and cook and liked to knit.

On one occasion there was a charity evening to raise money for the home and the large meeting hall was filled with people dressed in their finest. Edna had been cooking for days prior to this, little appetisers and nibbles to accompany the bottles of wine and spirits, aimed at relaxing the guests so that donations of money would ooze from their wallets.

My time in the children’s holiday home came to an end after a few months. Two social workers came to visit and within a few days I was packed up and taken back to my home town.  Not to my home but to be placed with foster parents.

I was taken to a house only about ten minutes’ walk from my home and introduced to a couple, a husband and wife, Steve and Sharon.  I would guess that they were aged about thirtyish but seemed very young in comparison to Tommy and Edna.

They lived in small neat and warm semi-detached house and had no children. I was too young to really think about it at the time but maybe they fostered because they were unable to have children of their own. I was only to remain there for two weeks but I remember the time fondly.

Again things were calm and quiet and Steve and Sharon took the time to talk to me, interested in anything I had to say. I was given pocket money for the first time in my life. I remember being in the post office with Steve where he encouraged me to spend my money. Looking at a box of Maltesers , I realised I had enough money to buy them. Never in my life previously had I been able to be so indulgent and I looked to Steve for approval. He laughed saying, “It’s your money, you get what you like”.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

It was Steve who taught me how to do crosswords and praised me heavily for the way I had picked it up so quickly. Sharon would wash and iron my clothes and put them in a little pile on my bed, the only thing required of me was to put them away in the drawers.

A Solitary Child.

Solitary

It seems ironic that after Sylvie’s and Larry words about how lucky I was, that I would end up staying at the children’s’  holiday home for several months. How they arranged for me to stay there, just after Christmas, I’ll never know,  as children only stayed there over the summer months. Did they know somebody associated with the home, was there any social services involvement? These are questions I never dared to ask and they were never spoken about.

At the time, the home was run by an older couple, I am guessing in their late fifties. Their married daughter, her husband and two daughters, similar in age to me, had been staying for Christmas. They were to stay for about another week, and I recall running the length of the long dormitory bedrooms and playing in the gardens and on the sand dunes with them. It was the days of the Osmonds and David Cassidy and I recall us all being love struck, singing along together to their songs and belting out ‘Long Haired Lover from Liverpool’ at the top of our voices.

After the week was up, the grandchildren went home and I was left, a solitary child, rattling about the big building with the older couple. The bedroom dormitory was too big for me to sleep on my own in there and so my bedroom was the sick bay, a normal sized room with two single beds.

I was still there after a few weeks, but again I don’t know what arrangements were made in regard to me staying there. I don’t know if Sylvie had been in touch or what attempts were made to contact her or Larry.

The few clothes that I had arrived in needed supplementing, and so the pile of spare clothes, stored for use in a big cupboard,  was searched for something appropriate. Several suitable outfits were found and among them one immediately became my favourite; a purple polyester type material with bell bottomed trousers , a long sleeved top with a flared bottom, and turquoise laced edging to the hems, neck and sleeves. So much so was it my favourite that, in my head, when I recall my time there, I am always wearing this little outfit. There must have been other clothes as I couldn’t possibly have worn it every day for the several months I was there.

Sent Away, – including previous post ‘The space under the Stairs.’

Larry was a bully,  he liked to be in control and could use his physical size to get his own way, as well as psychologically terrifying me.

Under the stairs in the house was small cellar type space that went down some stone steps to a small, thin room. At the end of this area was a hole in the wall that went only a small way under the house. This space was used to store food cans and other bits and bobs and it was cold and dark.

There was a light in there but the switch was on the outside of the door. A punishment Larry frequently used was to shove me in there, kicking and screaming, lock the door and switch off the light.

It was probably the punishment I dreaded the most and I would much rather have endured a physical beating than be placed in that dark, cold room, with a gaping black hole, from which I was convinced that all sorts of monsters and ghosts would emerge and tear me limb from limb.

No matter how many times it happened it was a fear I was never able to conquer and I would sob, weep and scream to be let out but to no avail. When eventually I would be freed, often after several hours, I would be reminded “That’s what you get when you think you can do what you like, you stupid bleeding Yank!”

Larry and Sylvie would continue to argue, the financial stress and upkeep of the house increased, six children and mounting tension meant something had to give.

The day after Boxing Day, when I was aged about eight, I was told I was going away for a couple of weeks. I don’t remember the words said but I was made to understand that it was because of my behaviour, that I was causing too much trouble for everyone.

I have the overriding memory of it being a punishment but didn’t know what I had done. Years later I was to discover that Larry had given Sylvie an ultimatum, either I went or he did. I don’t know why it came to this: surely I couldn’t have been that badly behaved or troublesome?

I was put in the car, we traveled for a couple of hours and arrived at the Children’s Holiday Home,

I knew of the holiday home as we had often had day trips to the coast there, all piling into the car in the days before seat belts were the law,  and there would be four or five of us in the back. We would set off in the early hours of the morning when it was still dark, arriving there early to make the most of the day.

It seemed as though the weather was always good on these outings and we would spend a long day on the beach, returning home late into the night, tired and sun-kissed. We even had the odd short holidays there, staying in the small chalets or a caravan on a few occasions.

We would walk to the beach and the sand dunes close to where the home was located and would often see the children staying at the home. They would be in large groups, with group leaders,  playing games or walking along in a like snake like pattern.

Sylvie and Larry liked to point them out to me and remind me how lucky I was, that I didn’t need to go to the children’s home for my holiday.

In my young head, it seemed to me, that far from being unfortunate, they were having a whale of a time, laughing and playing along, chatting and singing songs. I was too young to consider any of the circumstances they may have left at home and would have to return to.

Obvious differences.

Glaring

By the age of eight or nine, the differences in the way I was considered and the way I was treated, was glaringly obvious.

Sylvie and Larry’s eldest child, Sally, took after her father, tall and dark and had striking looks. She was beautiful,  with a head of long dark ringlets, deep brown eyes and long lashes. Larry doted on her, and in his eyes, she could do no wrong.

Their last daughter, Lizzie, was more similar to Sylvie, smaller in height, fair haired and paler eyes. In the same way Larry doted on Sally, Lizzie was always Sylvie’s ‘golden child,’ not only between the two children that she and Larry had together but among all of her children.

Each would stand up for their favorite and apportion blame elsewhere when the child did something wrong, resulting in disputes between them. I would often become the target of blame; it was easy to shift the wrong doing my way and deflect it from either of their favorites. I cannot truthfully say that I was always innocent of whatever misdemeanor, but I was no more often guilty than any other normal child would be.

Life was becoming harder. As well as being the target of blame much of the time, especially from Larry, the dog grooming business was increasing and I was often kept at home to help.

We were all allotted certain jobs in the house but increasingly these seemed to become my responsibility. However much I would try to object or reason that it wasn’t fair, I would be quietened, told to shut my mouth and that from now on, whatever it was, it was my job. If I objected further, I would suffer the physical repercussions.

By the time I was about eight Larry seemed to be around a lot more as there was less work available. This created more friction between him and Sylvie and loud arguments were a daily occurrence.

Sylvie’s older children were now of an age where he couldn’t really get away with too much bullying and aggression towards them. Sally, being the apple of his eye, was never a target and he wouldn’t have dared direct any anger towards Lizzie, Sylvie’s little darling.

Consequently, I bore the brunt of the blame for anything, his anger, his rages, his aggression and vitriolic words. On rare occasions Sylvie would actually stand up for me but this would cause further arguments between them and even further resentment towards me from Larry. Lily would often try to shield me, not physically but she would try to deflect situations or warn me about things in advance.

On one occasion I heard Sylvie and Lily talking when Lily questioned why Larry treated me the way he did. She explained that it was probably because Larry was aware of the love affair Sylvie had had many years before with the American airman. My American association caused resentment within Larry.

To an extent this was born out by the frequent comments he would make such as, “You adopted little American bastard, shame you can’t f**k off back there.”

She had to have the last word!

Bury

Sylvie always had to have the last word, no matter what.

As it turned out, this even was to be the case when it came to her death.

It was a cold Thursday evening in mid January and I had popped in to Sylvie’s to pick up my daughter on my way home from work.

On the stove was one of Sylvie’s lovely stews, bubbling away and smelling delicious. As I was helping myself to spoonful, Sylvie was trying to get me to have a bowlful of another of her specialties – a treacle suet pudding. I laughed and said no, I just wanted a taste and that dinner would be waiting for me at home.

Sylvie followed me down the hallway to the front door to see me out. As we opened the front door, a freezing cold blast of air swirled in and we shivered, pulling our clothes tight around us.

I gave Sylvie a peck on the cheek saying, “See you tomorrow,”  and adding, “Get yourself inside out of the cold and keep the heat in.”

Looking up to the sky, Sylvie replied, ” I reckon we’re going to get some of that bloody snow from America.”  (The east coast of America had suffered heavy snow falls that week.)

She died suddenly and unexpectedly at Home the next morning.

One week late it was Sylvie’s funeral. She had wanted to be cremated, and so we decided to bury her ashes in her mother’s grave.

As we stood at the graveside in heavy snow, freezing and ankle deep, I looked to the sky and said to myself, “You were right weren’t you, we got that snow from America. – You’d have to have the last bloody word!”

I could have done it with one hand tied behind my back!

Polish

The endless hours spent on domestic chores; washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning and such had equipped me perfectly for the subject of Home Economics (as it was known at that time). It was the days when girls were given lessons at school on how to properly iron a shirt, to cook, how to properly polish the furniture and to clean the home.

Producing the pastry to make a pie was second nature to me, and the ironing of a shirt was something I could have done with my eyes closed. The daily task of generating a meal for anything from eight to twelve of us was something I had been having to do for years.

I’m sure it is a subject I could easily have obtained a one hundred per cent grade at ‘O’ level,  had I continued it as one of my options, but the years I did have to participate in the lessons were something that was to cause me a constant headache.

Every week we were given a list of ingredients to bring along for the next week’s lesson,  to cook up the chosen recipe ourselves. Every week I would return home with the list, ever hopeful of a positive response but Sylvie’s replies were always the same; “You needn’t think I’m shelling out for that bleeding lot!” or, “They’re having bleeding laugh aren’t they, I could feed us all bloody week for what  that lot costs, tell them to get lost! Who the f**k do they think I am, bleeding Rockerfeller!”

Every week I would have to make up some excuse, “Sorry I forgot, or sorry, my mum forgot to go shopping, and sorry, I left my cookery bag at home.” Only on rare occasions when it was something simple like a rice pudding or and egg custard would Sylvie grudgingly agree,  and would I be able to pilfer the ingredients from the pantry at home.

At the first opportunity, when choosing our ‘O’ level options, I dropped the subject, with an enormous sense of relief. I used to watch the girls who continued the subject, turning up at school with their pretty little cooking baskets, ingredients weighed out in Tupperware tubs, cooking up that weeks’ dish with enormous concentration, struggling to get it right, knowing I could have done the same things easily with one hand tied behind my back.

A Distant Memory.

Distant

Wresting was a popular sport at the time, the late 1970’s. The days of Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks and Kendo Nagasaki, tag team wrestling and Saturday afternoon bouts aired on TV. Late every Saturday afternoon we would pile onto the sofas in the living room to watch the latest bouts, shouting and cheering on our favourites and booing if they lost.

Having had a busy day one Saturday, washing, drying and clipping numerous dogs, Lily and I finished up and I made my way to the living room, where I could hear the familiar boos and cheers.

Flopping down in an armchair, already exhausted, Larry and Sylvie both turned to me. With a snarl, Larry said “What do you think you’re doing? Dinner won’t cook its f*****g self!” I just stared in disbelief. I had worked all day whilst the others did god knows what, and now ,whilst they sat there, I would have to cook dinner for them.

I desperately wanted to argue, but the look on Larry’s face warned me not to dare to open my mouth. I was given instructions what to cook, and heaving my tired body up out of the chair, I made my way to the kitchen.

Standing at the sink, peeling a large bowl full of potatoes, I sobbed, suddenly I felt as though I couldn’t go on, I felt as though it was all going to kill me. I was being eroded away, worn down, mentally and physically.

There was an overwhelming sense of darkness, weary, aching bones , loneliness, isolation and a complete and utter sadness. It never entered my head at that time, the fact that, at some point I would grow up, become an adult, be able to get out from it all. That eventually, this would all be a distant memory.

At that moment, I just thought that this was my life for ever and it felt as though I was in hell.

Clear my Plate.

Portion

Sylvie could make good meals out of very little and she could talk for hours about how she learned this from her mother.

The softer side of Sylvie would emerge at these times, and these talks with her was one of the things that seemed to lighten things, take the pressure off, if only for short time.

I always recall these times with a warm glow, the memories of them conjuring up a sense that it was a time of normality, everything was pleasant and I had a feeling of being loved and cared for.

It didn’t matter that the talks tended to happen when I’d been ordered to help with laborious task such as washing, cooking, gardening or cleaning. It helped lighten the load, made time pass quicker, and was a time when Sylvie would actually remain pleasant.

She would go into great detail about the wonderful meals her mother cooked for the family and how she had preserved fruit, made jams and stews and ensured they all well fed, despite not having much money.

Sylvie wasn’t an incredible cook but she taught me how to make good, wholesome meals and to make the most with the things you have. She could turn the cheapest cuts of meats into lovely tender and tasty meals and make delicious stews, bolstering them with lentils and pearl barley to make them more filling.

Meat was expensive and with so many of us in the house, portions of it needed to be small. However, our meals were always supplemented with extra vegetables, potatoes, bread or a Yorkshire pudding to make them more filling. Sometimes, she would make delicious rice puddings, egg custards and jam or treacle suet puddings, conjuring them up from things found in the fridge or larder.

Wasting food was something that could never be considered. The use of seasonal fruit and vegetables was the norm,  as was the use of leftovers for another meal.

Ingrained within me is an inability to waste food and an ability to make good meals with whatever is available.

To this day I find it almost impossible to leave food on my plate and need to polish it off, however full I am. This was bought about by years of being forced to clear my plate, with Sylvie hovering over me with the threat of ‘You’ll bloody well sit there until you’ve finished it!” followed up with, “or I’ll paste the bleeding living daylights out of you,” or “You’ll eat it cold for your f*****g breakfast!”

I don’t recall any of these threats actually happening, most likely because having the certain knowledge that she would carry them through, none of us would ever dare to take the risk.

Detonate Something Within Her.

Detonate

The dog grooming obviously provided a substantial portion of the income into the house and was essential to keep things going. Even though Bridget and I would be forced to help with the bathing and drying of the dogs, a lot of the work, and all of the the skill, was down to my second eldest sibling, Lily.

I don’t know that there was ever any proper arrangement regarding payment or wages of any kind, or whether Sylvie ever gave Lily any amounts of cash. Lily didn’t pay any board money, rightly so, given the amount of money bought in from the dog grooming.

Sylvie must have supplemented things in some ways, as Lily always had nice things. She dressed nicely, in fashionable clothes, had lovely shoes and handbags, and the latest expensive perfumes such as Dior, Rive Gauche and Chanel. I am guessing that these were a sort of ‘payment in kind.’

Apart from the short time working in a pet shop after leaving school, Lily had never really gone out to work and was quiet and shy, very much the opposite to Sylvie and her older sister Gina.

Sylvie always put Lily’s quieter ways down to her not getting a chance to speak when she was little. She said that Lily would not get the chance to open her mouth, as Gina always spoke for her. If Sylvie asked Lily if she wanted a biscuit, before she could open her mouth, Gina would pipe up, “Of course she does, what are you asking her for?” It was Gina who would declare, “Mum, Lily wants a drink,” or “Mum, Lily needs the toilet,” regardless of whether she did or not.

For a long time, working at home and grooming the dogs had suited her, saved her from having to go out to find work, hampered by her lack of confidence. Now in her early twenties and still at home grooming the dogs, Lily was immensely attractive and very slim with long brown hair.

At this point, there must have been something that ignited a spark, that was to detonate something within Lily. She had started working a few nights a week, in nightclubs in the town, working as a barmaid. It gave her some independence, her own money, some freedom, friends, and a social life.

From this time, Lily was to date a string of men of various ages and statuses, and so started to live something of her own life. Some of the men were single, some were married, many were ordinary and working class, others were very well off, driving expensive cars such as a Lotus or a Rolls Royce. Regardless, Lily always dressed up to meet them. I would sit and watch her preparing for her evenings out and be spellbound by the glamour of it all.

She would curl her long hair into the heated rollers everyone used at that time, and whilst these were setting her hair into soft curls, she would apply her make-up and put on her chosen outfit for the evening. She dressed tastefully in the latest fashions of the time and being so slim, she could carry off anything beautifully.

Once dressed, she would unpin the now cold rollers, and her long brown hair would tumble down in large, soft curls past her shoulders. After a quick spray or dab with one of her heavenly perfumes, she would be off, gliding out of the door until the early hours of the morning.

A Fading Impression.

Impression

Physically, the wounds of that day remained for weeks but the psychological impact,  the deep impression it left, has always remained and can never be erased. I had already lost respect for Larry, my step father, but this beating bought about something deeper. It changed something within me, and whilst beaten down in one respect, it triggered something, sowed the seeds of survival. There came a realization,  that this was how my life was, but I needed to live it and get through it all.

My head was heavy and ached for weeks, my scalp tender to touch and brushing my hair made me wince and yelp. I had bruises everywhere, especially my forearms, that had taken many of the blows intended for my head and body.  As it was the start of the summer holidays there wasn’t a need to keep me away from school until the bruising disappeared.

The bruises would eventually fade and the aches and pains would resolve, but I continued to shake inside, always nervous, with an anxiety that simmered within me for many years to come.

I would feel sick at the sight of Larry,  but would have to carry out his orders and instructions without question. It became preferable to retreat to the ‘dog room’ and help with grooming the dogs, or to the old back room and tackle a pile of ironing, than have to suffer the sight of him and the wave of nausea that would come over me with it.

Looking back, I can see that with my loss of any respect for Larry, there came something else. I still feared him and had to toe the line, but most of the time, in my head, I had almost disregarded him.

It was still necessary to carry out the numerous tasks and chores, and to suffer the usual physical and verbal punishments, often for little or no reason. However, my overriding memories or this times are of laughter and funny moments, spent with my siblings and, whenever possible, with friends, making the most of every chance to do something I wanted to do.

Even Sylvie’s rages and harsh treatments could often be overshadowed by her hilarious story telling, the mimicking of people, peppering her language with frequent swear words. She would have a saying for everything, commonly known terms, but she would put her own spin on them to apply them to her tales. To this day, I will often smile and chuckle to myself whenever I hear any of these terms, recalling her own unique ways of expressing them.

Larry’s impression on my life has always remained, but thankfully, at that time it was fading, other things were becoming more important, he was increasingly of little consequence, I could suffer whatever he wanted to throw at me.

I just got on with it all and enjoyed the good wherever I could.

Adrift and Alone.

Adrift

The importance of time with my friends cannot be underestimated. Meeting up with school mates after school or at weekends and holidays was not allowed for me. The journeys to school, time with my friends, during break and lunchtimes, was my only chance of any kind of social life, a time to mix with my peers.

Friends would often ask me to their houses, to meet up after school, go to the park, go swimming or into town, but I would always have to make up an excuse. To a few close friends I was able to admit the truth, telling them that I wasn’t allowed, but I would still feel embarrassed, feeling that it was somehow my own fault,  and I could see that they struggled to understand. Some of them even suggested that I just did what I wanted, “What can they do about it?” they would innocently ask, having no idea of the repercussions I would suffer if Sylvie or Larry knew I’d even thought about it.

Academically I was very able, I liked learning and could grasp subjects well, but chances to excel would be scuppered time and again and in several ways. The sheer amount of time absent from school resulted in a constant catch-up.  Any time I would be doing well at one or two subjects, and there were several times when this was the case, I would suddenly be kept away from school for days at a time.

I don’t think there was ever any deliberate intention to hinder my progress; it was just that my services were needed at home, to be roped into grooming dogs or caring for the ones we bred or boarded, or the mountain of household chores. I would return to school having missed several days lessons and would have to scramble to catch up.

Participating in after school activities was something I would have loved to have been able to do, particularly the sports clubs and being part of the sports teams. Athletics and netball, long jump, high jump, hockey and swimming were all things I loved.  I would look forward to PE lessons and would often being asked to join the athletics clubs, the netball team and such, to represent the school.  If these clubs ran at lunchtime it was OK , (as soon as I stayed for free school lunches), but anything after school or on weekends was out of the question.

Despite loving the sports and the games lessons,  they were always marred by the fact that no matter how well I did at any sport, I wouldn’t be able to represent the school at any level, and I couldn’t be part of the netball or hockey teams.  Watching the teams go off to compete with another school, and the match reports read in assembly the next day, with praise for the star players, would leave me feeling frustrated, angry that I hadn’t had the opportunity, that my chance to shine had been dulled once again.

More than that was the sense of it setting me apart from the people around me, the people I desperately wanted to be like, to fit in and not feel that I was always separate and alone.

And so, again, that cloak of isolation would repeatedly engulf me, leaving me totally adrift and alone.

“Work wonders and S**t cucumbers!”

Descend

It seems that Sylvie and Larry had always had a somewhat tempestuous relationship. They had always argued, shouted and swore at each other. Then eventually, they would make up, they would go off on holiday together and then things would seem OK for a while.

Gradually, it seemed to worsen and they appeared resentful of each other, they argued more, wouldn’t speak to each other, and tension constantly hung in the air. Sylvie would talk disparagingly about Larry, openly using terms such as, “He’s a fat, lazy B*****d!”, often when he was within earshot.

For a long time Larry didn’t work due to his arthritis and his sickness benefit didn’t amount to much. This obviously impacted on the upkeep of the home. “He’s about as much use as a chocolate f*****g teapot, ” would commonly be heard whenever Sylvie was annoyed or had a another bill to pay.

Larry would occasionally attempt some sort of DIY,  but invariably, it didn’t get completed or would even make things worse. Time and time again I can recall Sylvie’s shouting and swearing, adding “F*****g typical of him, going to ‘work wonders and shit bleeding cucumbers’, he reckoned. Look at the bleeding mess he’s left again; worse that when he f*****g well started!

As tense as things were at these times, Sylvie’s many phrases and the way they just spilled out of her, would always have us all laughing. However angry Sylvie was, she would delight in our amused responses, continuing to swear and come out with more of her sayings, laughing to herself along the way.

Over time, and so slowly I didn’t notice it then, things were changing. Looking back, it seems that things were slowly winding down within the house. Sylvie’s son Christian and his friend, the lodger, were long gone, and Lily, who was now in her mid to late twenties, was living her own life more and more. Her life working in the nightclubs, her social life and her many love affairs were gradually taking over.  The monopoly that Sylvie seemed to have had on her previously was evaporating.

The dog grooming was still going on but on a much lesser scale, and the dog breeding and boarding had all but ceased. The financial impact was obvious in many ways, but none of it occurred to me at the time.

Over the years, slowly and gradually, everything started to descend.  The house started to become jaded; the investment put into it ten years previously was worn away with time. The carpets became faded and worn, the decor dated and aged, cupboards falling apart and windows old and rotting.

The house was permeated with the smell of dogs.  Years of grooming, breeding and caring for them, had caused the odour to become ingrained into the wallpaper, the furniture and the carpets. As well as the dog aroma,  was the ever present whiff in air of the Larry’s cigarettes and pipe tobacco, which had also caused yellow staining to the walls and ceilings of the main living rooms.

Any jobs that needed tackling were immense in labour or finance. It seems that there simply wasn’t the money, the capability or the inclination any more.

Notorious – ‘A Meat Market.’

Notorious

Among the women who traveled to RAF Alconbury regularly each week, for some time in the early to mid-sixties, was my adopted mother, Sylvie.  Seeking some excitement and glamour away from her typical working –class lifestyle, she would often travel with her long-time friend, Josie, who lived close to Sylvie on a large council estate.

During the early 1960’s, The Airman’s Club at  RAF Alconbury became known as the ‘Aquarius Club’ , and  was said to be one of the best nightclubs in the UK. Every week on Friday and Saturday evenings, two to three coach loads of women, mainly from Huntingdon, but also from the outlying areas, would make the trip to the airbase to socialise with the airmen.

They were able to make this journey for the affordable sum of fifty pence for the round bus trip. Doubtless many had romantic notions of handsome American Air Force men, who would whisk them off their feet, marry them and take them away to the USA.

Some regulars made the trip every weekend,  but most weeks would see several new faces appear, enticed by their friends with promises of romance and excitement. This was despite the fact that the ratio of women to men was two to one at weekends. For this reason the club became notorious, as many saw this as a ‘meat market’ with women freely available, and making them ‘easy pickings.’

The Aquarius Club became extremely popular, and every weekend there was standing room only.  Most of the people there were in their twenties but there were some groups of slightly older members in their early and mid-thirties.

They went along to enjoy the atmosphere, music and dancing, to indulge in cocktails and pizza, and to play the slot machines. Undoubtedly, the biggest attraction would have been the chance to enjoy the company of the opposite sex.

Many did go on to meet their future spouses and make the move to the USA and some US airmen married and remained in the UK.

For many though, the attraction dwindled over time, and for many there were illicit affairs, on either side, leading frequently to heartache. The result for some women was to be abandoned with an illegitimate child, the father long gone back to the USA , and no chance of tracing him, the repercussions of this extending for generations.

One Lovely Blog Award.

 

One Lovely Blogger Award.

Many thanks to https://bookmeetsgirlblog.com  and to https://smellthecoffeeweb.blog  for nominating me!

Do check out both blogs; they are both wonderful to read and are great inspirations, both as writers and as the people who write them!

Thank both for your comments and tremendous support. xxx

Rules:

Each nominee must thank the person who nominated them and link their blog in their post.
They must include the rules and add the blog award badge as an image.
Must add 7 facts about themselves.
Nominate  (up to) 15 people to do the award!
7 Facts About Me:

1). I am remaining anonymous to protect some of the people involved in my story.

2). I live in the countryside with my husband, three children, a large dog, a cat and chickens.

3). I am an Advanced Nurse Practitioner and have worked in nursing since the age of 17.

4). I have never been able to afford not to work and,  although I love my work, my ambition is to be a housewife!

5). I love my garden and gardening, home making and cooking.

6). I only started blogging a few months ago as a away of telling my story; the laughter, the tears, the memories and the legacies I have been left with.

7). I met my real father for the first time the age of thirty. We have been in close contact ever since.

Blogs I would like to nominate are:

1). https://arousedblog.wordpress.com

2). https://dreamdesireachieve.com

3). https://www.mumsthewordblog.com

4). https://writtenbyresh.com

5). https://carolyndenniswillingham.com

6).https://beadoersite.wordpress.com

7).https://beadoersite.wordpress.com

8).https://notestowomen.wordpress.com

 

Many thanks to you all! xxx

The Coal Man had Called In!

Qualm

My natural mother’s sister, Bessie, was very much like Sylvie in that she liked to talk, and so the conversation flowed once they started chatting.

Having become friends, Bessie sometimes visited Sylvie at home. It was on one of these visits that Sylvie was wearing a white skirt. As she turned around to put the kettle on, Bessie noticed black hand marks on each buttock of the skirt.

“Sylvie, what on earth have you done to your skirt?” she said. Sylvie looked down and without a hint of a qualm, just laughed, saying, “Oh nothing, that was Nutty Slack, the coal man, he just called in!”

Bessie had told me this story as one of her memories of Sylvie and I was unsure if it was completely accurate. When I repeated it to Sylvie’s older daughters they burst out laughing and straight away confirmed it.  On seeing my face, they added,  in between fits of laughter, that it had always been well known, gossiped about, and absolutely typical of Sylvie.

Not that she had any qualms!

A Collaboration of Personalities.

Collaboration

When I look back and think about life in Sylvie’s house up until shortly after my adoption, it could almost be considered normal in comparison to the way life changed in the years following.

Prior to this time, the household had been running fairly ‘normally.’ Stan (Sylvie’s first husband) went to work, the kids went to school, Sylvie kept a clean house and nice garden. Even the rumors regarding Sylvie’s involvement with other men were brazened out by Sylvie.  The kids had always been used to hearing stuff , it didn’t really phase them, even gave them cause to giggle about it at times.

Added to that,  Sylvie’s eldest daughter, Gina,  was as strong headed and acid tongued as her mother and woe betide anyone that dared to say anything disparaging within her earshot.

When the trips to RAF Alconbury and other nights out had started, the older kids looked after the younger ones,  and although they were made to help keep the house spick and span, they lived life pretty much as all the other kids on the estate.

The state of their parent’s marriage was something they had lived with for years and it had become the norm. This was not unheard of at that time among many of their friends and families, divorce often not being an option, husbands and wives forced to continue in unhappy marriages and stay living together.

True, there were some stories of Sylvie’s frequent tongue lashings; it wasn’t unusual for them to receive the odd ‘walloping,’ including the time when Sylvie chased her eleven year old son along the street, banging him about the head with a frying pan and screaming, “Come here you little b*****d, I’ll knock your bleeding brains out when I get hold of you!”

For the most part, life just trundled on, but things were to change when Sylvie got together with new love, Larry. By the time my adoption was finalized, Sylvie was already pregnant with his child.

I’ve no idea how they met, which is strange considering the details of so many other things I know about. He had been married with two sons, the youngest not much older than me, and so it is possible that he was still with his wife at the time he met Sylvie.

Larry’s presence meant that certain changes had to take place, and whilst I do not blame him solely for the impact this had on the family, many events were triggered directly due to his appearance in our lives.

The collaboration of Sylvie’s complex personality, Larry’s selfish dominance and their handling of situations proved to be the start of immense disruption and changes;

Changes that caused ripples and knock on effects, extending outwards and cascading endlessly, over many years.

Dolly F*****g Daydream!

Hospitality

I had first started staying with Sylvie and her family around mid-to late 1966. My adoption was handled as a private one, and although dealt with through the courts, it did require a social services report.  After I had been living with Sylvie for about ten months, a social worker visited on a few occasions, and a report was duly produced for the court, giving its recommendations  in regard to my future.

Sylvie resented this social services input, the visits to her home and the fact that she had to toe the line. With her greasy hair, baggy clothes and Jesus sandals, the social worker Jane was something of Hippie type. Sylvie always described Jane as “Dolly f*****g daydream! I never saw such a scruffy looking f****r in all my life!”

For the visits Sylvie had obviously schemed and worked her magic, displaying  great hospitality and creating the right impression.  The house was scrubbed and polished from top to bottom, the best china tea set making a rare appearance, and the home made cakes offered. Stan had been made to have a bath and to shave, ordered into a clean shirt and a tie, the kids into their Sundays best, with their hairs brushed and gleaming. All of them had been given stern warnings about what to say and how to behave.

Having been bathed and dressed in my finest, I was placed in the garden in the Silver Cross pram, to get some healthy fresh air, as was considered best at that time. However, this was the one time that Sylvie’s treasured pram was not to serve her as well as she had planned.

Jane had arrived, this time to finalise the report, and after offers of tea and cake and polite chat, she had requested to see me. Sylvie happily led her through the kitchen, but looking through the window to the pram at the bottom of the garden, she let out a scream, “Oh my god, where is she?” and flew out of the door and down the garden.

On reaching the pram she was able to see me plonked down in the bottom of the deep well of the pram, playing with my feet. “You little git!” she uttered. Whilst the social worker and Sylvie’s daughters had hesitated, surprised by Sylvie’s sudden flight down the garden, it took them a few moments to follow her.

By the time they had caught up with Sylvie and came into earshot, the words ‘you little git’ had magically transformed into a sweet “Oh you little angel, you gave me such a fright.”

The carriage body of the pram had a deep well, with boards that slotted over the cavity, to provide a base for the mattress. I somehow had been able to get my fingers under the boards and remove them, meaning that I dropped down into the well and out of sight. Along with the blankets, sheets and pillows, the boards were strewn on the lawn where I had discarded them, ruining the image that Sylvie had wanted to present of me beautifully bedecked in the lovely pram.

Jane had picked up the boards and questioned the safety of the pram. Reassuring Jane that she would get Stan to fix it, Sylvie turned her back to her and said through gritted teeth to the girls, “Could you please ask your father to look at the pram for me,” in the sweetest voice she was able to manage.

Quickly realising she needed to rescue the situation, Sylvie turned on the charm. Leading Jane back into the house she commented, “Jane you do look lovely today, is that a new skirt you’re wearing?”  whilst secretly grimacing at the bright orange, frayed hem and ankle length hippie type garment.

Jane had apparently lapped up this, and several other compliments, that Sylvie bestowed upon her. Sylvie found this hilarious and would often declare, “The dozy mare, she lapped it up. Nice skirt my arse! F**k me! I’ve seen better dressed scarecrows,” Or another favourite was, “I wouldn’t have used that bleeding skirt to wipe my arse!”

A Final Belief.

Final

At RAF Alconbury, Pam ( my natural mother), was to meet Grant, a young US airman of the same age. Having fallen in love, it was not long before long Pam was pregnant and so they were making plans to marry. Soon after my birth, and with the evidence of the presence of another man, the relationship crumbled. Pam was left alone with little support and struggling to cope as a single mother.

Sylvie learned of Pam’s struggles, and despite already having four children of her own and an empty, disintegrating marriage, she offered to care for the baby for a while. The arrangement was to become a permanent one, leading to a private and somewhat strange adoption, involving deceit and untruths regarding the situation of my adoptive parents to be.

It was the start of a complicated and chaotic life, eventually within a family of eight children, and at many times various others in the house, including nephews, nieces, cousins and even lodgers. There was hard work, tears and abuse but also love, immense laughter and enduring relationships, that provide a rich tapestry of memories.

The eventual search for my natural family, and for answers to the thousands of questions stored up over the years,  has resulted in a combination of heartache and happiness, revelations and surprise, reunions and first meetings. It has answered some questions but raised many others.

Ultimately, it has provided me with a history, unbreakable blood ties, and importantly, a final belief that I am not purely defined by my status of ‘the adopted one’.

Mum; the person I know least.

Maze

Writing about the circumstances of my early life and my upbringing, has caused me to think long and hard about the maze of people involved, the memories of them and the stories I have been told.

It has struck me, with a great deal of sadness, the realization that the person I know the least of all about is my natural mother Pam. Due to the eight year age gap and very differing personalities, Bessie, her sister,  has told me as much as she can, but she and Pam were never close and did not mix in the same groups of friends.

Bessie left the UK for the USA when Pam was twenty and although she did make a few trips back to the UK, they did not see much of each other. The trips were often several years apart and other than writing letters and the occasional telephone call, communications systems were virtually non-existent compared to today.

Unfortunately, I never met Pam as she is no longer with us, having died in strange circumstances in 1980. There are very few photos of her, but of the ones I have, I am able to see that I look like her, taller and slimmer, big busted and fair haired. A prominent nose and a fondness for the odd gin and tonic I also inherited.

It seems that like her own mother, Pam was a quieter personality, and so am I. It is hard to know if this ‘nature or nurture’. Was I born that way, or is it a result of my upbringing?  Was it the constant suppression of any attempts to express an opinion, to defend an argument and the physical repercussions if I persisted?

Much of what I was told about Pam when I was growing up was, to say the least, unkind and uncomplimentary. Unfortunately it has to be said that a lot of the stories have turned out to contain some truth.

In my head I know these facts and have to face them, but they hurt tremendously. Deep within my heart I feel a need to almost speak for her, to justify her actions of that time and the circumstances involved.

Perhaps it is because she hasn’t been able to speak for herself, to tell me how she felt, or if she had regretted giving me up. Truthfully though, I think it is more of  a desire within me, to see my beginnings through rose tinted glasses and ignore some of the glaring truths.

Unfortunately,  her death robbed her of the chance to have her say, to put forward her side of the story or even to just to be able say ‘Sorry’.

My Pink, Plastic Pram.

Pink

 

Although crowded in the small house, life seemed settled for a couple of years. Larry worked as an HGV driver and this would take him away for days at a time.

I went along to a local nursery, skipping along to it every day with the boy from next door, sometimes wheeling my beloved little pink, moulded plastic pram, or racing along on my tiny scooter. The nursery was in a grand, big old stone house with an enormous garden and I loved going there.

All the children had their own peg to hang their coat and bags, and their own little towels. Above each peg would be a symbol, mine was a squirrel, and there would be the same corresponding symbol on your towel, your desk, your PE bag, even on the deck-chair type fold out beds and blankets, which we were made to snuggle into every afternoon for one hour.

Just before I reached the age of five another house move was made. With the benefit of hindsight, I have realised that the move was one of necessity. Given the age of Sylvie’s youngest daughter and the time of moving into this house, Sylvie was obviously pregnant again. Already cramped in the tiny house, it wasn’t going to be able to accommodate another child.

Still too young to really understand, I vaguely recall standing in a big room in a house, it seemed dark, with a very high ceiling and there was some rubbish on the floor, old screwed up newspapers and some rags. I also have a recollection of standing in the garden, looking back at the house, surrounded by weeds and grass as tall as I was then. I realise now that this must have been when we were taken to view the house. Soon a ‘mortgage’ of sorts was arranged with a local business man who owned the house. The move was made and this was to become our permanent home.

The house was immense, the size of the rooms and height of the ceilings meant that heating them was almost impossible. Waking up in the winter and finding frost on the inside of the windows was normal, as was seeing the warmth of your breath create a cloud as it hit the cold morning air.

There was no central heating and only gas fires in a few of the main rooms. A small gas bottled heater would be wheeled about the rooms and used to keep that area vaguely warm. We had several little paraffin heaters that would be lit and huddled around; These paraffin heaters were to become one of the banes of my life.

Needing to have their little tanks replenished with paraffin every day, I was the one usually given the job of taking two plastic one gallon cans along to the petrol station where paraffin was sold and carting it back home. There was a small station only about 100 yards away, but often they would not have a supply, and it would mean a trek of about half a mile to the next larger petrol station. Half a mile doesn’t seem far but for someone of about seven years old, carrying two 1 gallon cans, one weighing down each arm, it was always an arduous task.

No matter how hard I tried, I would always end up with some of the liquid spilt on me, only a tiny amount, a few drops, or the can would rub on my clothes, but it was enough to result in me carrying around the foul paraffin smell about me all day.

He didn’t Pursue me

Pursue

Thinking it was the end of the matter, I started to make my way back to the house when Larry appeared with a cane in his hand. He had obviously arrived home from work and Sylvie, still in a rage, must have told him what had gone on. I could see from the look on his face that he wasn’t happy.

As he approached me he snarled, “So you think you’d got off lightly did you?”, grabbed my arm and, whirling me around,  proceeded to whip the cane down onto the backs of my legs four or five times. I screamed out and managed to break free, running away to the house. He didn’t pursue me and seemed satisfied with what he’d done.

That night, the lashing on the backs of my legs appeared as raised wheals in horizontal stripes across the back of my thighs and upper calves. Over the next few days they developed into deep, dark bruises and it was obvious to anyone looking at them how they had been caused. Fearing them being seen at school, I was kept at home for about ten days until they had almost faded completely.

I still had it drummed into me that it was my own fault, that I had deserved it, and made fearful of the repercussions if I told anyone. I returned to school and, for the one and only time, Sylvie was forced to write me a note to explain my absence.

According to the note,  I had unfortunately been absent from school due to a particularly severe bout of tonsillitis!

‘A kick in the Goolies twice over!’

Temporary

My time in the Care System was temporary.

During my time in the homes and foster care, I felt wonderfully lucky to be allowed what I thought to be great privileges; pocket money, sweets, time to be a child, to play and the freedom to speak and say what I thought. Not having to spend my days working away in the house, grooming dogs, fearing verbal and physical lashings. This time had given me a glimpse of ‘normality’ and a little bit of what life should be like.

When Sylvie and Larry did eventually arrive to take me home, I think that in my naive, young mind I imagined that life was going to continue in the way it had the past few months, that this is how life was now. It just seemed normal to me that my family would have missed me and would be glad to have me home.

There was no ceremony to my return home, it was a though I’d never been away. There was no indication that I’d been missed or that they were happy to see me. Within days the old regime was restored and it was sinking in that I had returned to exactly the same situation I had left several months before. I wasn’t given any explanation why I had been kept away for so long and it wasn’t spoken about. Given the way anything and everything else was always brought up, I suspect that there could possibly some feelings of guilt on Sylvie and Larry’s part.

In recent times I have had reason to recall my feelings after my return home.  A few years ago, when we moved to the country, my husband and I were invited by our new neighbours to a dinner party.

Another set of neighbours, a couple who were foster parents, also came along.  They had talked about their latest foster children, a brother and sister, and although they didn’t go into detail, they spoke, in derogatory manner, of them coming from a poor housing area and living in a family with ‘difficult circumstances.’ They seemed quite pompous and spoke with an air of smugness at it being so satisfying for them, glad to be able to ‘take the children away from it all for a while’.

The host of the dinner party was quite an opinionated, straight talking man and immediately exclaimed, “Well it’s all well and good for you, but as I see it, it’s like getting a kick in the goolies twice over!  You get the first kick from living a shit life, then you get taken away to a big house in the country, with horses, big four wheel drive cars and going to the nice little village school. Then just when you’ve been given a taste of the nicer things in life, you have to go back to your old life and things must seem worse than ever. Like I said, like getting kicked in the goolies twice over!”

Everyone else present had seemed stunned by his opinion but it was to strike a chord deep within me.

It perfectly summed up my feelings soon after my return home. Having gone from the hard work, physical and mental abuse, I had been shown a different side of life, kindness and freedom and privileges. Then to have it all taken away again and be returned to my previous life.

I could agree entirely, ‘It was like being kicked in the goolies twice over!’

His Bitterness placed me in Danger.

Bitter

By the time I was about eight Larry seemed to be around a lot more as there was less work available. This created more friction between him and Sylvie and loud arguments were a daily occurrence.

Sylvie’s older children were now of an age where he couldn’t really get away with too much bullying and aggression towards them. Larry and Sylvie had two children together; Sally, being the apple of his eye, was never a target and he wouldn’t have dared direct any anger towards the youngest – Lizzie, who was Sylvie’s little darling.

Consequently, I bore the brunt of the blame for anything, his anger, his rages, his aggression and vitriolic words. On rare occasions Sylvie would actually stand up for me, but this would cause further arguments between them and even further resentment towards me from Larry.

Lily would often try to shield me, not physically but she would try to deflect situations or warn me about things in advance.

On one occasion I heard Sylvie and Lily talking when Lily questioned why Larry treated me the way he did. She explained that it was because Larry was aware of the love affair Sylvie had many years before with the American airman and that my American association caused resentment by Larry. To an extent this was born out by the frequent comments he would make such as, “You adopted little American b*****d, shame you can’t f**k off back there!”

Given what I was to learn later in life, I can only assume that it was his bitterness towards me that led to his ultimatum that I should go.

……….When my time in foster care ended,  the social workers visited and the next thing I knew I arrived at another children’s home. This time it was a local authority children’s home.

Years later I discovered that this was one of the homes where the infamous Frank Beck was officer-in-charge. I never recall meeting him and cannot be sure if he was actually working there during my time but he was employed to run this and other homes from 1973 to 1986 which fits with the timeframe of my stay there.

Appallingly, Beck went on to be convicted and sentenced to five life terms for physical and sexual assaults against more than one hundred children in his care, a further twenty four years for seventeen charges of abuse, including rape, at his trial in 1991.

The fact that I could well have been there at that home during his time and potentially, I could have been at risk of becoming one of his victims,  is something that sends shivers through me and causes a deep and bitter resentment and anger towards Larry, that he may have, albeit unknowingly, placed me at such risk. Sylvie too, for having gone along with his wishes and not protecting me.

Exposed; My time in care.

Exposed

The day after Boxing Day, when I was aged about eight, I was told I was going away for a couple of weeks. I don’t remember the words said but I was made to understand that it was because of my behaviour, that I was causing too much trouble for everyone.

I have the overriding memory of it being a punishment but didn’t know what I had done. Years later, the truth was exposed and  I was to discover that Larry had given Sylvie an ultimatum, either I went or he did.

I don’t know why it came to this, surely I couldn’t have been that badly behaved or troublesome? I truly never recall being deliberately unkind, untruthful or deceitful.

I was put in the car, travelled for a couple of hours and arrived at the Mablethorpe Children’s Holiday Home. I knew of the holiday home as we had often had day trips to Mablethorpe, all piling into the car in the days before seat belts were the law and there would be four or five of us in the back. We would set off in the early hours of the morning when it was still dark and arrive there early to make the most of the day.

It seemed as though the weather was always good on these outings and we would spend a long day on the beach, returning home late into the night, tired and sun-kissed. We even had the odd short holidays there, staying in the small chalets on a few occasions.

We would walk to the beach and the sand dunes close to where the home was located and would often see the children staying at the home. They would be in large groups, with group leaders, playing games or walking along in a like snake like pattern.

Sylvie and Larry liked to point them out to me and remind me how lucky I was, that I didn’t need to go to the children’s home for my holiday. In my young head it seemed to me that, far from being unfortunate, they were having a whale of a time, laughing and playing along, chatting and singing songs. I was too young to consider any of the circumstances they may have left at home and would have to return to.

It seems ironic, that after Sylvie’s and Larry words about how lucky I was, that I would end up staying there for several months. How they arranged for me to stay there, just after Christmas, I’ll never know, as children only stayed there over the summer months. Did they know somebody associated with the home, was there any social services involvement?  I don’t know if Sylvie had been in touch or what attempts were made to contact her or Larry.

These are questions I never dared ask and were never spoken about.

My time there came to an end after a few months. Two social workers came to visit and within a few days I was packed up and taken away, not to my home, but to be placed with foster parents. Another two weeks later, the social workers arrived again and this time I was start my time in a local authority care home.

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Better – She’s in the Right Place.

Something that I was never informed of when growing up and was to learn of many years later, was a visit made by natural mother Pam and her new husband, to see me at Sylvie’s house. I was probably around the age of eighteen months and the adoption was not yet completed.

No doubt this visit was kept from me as it might have actually put Pam in a good light, given me some hope that she had wanted to see me, might have shown she cared about me, or even have wanted me returned to her. Whether the visit was of her own undertaking or suggested by social services I do not know, but part of me hopes she had gone there seeking reassurances, wanting to be sure that I was in a better place and that she was doing the right thing.

Had her new husband considered taking me on, to become my step-father and in doing so change the course of my life? Pam and her new husband and would have been received with the same elaborate ceremony as the social worker, displaying a warm, loving family home, reassuring them how fortunate I was.

Having not seen Pam for some time I did not know her, would not go to her and cried when she tried to hold me, the exact opposite of when Sylvie or her daughters picked me up and I cooed and chuckled happily.

By the time Pam left the house, although upset, she had made her decision. She turned to her husband and simply said, “I have to leave her there, it’s better for her, she’s in the right place.”

Little did she know!

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Envious of their Lifestyle.

Lifestyle

Despite being married with four children,  Sylvie was living a lifestyle as though she were single, going out when she pleased, sometimes staying out all night. It was at this time that she started making the trips to RAF Alconbury with her friend Josie.

Josie had been married two or three times and had lived with several different men. She was a large character both in personality and size. She was tall and statuesque, with long dark hair, wore bright red lipstick and nail varnish on long talon like nails.

Standing at about five foot ten she had manly features, size nine feet and a deep voice from many years of heavy smoking. The reason I knew I about her shoe size comes from one of the several stories that Sylvie would love to tell us;

Josie had proudly showed off a new pair of thigh length boots that she had bought and Sylvie described them as being enormous, size nine and with immense stiletto heels, about  six inches. When asking her how on earth she could wear them, Josie replied had that they were great for in the bedroom. Sylvie had questioned what for, picturing Josie dressed up in the boots and little else, when Josie declared, “Well when I’m on top, I can straddle a single bed in these”.

Sylvie would tell these sorts of stories from when I was a young age and really shouldn’t have been privy to some of the contents, but she didn’t hold back and would go into great detail, having us all in fits of laughter, partly because she herself would be nearly hysterical with laughter, almost wetting herself and tears rolling down her face. No matter how any times she would tell these tales she never failed to get the same reaction.

Having none of her own teeth despite only being in her early thirties, Josie had to wear dentures. These dentures where to become more fodder for Sylvie’s stories.  Eating a cheese and tomato sandwich in our house one day, Josie put down her sandwich and was running her tongue vigorously around her teeth. She said “Oh these bloody tomato seeds!” and promptly proceeded to take out her top denture without any flicker of embarrassment or attempt to conceal them, turned them over and ran her tongue along the underside to remove the seeds then popped it back in her mouth and continued eating, oblivious to our stunned reactions.

On another occasion, on one of their trips to Alconbury, Sylvie and Josie were stood at the bar having a drink when one of their companions, a tall well-built American airman arrived to join them and greeted Josie with and exuberant “Hi there Josie” and added a playful slap on her back. Sylvie loved to relate with elaborate gestures how Josie’s dentures flew out of her mouth and whizzed along the bar to land in front of another airman. He took one look at the dentures, put down his beer, looked at Josie with a raised eyebrow and with an American drawl of the Deep South just said “Excuse me ma’am?”  Apparently, Josie simply hopped down from her bar-stool, skipped along the bar, picked up her denture, popped it back into her mouth, said “Thanks very much,” and slid back onto her stool and continued her drink as though nothing had happened.

Although it would appear that Josie was somewhat course and hard-nosed, she was actually, in a lot of ways, a lot kinder and soft hearted than Sylvie. Josie liked having a good time and never made any excuses for her lifestyle. She wasn’t one to care about the state or cleanliness of her house, didn’t ever think to put a meal on the table and would go off out in the evenings, leaving her children to fend for themselves. Whilst she was neglectful I don’t ever remember her being cruel, unkind or violent towards them and certainly not in the way I was treated by Sylvie. I remember frequently feeling envious of the lifestyle of Josie’s children, of their freedom and the luxury of not having to suffer frequent tongue lashings, face slaps or constant put-downs.

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A Panicked Silence.

Panicked

For once, the rantings weren’t being launched at me, I wasn’t being told it was my own fault, that I deserved it or that it had served me right. Nothing much was said at all, it was all carried out quietly and hushed and with concerned faces. This made me all the more panicked and I think I would have preferred the all too familiar rages.

It had happened in blur, a few minutes when it seemed I was on the outside watching it all. The shock of it all had rendered me speechless and I had just stood, seeing the ensuing panic whirling around me as though in a dream. The only real reaction I can recall was the nausea and wanting to faint.

Sylvie and Lily spoke in low, hushed whispers and I couldn’t hear what they were saying as I was hustled into the living room to sit on the sofa with my hand raised. They cleaned up the blood in kitchen, checking on me every few minutes. My hand was now throbbing and blood had started to seep through the padding, causing Sylvie to order me to raise my hand higher. She gave me some paracetamol to take, a drink and bought me a dinner, cut up into small pieces so that I could manage it with one hand.

I should have been enjoying the attention, the concern and being waited on, but the shock had left me numb and I just did as I was told, took what I was given, stunned and like some kind of emotionless robot.

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Control; Punishment by Salt.

Control

We had just eaten a big dinner one Sunday lunchtime and Sylvie opened up some cans of fruit, shared them out between the dishes, and went to the fridge to retrieve the evaporated milk can. Picking up the can she could tell by the weight of it that there was much less than there had been when she placed it in the fridge the day before. “Who’s f*****g well drank this?” she yelled and looked straight at me. I denied touching it but that familiar, dreaded feeling swelled up inside me, knowing that once again, I was going to get the blame.

It was a common occurrence, with so many people in the house, something was always going missing. A piece of cake taken or half a packet of biscuits gone, whatever it was, whoever had taken it, it was always my fault. Doubtless there were times when I had indulged, but no more than the others were guilty of.

I waited for the slap and the screaming but it didn’t come and we all sat and ate our dessert in silence. I was shaking inside and could hardly swallow, not daring to look up. This was worse than the usual repercussions but foolishly I started to think that maybe this time she had believed me, wasn’t going to punish me or thought that somebody else had helped themselves.

After dinner had finished and the washing and drying of pots was completed, I went outside to use the old outdoor toilet we used just for convenience in the summer, almost forgetting about the earlier incident.

On coming out, Sylvie was heading towards me down the small alley that led to the toilet, carrying the can in her hand. With an enraged look on her face she declared, “Well if you want it, you can f*****g well have it!  Go on, drink it up,”  and shoved the can into my hands. The can felt warm and heavy but I had no idea what was going on. She continued to scream at me to drink it up but I was terrified, not knowing what was going on. Shaking inside I stared at her wide eyed, not able to speak or move, I was frozen to the spot.

Grabbing hold of the back of my neck with one hand and the can in the other, Sylvie rammed the tin at my mouth. Caught between the can and my teeth, my lip split open and blood poured out and down my chin and neck. As I cried out in pain Sylvie reacted instantly tipping up the can up and started to pour the warm liquid into my mouth. As the liquid poured into my mouth there was a sudden realization of what she had done as the heavily salted water hit my tongue.

As strange as it was, I remember feeling somewhat relieved. Having no idea what the consequences of drinking a load of salt water would be, I had thought that, as a punishment, this was something I could cope with. Although the salty liquid was far from pleasant and caused me to gag when swallowing it, I thought I could manage it, get it over and done with. I stopped struggling and let the liquid pour down my throat whilst Sylvie continued to hold my neck and kept the can at my lips to ensure I drank it all.

When the can was empty Sylvie looked at me and said, “That’ll f*****g well teach you, you thieving little b*****d!”,  and taking the can she simply turned and walked back into the house.

I stood for a moment, stunned by what had happened. Was it going to be as simple as that?  Yes I had a busted lip,  but no slaps, no whacks on the head or beatings from the plastic bat she often used. My t-shirt was covered in blood and grabbing some loo roll to dab my lip, I headed towards the back door to go in and change my clothes.

I had only stepped a few yards when it hit me, a sudden overwhelming nausea engulfed me and I needed to be sick. I turned and headed back to the loo but didn’t make it. At the doorway to the toilet I could hold it no longer and the projectile vomit was to rocket out of my mouth and hit the opposite wall and floor with immense force, decorating everywhere with a mix of salt water, Sunday dinner and sliced tinned peaches, all peppered with the blood from my lip. I retched violently; sweat dripping down my face and neck and my eyes streaming from the strain of each lurch of my belly. The retching just carried on, I was powerless to stop it, engulfing my body and I bent, doubled up as it caused my stomach to lurch violently, over and over.

For what seemed like an eternity I continued to retch and vomit until there was simply nothing left. My head and my eyes hurt, my stomach felt sore and bruised from its assault, my throat was hot and painful, my lip was stinging and I was left weak and wrung out.

After things had abated, I looked around and knew I would need to clear up the mess. Dragging myself off the floor and holding the door frame for support, I managed to stand and gulp a few mouthfuls of air without retching again.

Holding the wall as I went, I started again to make my way back into the house. As I did so, Sylvie appeared out of the back door with a smug look on her face and a mop and bucket in her hand. Walking past me, she made her way to the toilet, looked in the door, and then returned to where I was standing. She seemed satisfied with what she had seen and repeated her previous words of, “That’ll f*****g well teach you, you thieving little b*****d!” and added, “Now maybe you’ll think twice before you go nicking any bleeding thing again.” Pointing towards the toilet she added, “Now go and get that f****r cleaned up and I don’t want to see your f**k ugly face again until tomorrow!”

As weak as I felt, I knew I had to clean up the mess. It wasn’t an easy job as it was everywhere, the floor, the walls, the toilet bowl, the door and even seeping under edges of the lino. I wept the whole time but the physical pain was outweighed greatly by the hurt I felt inside after the cruel and vindictive punishment I had received for something I had not done.

The hurt was immense, the deed had been so thought out, planned with such control and carried out knowing what the consequences would be for me. I could not understand how this could be done in such a heartless way, so controlled, calculated and emotionless.

At that moment it was obvious to me that I was worthless, not loved and didn’t deserve anything good, loving or kind.

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Flecks of Yarn and Story Telling.

Yarn

The need to bring money into the house was always present and whilst I never remember her going out to work in a factory , at frequent times Sylvie would take in home overlocking.

A factory would supply an overlocking machine, an ugly looking industrial sewing machine type contraption, mounted into a table with a large foot pedal and this would be installed in a room in the house somewhere, taking up a large amount of space. The machine would make a tremendous amount of noise and vibration around the house when in operation and the dust and flecks of yarn it produced would float around the house and coat everything within reach.

When Sylvie took in this work I would have to spend many hours assisting her. Bags were delivered loaded with cut sections of knitwear; front and back sections, arms, collars, cuffs, the long frontal strips for buttons and button holes etc. These would need to be unloaded, counted into dozens and placed ready for machining.

Whilst I was preparing these, Sylvie would expertly thread the machine with the appropriate matching coloured yarn and then begin the process of producing the garment, a fascinating process which she carried out with obvious skill.

Items such as cuffs and collars would often need to be folded over and overlocked along the edge to keep them folded; she would do a dozen of these in one long run so they would come off the machine in a strip in a bunting like fashion. I would then have to snip them apart with scissors whilst Sylvie moved onto to the next section such as overlocking the seam of an arm piece to make a sleeve. Again these would be produced in a long strip of sleeves that would need to be snipped apart and then pulled the right way through ready for the cuffs to be machined on and then expertly attached to the body pieces.

When the garment was completed they would need to be turned the right way and counted into dozens and piled up into bundles, loosely tied and labelled and placed into boxes for collection. Sylvie was paid by the dozen for this work and often it was a valuable source of income and meant that she could work from home.

Whilst Sylvie expertly carried out the machining part of the work, the rest of it largely came down to me. My sisters sometimes helped but I was deemed more capable of it and so I spent many hours cutting, tying, labelling and covered in the fine yarn and knitwear particles that floated off from the machine. I could often be stood for many hours (when I wasn’t already occupied with other chores or dog grooming), longing for some respite, some time to play outside or watch TV, but I would never dare complain or suggest that the others took their turn. 

I have mixed memories of these hours spent assisting; these were times when, according to her mood, Sylvie could be berating me for something I had done wrong, with hours of tongue lashings, often detailing the circumstances of my adoption and parentage in a cruel and vindictive manner. At other times, she would happily be relating stories from her colourful past, some of which were really not suitable for young ears. Her elaborate gestures and candid story telling could have me if fits of laughter no matter how many times I heard the many tales. 

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Knackered – What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Knackered

Knackered; the perfect way to describe the way I felt through much of  my upbringing and reminds of a previous posting.

At times during my upbringing it was all too overwhelming; the constancy of the hard work, slogging day after day, washing, cooking, cleaning, ironing, grooming dogs, caring for the dogs we bred or who boarded with us, the harsh words, the physical punishments and the isolation, relentlessly from the age of about seven or eight.

Many times  it would engulf and overwhelm me and I would think that I could not survive.

How I survived it all, physically and mentally, I cannot explain. I would like to recall some dramatic event or ‘eureka moment’ that changed things,  a bolt of lightening, some sort of epiphany or a fairy god mother, but I can’t recall any such one event or flash of inspiration.

Looking back at how I came through it all, I grew up to be capable and resourceful with never a thought of allowing history to repeat itself. It has never been a conscious thought not to allow it to happen to my children, it just never has and never will.

I can only believe that ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’.

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Blanket -‘Happiness is egg shaped.’

Blanket

Sylvie loved to relate the story of my arrival into her home to anyone with ears and I like to think that it did arouse some maternal instinct in her. However, it was often used as a way of reminding me of my beginnings and how fortunate but ungrateful I was that she had rescued me.

I was around nine months old at this time, and the attire I was said to have arrived in has been described to me in great detail on many occasions. I was dressed in an old, dirty, tight fitting, yellow cardigan, the wool matted together.  My nappy was described as badly stained and hanging off of me, heavy with acrid, smelly urine.

There was little else other than the blanket I was wrapped in, “The only decent bleeding thing you had,” Sylvie would often sneer, “And she soon took that f****r as she said she wanted a reminder of you. Reminder, my arse!” Apparently there was little else in the way of clothes, nappies or toys, “Little and f**k all!” was Sylvie’s comment “And what there was went straight in the f*****g bin!”

I was promptly stripped, scrubbed and dressed in hastily borrowed clothes, from neighbors and friends who had no doubt been regaled with stories of the dismal state of my arrival. I was then plonked in the immaculate Silver Cross pram, stored away since used for Sylvie’s fourth child, and wheeled along the street for Sylvie to be admired for her wonderful deed and kind heart.  Whilst I’m sure some elements of my condition are true, I am also aware that there has been some embellishment over the years in order to blacken Pam but place Sylvie in a shining light.

“An ugly little bleeder,” was how I was described; Fat and bald. Not chubby or chunky, big or pleasantly plump but without a doubt, quite simply ‘fat and bald’. It seems quite so much so that the family would rub my bald, shiny head and declare ‘Happiness is Egg-shaped.’  This slogan, among others such as ‘Eggs are Cheap,’ ‘Eggs are Easy,’ and ‘Go to Work on an Egg,’ was used by the Egg Marketing Board in the late 1960’s to promote eggs and the slogans became popularized through advertising campaigns. It obviously became a source of amusement for the family to apply this likeness to me and I’m told that I would chuckle along every time they rubbed my head.

How I came to be fat could be said to be somewhat of a mystery given my apparent diet prior to living with Sylvie. On asking what it was I liked to eat, Pam had flippantly replied, “Oh, she loves Fag Ash and Baked Beans!”  This reply would come to haunt me for many years to come and was repeated to me whenever I did something wrong to remind me how ungrateful I was to have been saved from a lifetime diet of ‘fag ash and baked beans.’

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Roots; Is that the One she Adopted?

Roots

For much of my life I was defined by the circumstances of my birth. As far back as I can remember, I’ve always known that I was adopted and it defined me, in both the ways I have regarded myself and in the way other people considered me.

I don’t remember being told I was adopted so I am guessing I must have been very young. Growing up I was told a story several times about why the need to explain it to me had arisen, I had heard something said that had caused me to question its meaning.

The story goes that an aunt of my adopted mother had called to visit, not having seen the family for some time. After initial greetings she had looked at me and said, “Oh is that the one you adopted?” which caused me to ask the question, “What does adopted mean?”,  resulting in the need for hasty  explanations.

I have no recall of this happening and whilst it is possible that it is true, I have reason to question it. In the context of my upbringing it seems too innocent and naive and almost as though it was created in order to erase the truthful events of its disclosure. An overriding feeling  and  possibly a deeply held subconscious memory, it is more likely that the facts were hurled at me during one of many vitriolic rages and verbal attacks, as were many other details of the circumstance of my beginnings.

I was, however, to hear a similar sentence once again many years later at the age of thirty at my adopted mother’s funeral. Her sister whom we had not seen for many years attended the funeral and the wake afterwards. There was chatting for a while and then, when she thought me to be out of earshot, she asked, “Is that the one she adopted?”

Already reeling with the shock and grief of my mother’s sudden and unexpected death, these words were to hit me like a clap of thunder, transporting me in an instant back to my roots.

Despite having spent the previous week together with the family, organizing the funeral, drinking numerous cups of tea, crying, laughing and talking about my mother and her life, I already had a sense that the person who had tied us all together was now gone and that the family, as we knew it, was likely to drift apart. These words served as another reminder of what separated me from the rest of the family and isolated me from their blood ties. They once again defined me and the way people regarded me, and I was acutely aware that, for many people, I was viewed as and I would always be ‘the adopted one’.

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The Zip on the tight white jeans.

Zip

The Daily Prompt today made me laugh inside;  ‘Zip’- it immediately bought back a lovely memory from growing up and made me happy to be able to relate, for a change, one of the many good and funny memories that has bound me together with my adopted sisters. It is something we still laugh about to this day.

Now in her early twenties and still at home grooming the dogs, Lily was very attractive, very slim with long brown hair. She had started working a few nights a week in nightclubs in town, working as a barmaid. It gave her some independence, her own money, some freedom and a social life.

From this time, Lily was to date a string of men of various ages and statuses and so started to live something of her own life. Some of the men were single, some were married, many were ordinary and working class, others were very well off, driving a flashy car, a Lotus or a Rolls Royce. Regardless, Lily always dressed up to meet them and I would sit and watch her preparing for her evenings out and be spellbound by the glamour of it all.

She would curl her long hair into the heated rollers everyone used at that time and whilst these were setting her hair into soft curls she would apply her make-up and put on her chosen outfit for the evening. She dressed tastefully in the latest fashions of the time and being so slim, she could carry off anything beautifully. Once dressed, she would unpin the now cold heated rollers and her long brown hair would tumble down in large soft curls past her shoulders. After a quick spray or dab with one of her heavenly perfumes, she would be off and out the door until the early hours of the morning.

White, skin tight trousers was one of the fashions of the time and Lily was no exception in needing to have a pair. The tighter the better was obviously a requirement and despite being extremely slender, Lily had bought a pair that took extreme effort to get into. Having peeled them up her legs and by jumping, wriggling and pulling, she had managed to get them up and over her slender hips and bottom. At this point she was unable to pull the fronts together enough to zip up the fly. Try as she might she just could not do it and eventually Bridget and I were called upon to help.

She was due to be picked up by her latest chap in about five minutes and so quick thinking was called for. She was already laid on the bed trying and trying to pull up the zip whilst we pulled each side into the middle of her non-existent belly. She just couldn’t get a grip on the zip and it kept slipping out of her fingers.

Realizing that we needed something to pull it up; – with me pulling one side inwards and Bridget the other, Lily was finally able get  the zip to fasten by pulling up on an old metal coat hanger threaded through the hole in the pull tab. By now we were almost hysterical with laughter and had to hold Lily by the hands and haul her off the bed as it was almost impossible for her to bend in the middle.

Her latest conquest, picking her up that night, was obviously one of the better off blokes she dated and he arrived in a gleaming low bodied Lotus car. A look of horror spread across Lily’s face as she tottered along stiffly out of the house in her skin tight trousers and high heels. She looked at the car and realized that it wasn’t going to be easy to get into it.

We watched from the windows, desperately trying to stifle our laughs as Lily tried desperately to lower herself into the vehicle, having to limbo down, hanging on with one arm desperately to car roof with one hand and trying to pull herself across into the low seat with the other. She eventually made it and they drove off, leaving us splitting our sides with laughter and mimicking the scene over and over.

Lily was to also cry with laughter the next day when telling us that she had struggled just as much getting out of the car and even more so when she attempted to climb up onto a high bar stool and had nearly gone flying off in her attempt.

None this deterred her from wearing the skin tight white jeans and they were to have many more outings, unlike the fella with the Lotus.

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Words – Like a Spike Through my Heart.

Spike

In the midst of a rage one day, with his large hand at my throat, pinning me against a wall, it wasn’t the physical blows that provided a lasting hurt, but the words he was to spit at me. It seems a silly insult, a playground type jibe, something to brush off. Coming from the man I thought of as Dad, it hurt deeply, the man who should protect you, keep you from harm and insults, and see you as beautiful no matter your looks.

I have no clue what had started the whole incident but there I was, pinned by Larry’s hand, held by my throat against the wall. He had his face close to mine and was raging at me. He was to end the rage with, “You fucking ugly, big-nosed b*****d!”, and walked away.

He may as well have hit me in the face with a sledge hammer or put a spike through my heart; such was the force with which those words hit me. At that moment, I felt as though something within me died. In the light of other things that had been said to me it seems so trivial and childish, but to me they were devastating. Already becoming conscious of my prominent nose, there had been a couple of comments such as ‘Concord’ and ‘Pinocchio’ at school to confirm this. However, to have my supposed father use the words he did, cemented in my mind the fact that I was ‘a fucking ugly big nosed b*****d.’

I think that it was from this point that I started to see Larry in different light. The fact that he had used such a childish remark to insult me somehow changed my view of him. I had lost any respect for him and started to see him for the weak and selfish person he was. I no longer expected or wanted anything from him. He was, however, still large and feared and I still had to toe the line or suffer the consequences.

His words had a lasting effect on me. I certainly wasn’t unattractive and looking back, although my nose was large but not excessively so, I instantly became incredibly conscious of it. I would cover my face with my hand when talking to people as I felt that this was when they would notice it, especially if I smiled or laughed. I avoided photographs and would walk with my head forwards so that my hair would hang down like curtains at the sides of my face and screen the offending protrusion. These actions would become habit and persisted for many years, along with the effects on my confidence and self-esteem.

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Chuckle – ‘living over the brush.’

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Chuckle

A couple of years after moving into the house, Sylvia and Larry were married. I was only about seven but I recall conversations about Stan and I have the feeling he had held up Sylvie’s divorce. I don’t know if he had actively opposed it or whether he simply didn’t bother to respond to solicitor’s letters or any attempts to get it sorted. It was the early seventies and divorce was still a lot less straight forward than today. I do know that Stan wasn’t seen by us for many years. Sylvie would remind us many times that Stan, “Never paid a bleeding penny of maintenance!” All of us had already been given Larry’s surname right from the start. It was the family name we all became known by and were all to use.

“Living over the brush” – a term that Sylvie always used and would always make me chuckle inside, it sounded such a silly phrase.  Being unmarried with children was something Sylvie obviously wasn’t happy with and as soon as the divorce was finalised, she and Larry made the necessary arrangements. It seems hard to believe in this day and age but at the time Sylvie was obviously conscious of not being married to Larry and this fact was kept from their two children, Sally and Lizzie, at the time.

The marriage took place at the Registry Office in the town and Sylvie made a big deal about her outfit, spending a lot of money on a beautifully made suit and matching hat. Lily attended with her then boyfriend, I’m not sure about Gina or Bridget and I know I didn’t go; I stayed at home with a neighbour to greet people when they returned to the house for the party afterwards. Sally and Lizzie knew nothing about the wedding and went to school as normal, only to be collected by Lily and her boyfriend and bought back to the party later. They were only young and so I don’t know if they were told about the wedding or if they just thought it was a party and a house full of people.

The house was full of people everywhere and there were mountains of food and copious amounts of alcohol. Everyone seemed to have a good time, the celebrations went on late into the night and Sylvie and Larry seemed happy to be married.

Sylvie and Larry’s eldest child, Sally, took after her father, tall and dark and had striking looks. She was extremely pretty with a head of long dark ringlets, deep brown eyes and long lashes. Larry doted on her and, in his eyes, she could do no wrong. Their last daughter, Lizzie, was more similar to Sylvie, smaller in height, fair haired and paler eyes. In the same way Larry doted on Sally, Lizzie was always Sylvie’s ‘golden child,’ not only between the two children that she and Larry had together but among all of her children.

Each would stand up for their favourite and apportion blame elsewhere when the child did something wrong, resulting in disputes between them. I would often become the target of blame; it was easy to shift the wrong doing my way and deflect it from either of their favourites. I cannot truthfully say that I was always innocent of whatever misdemeanour, but I was no more often guilty than any other normal child would be.

Life was becoming harder. As well as being the target of blame much of the time, especially from Larry, the dog grooming business was increasing and I was often kept at home to help. We were all allotted certain jobs in the house but increasingly these seemed to become my responsibility. However much I would try to object or reason that it wasn’t fair, I would be quietened, told to shut my mouth and that from now on, whatever it was, it was my job. If I objected further, I would suffer the physical repercussions.

Childhood Lost; including previous post – An Ice Cold Bath.

Cranky

It was during the early days of the dog grooming business that I was to endure what I remember as one of the earliest venomous attacks that would occur over the next several years.

Whenever Sylvie or Larry were having their frequent cranky moods, there had always been shouting, swearing and a wallop around the head or a slap on the face for all the kids, apart from the youngest two, who were Larry’s daughters.

I already knew I was adopted but do not recall the circumstances of being told, but it was something spoken about freely and easily with the stories of my beginnings regaled in great detail many times, unkindly and with no regard for my feelings.

I am guessing I was about six or seven, it was a hot summer’s day and Sylvie and Lily were in the upstairs bathroom bathing a dog. Sally, who would have been about four years old and me were in the garden in a little inflatable paddling pool. We had decided that we wanted more water in the pool and so I had gone into the old stone kitchen and filled a large jug with water from the tap.

Walking back, I could see Sally sat in the pool with her back to me, engrossed in a toy she was playing with. Innocently wanting to have some fun, play a trick and make her jump, I quietly crept up and quickly poured the water onto her back. Shocked, she screamed out at the top of her lungs, causing Sylvie and Lily to come racing down the stairs into the garden.

Sally continued to scream between sobs and gulps of breath, pointing at me. Sylvie took one look at me with the jug in my hand and with the realisation that I had done something, she slapped the side of my head and took me clean off my feet. Shocked and stunned I stood up to see Sylvie and Lily wrapping Sally in a towel and checking her back. “She f*****g well poured hot water all over her,” Sylvie was screeching, “She could have killed her!”

What the temperature of the water was I could not tell you, I had just filled the jug wanting more water in the pool. I suspect that Sally’s fright and scream were, more likely, due to the water being freezing cold, I certainly never saw any marks on her back.

Whatever the truth, I had certainly not acted with any malicious intent, just a spur of the moment action, meant for fun. I wasn’t given the chance to explain anything but grabbed by Sylvie by my arm and propelled up the stairs with a whack on the back of my head at each chance she got.

She pulled me into the bathroom and ordered me to take my clothes off. The dog they had been bathing was laid on a pile of towels in the corner and Lily came in and removed it saying “Sally’s OK Mum,” trying to calm her and possibly ease things for me.

Sylvie proceeded to put the plug into the bath and turned on the tap, the COLD tap only, snarling, ”So you want to see how it feels do you?” I was ordered to get onto the bath and gingerly stepped in with the cold water swirling around my feet and terrified of what would happen next.

I dare not look up or make any objections but heard Sylvie scream at me to sit down in the bath. I lowered myself down into the rising, freezing cold water. However, my overriding memory is not the icy cold numbness but it is Sylvie’s words that will ring in my ears forever.  She pulled up a blanket box, used to store bath towels and sat on it next to the bath.

“You adopted little bastard! That’s all the thanks that I get for everything I’ve done for you. It’s no wonder your f*****g mother didn’t want you, that’s why she couldn’t be bothered to feed you, too busy f*****g around with other blokes. Do you think she’d ever have bothered about you? F**k all on your back when you came to us and this is all the thanks we get. Then you go and behave like that, trying to kill your sister. You evil little b*****d!”

I tried to object and explain but the instant my mouth opened it was swiftly closed with a slap. At this point I started to cry, still dazed and mystified as to what had happened. I was ordered out of the bath and sent to bed, even though it was only early afternoon, where I remained without food or drink until the next morning.

The whole episode didn’t last long and Sylvie didn’t leave me in the bath for more than a few minutes, but the whole incident was to set a pattern and was to become the start of my realisation that I really wasn’t thought of in the same way the other children were, something separated me and set me apart.

I feel that it was at this point, my childhood was lost.

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Dog grooming.

Unravel

In order to unravel the complexities of my beginnings, my adoption and my subsequent upbringing, I acknowledge and understand, to some degree, the reasons why some situations evolved due to necessity;

Shortly after the move to the big house Sylvie had give birth to her last child, another daughter.

Now with a family of eight living in the house and at times various additional others staying, money was needed to feed and clothe us and maintain the upkeep of the home. Sylvie already did some childminding, mostly for Richard, the boy I had previously skipped along to nursery with, and his brother. She would look after them after school and in the school holidays but Richard was a very morose character and I don’t think he liked being at our house. It was too noisy, too much arguing, shouting and swearing and possibly too much female presence.

Sylvie’s second daughter Lily was now seventeen and having left school with no real qualifications she had worked a little in local pet shop but didn’t really like it. From somewhere, the idea of dog grooming emerged as a away of bringing in revenue and before long Lily had taken this up. I don’t know if she ever had any formal training but it was something she became extremely skillful at.

Unlike today when dog grooming salons and mobile services are numerous and easily available there were very few around at that time. Poodles were a popular breed and their owners liked to have them cut in the classic poodle style, shaved faces and feet, short bodies, fluffy rounded legs and top knots to their heads and the end of their short tails. Lily often clipped poodles for shows with the elaborate pom-poms cut in perfect globes to their legs and backs, a high afro type cut to the hair on their heads blending into a large main around their neck and chest.

Before long, the large back living room was converted into a dog grooming parlour. One half of the room, nearest the door, was treated as a kind of reception area with a high, curved counter with a phone and a booking diary, obviously put there to create a professional appearance. In the far corner was a table and a large industrial dog hair dryer and another table in the corner behind the door was used for the cutting and clipping of the dogs. Various equipment such as hair clippers, dog brushes and combs, scissors and dog nail clippers were all at hand and linoleum had been laid on the floor for ease of cleaning. There must have been some outlay for all the equipment, especially the specialist dog clippers and dryer, but as Sylvie would often remind us, “You have to speculate to accumulate.”

The dogs were bathed either in a large metal sink in the old stone kitchen or, if too big, in the bathroom upstairs and bought back to the room dripping wet, wrapped in towels. The large industrial machine used to dry dogs at that time was like a big hairdryer on a stand and belted out fast blowing hot hair. It was necessary to point the nozzle at the appropriate part of the dogs and use the metal toothed dog brushes or combs as the hair dried, teasing it out to unravel any knots or matted hair along the way.

This process could take anything from twenty to thirty minutes for a little Poodle or a Yorkshire Terrier to hours for bigger dogs or ones in bad conditions, their hair thick and matted. Some would have fleas and would need ‘de-fleaing’ as you went along, some would have weeping sores under their matted coats. It could be arduous work in hot conditions, stood on your feet for many hours a day.

Hands would suffer dreadfully. Wet from bathing the dogs and then being caught by the heat of the dryer as you brushed the dogs caused then to become dry, cracked and sore. The metal teeth of the brushes would cause scratches and scrapes if you happened to catch yourself when maneuvering dogs’ hair, legs, ears and such to get the brush or comb into all their crevices. There were frequent bites from the dogs, understandably at times, as they were pulled and pushed about and suffered the intense grooming and the heat of the dryer.

The business was building and becoming busier and busier, bringing in valuable income. Lily would struggle to cope with days when ten or twelve dogs would be booked in and from about the age of seven or eight I was being made to help.

At first, this would be on Saturdays and in the school holidays but gradually it extended more and more. Sometimes after a returning from school I would be ordered into the ‘dog room’, sometimes just to help hold a dog, other times to bathe and or dry them.

On a Saturday it wasn’t unusual for me, Sylvie’s third daughter Bridget, now aged around thirteen, and Lily to all be working away in a relay all day. One bathing the dogs, the next one drying them and Lily cutting and crimping away.

Eventually, I would often be kept away from school for the slightest excuse, usually for the slightest misdemeanor at home, in order to help with grooming the dogs. I would dread the words “You needn’t think your prancing off to school, you can get your lazy arse in there and make up for what you’ve f*****g well done!”

It would always be in regard to something trivial and at times nothing at all, but conveniently, it would always be on the days when the dog grooming diary pages were full of bookings.

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The Hard Work Started.

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The new house was obviously immense, the size of the rooms and height of the ceilings meant that heating them was almost impossible. Waking up in the winter and finding frost on the inside of the windows was normal, as was seeing the warmth of your breath create a cloud as it hit the cold morning air.

In the little toilet at the end of the long landing that led to the back of the house upstairs, there was an electric heater on the wall. This could be switched on and the tiny room would soon be heavenly warm. As it was the only warm place in the house we would take it in turns in the mornings to race out of bed, grab our clothes and race along the landing to this little room to get dressed.

There was no central heating and only gas fires in a few of the main rooms. A small gas bottled heater would be wheeled about the rooms and used to keep that area vaguely warm and we had several little paraffin heaters that would be lit and huddled around.

These paraffin heaters were to become one of the banes of my life. Needing to have their little tanks replenished with paraffin every day, I was the one usually given the job of taking two plastic one gallon cans along to the petrol station where paraffin was sold and carting it back home.

There was a small station only about 100 yards away but often they would not have a supply and it would mean a trek of about half a mile to the next larger petrol station. Half a mile doesn’t seem far, but for someone of about seven years old, carrying two 1 gallon cans, one weighing down each arm, it was always and arduous task. No matter how hard I tried, I would always end up with some of the dreaded liquid spilt on me, only a tiny amount, a few drops, or the can would rub on my clothes, but it was enough to result in me carrying around the foul paraffin smell about me all day.

At some point early on, money was injected into the house. A rich red carpet was laid on the stairs and landings, everywhere was decorated and the house became a lot lighter. The large front room with its enormous bay window overlooking the park was to become my favourite room in the house. Sylvie had painted it in pale colours and laid a deep royal blue carpet. It had its original large, grey and white marble fireplace, deep skirting boards and a decorative ceiling rose. Sylvie had obviously invested money somehow on dressing the window beautifully in long blueish grey patterned drapes with fitted pelmets and tie backs. They framed the window beautifully and were to remain for as long as I can remember. This was to become a living room but not one used every day, more at weekends and times such as Christmas or special occasions.

The size of the house, and the large family within it, resulted in the need to maintain a constant flow of money. Larry still worked away at this time, but less so. Although still HGV driving, his work also now involved furniture removals and Sylvie’s son had left school and joined him in this. The work would take them away for odd the odd night or two most weeks but generally they were home most nights. The money coming in was not enough to maintain the house and the family so various ideas of bringing income in had to be formulated and put into action.

It also meant that this is where the hard work started.

Later – Two Gaping Wounds.

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Later

Later on into the evening, Sylvie lifted the padding again. It was soaked in blood but by now the bleeding had eased to a slow ooze. However, it was now clear to see that two horizontal gaping slashes, one slightly bigger than the other, adorned the back of my hand.

The size of the wounds and their gaping meant that they should have had hospital care, needed stitches and possibly other attention, but Sylvie knew that these types of wounds and their location couldn’t be explained away as an accident.

I think she was also aware of my failing respect for Larry and that I might tell the truth if I was questioned regarding the cause of my injuries. As a result I didn’t go to the hospital or receive any proper medical care. Sylvie washed the wounds with salt water, dressed them and bought special little plasters, designed to pulling the gaping edges together but they didn’t really do any good.

Larry had the good fortune that the wounds did not become infected or suffer any other complications. It was at the start of half term holidays when it had happened, so by the time school started I was able to wear just a large plaster and had to explain it away as dog bite, obtained from one of the dogs we had groomed.

Still as it was, I was to be left forever with reminders of that day in the form of the two scars that remain to the back of my right hand. They are now more faded and blend somewhat when tanned but are constant reminder and something that that makes me shudder at the memory of that day.

The Big House.

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Although crowded in the small house, life seemed settled for a couple of years. Larry worked as an HGV driver and this would take him away for days at a time.

I went along to a local nursery, skipping along to it every day with the boy from next door, sometimes wheeling my little pink, moulded plastic pram or racing along on my tiny scooter. The nursery was in a grand, big old stone house with an enormous garden and I loved going there. All the children had their own peg to hang their coat and bags, and their own little towels. Above the peg would be a symbol, mine was a squirrel, and there would be the same corresponding symbol on your towel, your desk, your PE bag, even on the deck-chair type fold out beds and blankets which we were made to snuggle into every afternoon for one hour.

Just before I reached the age of five another house move was made. With the benefit of hindsight, I have realised that the move was one of necessity. Given the age of Sylvie’s youngest daughter and the time of moving into this house, Sylvie was obviously pregnant again. Already cramped in the tiny house, it wasn’t going to be able to accommodate another child.

Still too young to really understand, I vaguely recall standing in a big room in a house, it seemed dark with a very high ceiling and there was some rubbish on the floor, old screwed up newspapers and some rags. I also have a recollection of standing in the garden looking back at the house surrounded by weeds and grass as tall as I was then. I realise now that this must have been when we were taken to view the house. Soon a ‘mortgage’ of sorts was arranged with a local business man who owned the house. The move was made and this was to become our permanent home.

The house was on a main road, opposite a park and about half a mile from the previous one. It was a large bay fronted end terraced house with a long row of lock up garages along its side. It was built around late Victorian times and still had some original features such as marble fireplaces, Minton style tiles on the hall floor, deep skirting boards, cornicing and ceiling roses. There were two large reception rooms, the front one with an enormous bay window and both with ceilings fourteen feet high. There was another large room which initially was used as a dining room and a large stone kitchen with an enormous stone fireplace, sadly not useable. It still had its original large walk- in stone pantry and an outside loo. Upstairs we had the luxury of five bedrooms, two of them enormous, one double, a single and 1 tiny box room. There was a large bathroom with a toilet and another separate toilet right at the end of the long landing. There was a long garden that was overrun with weeds and grass but soon put into some order by Sylvie with the rest of us enlisted as an army of helpers.

Three Different Fathers.

Very soon after the wedding, the move from the council estate was made. Why this happened I can’t be sure but Sylvie always apportioned the blame to Stan and there were often references to the fact that he had forced her out.

Maybe he refused to go on paying the rent and it is very likely that it was his name that was on the rent book. Sylvie’s obvious pregnancy would have meant he could no longer bury his head in the sand and I would imagine it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. After leaving the estate, myself and Sylvie’s children were not to see Stan for many years.

Larry was soon installed in our lives. He was tall and well built, just under six foot and had a head of dark hair. He had badly shaped teeth, not rotten, but one of his front teeth was longer that the others and hung down, it came to be termed his ‘pickle stabber’ by Sylvie’s older daughters.

He had a deep, smooth voice that I once heard described as ‘liquid chocolate.’ I remember him being left handed and he had lovely handwriting; all swirling letters, beautifully curved, precisely spaced and proportioned.

I almost loathe myself to say it but unfortunately I have very little other positive thoughts or memories of Larry. His selfish personality combined with Sylvie’s complex character resulted in many years of hard work and abuse because of their actions and the decisions they made.

There was the sudden move to a rented house 2-3 miles from the estate, effectively cutting us off from the friends and neighbors Sylvie and her daughters had lived among for the previous fourteen years.

It was a small flat fronted terraced house in a small side street, neat and tidy with a small back yard. There were two reception rooms and you entered it straight off of the street into the front room. The front room, as often happened then, was reserved for best, not that I ever recall it being used. The back reception served as our living / dining room and there was a small thin kitchen and downstairs bathroom and toilet.

Upstairs, Larry, Sylvie and their new baby, Sally, had the front bedroom, myself and two of Sylvie’s daughters shared the back bedroom sleeping on a set of bunk beds and a single bed, and the small box room was used by Sylvie’s son. Gina, of course, was now married with her own son and living with her husband in a flat a couple of miles away. The house was warm, clean and neat but obviously cramped.

I was obviously too young to understand but before long we were all known by Larry’s surname, except  Sylvie’s eldest daughter ,Gina, who had her own husbands name. I’m sure that Sylvie had blackened Stan’s name enough to persuade the older children that taking Larry’s name was for the best. It also meant that by the age of two and a half I had already had three different  fathers and three different surnames.

The Wedding.

 

We were soon to move from the estate but there was one last big event to occur prior to leaving. Gina, Sylvie’s eldest daughter, aged 16 and heavily pregnant, got married.

On several occasions over the years, Sylvie would comment on the fact that the man Gina married probably was not the father of this child. Gina had been seeing Jim, a man a few years older than herself, who had a good job in the printing industry.  Finding that she was pregnant, he had stood by her and married her, unaware of any of the rumors.

Although I was too young to remember the wedding, I could only have been two years and a few months old, I have vivid images in my head of the day, possibly ingrained due to the numerous photos I have seen and descriptions from Sylvie.

It was a bright spring day and Gina, although heavily pregnant, looked wonderful. As fashionable at the time, she wore a white lacy mid-thigh length dress, with long sleeves and high neck, white pointed winkle picker type shoes with a small heel. Her red hair was piled in a soft beehive and she carried a round posy of red roses, festooned with white ribbons trailing down.

Sylvie’s other two daughters and I were bridesmaids and wore simple, just above knee length, shift type dresses of deep red velvet, with short capped sleeves and round necks. On the bottom half of the dresses were stitched occasional coin sized lace white daisies.

On top of my now white blond curls was a coronet of white roses, the same as Sylvie’s younger daughter and all three bridesmaids carried a posy of white roses, this time with red ribbons.  Her second daughter now age fourteen wore her hair similar to Gina and acted as her chief bridesmaid.

I have to give all credit to Sylvie for the turnout of her daughters as all the dresses, including Gina’s, were made by her. She had spent several weeks, up late every night, cutting, sewing and stitching and with obvious skill, ensuring that the outfits were elegant and well made. Determined that she would be show her in laws to be that her family was properly turned out and despite Gina’s pregnancy she had nothing to be ashamed of.

Unfortunately, for some reason, I adamantly refused to smile for the photographs and in all of them I am seen scowling at the camera or hiding my face, no matter how much cajoling and promises of sweets were made.

Maybe it was a premonition of things to come.

Unquestioning Acceptance – Dad.

Acceptance

Although still dreaded, the physical punishments to some extent became the ‘norm.’ Although they frequently came out of the blue, none of us were ever too surprised to receive them.

We all suffered face slaps and a whack on the head or a smack on the legs with a broom or a stick. This was less so for the youngest two, Sylvie and Larry’s favourites, and  I was to endure them far more than any of the others, especially from Larry.

However, it is not so much the physical assaults that affected me so badly but more the tongue lashings and insults, the put downs and at times, the vitriolic rages that could erupt from nowhere.

In some ways the physical abuse was something that bonded me and my siblings, gave us something that we all had to endure, a common ground and one where we all understood the dysfunctional family dynamics.

I don’t know why Larry treated me the way he did. Was it my American association (he knew that Sylvie had been in love with an American Officer), was it because I was an easy target, or could I really have been so badly behaved?  Did the fact that Sylvie, as well as dishing out her fair share, turned a blind eye to Larry’s punishments and insults towards me,  allowed it to happen and so made it OK in his eyes?

By the time I was two and half years old, I had already had three different fathers; Grant, Stan and Larry.  Larry was the only person I had known as one and I had always called him Dad. Whatever had gone on I still viewed him as my father with an unquestioning acceptance that he would act like one and live up to the expectations and duties that come with the label of ‘Dad.’

Inevitably, my ‘unquestioning acceptance’ would eventually wear thin!

Changes after my Adoption.

The adoption process was completed and I was furnished with a new birth certificate and the surname of my new family. Incredibly, having gone through the all legalities involved and now having Stan’s surname, it is a name I have never knowingly used due to the events that were soon to take place.

Changes.

When I look back and think about life in Sylvie’s house up until shortly after my adoption, it could almost be considered normal in comparison to the way life changed in the years following. Changes that caused ripples and knock on effects, extending outwards and cascading over many years.

Prior to this time, the household had been running fairly ‘normally.’ Stan went to work, the kids went to school, Sylvie kept a clean house and nice garden, even the rumours regarding Sylvie’s involvement with other men were brazened out by Sylvie and the kids had always been used to hearing stuff , it didn’t really phase them.

Added to that, Gina, Sylvie’s eldest daughter,  was as strong headed and acid tongued as her mother and woe betide anyone that dared to say anything disparaging within her earshot.

When the trips to Alconbury and other nights out had started, the older kids looked after the younger ones and although they were made to help keep the house spick and span, they lived life pretty much as all the other kids on the estate. The state of their parent’s marriage was something they had lived with for years and had become the norm. This was not unheard of among many of their friends and families, divorce often not being an option and so husbands and wives forced to continue living together.

True, there were some stories of Sylvie’s frequent tongue lashings and it wasn’t unusual for them to receive the odd ‘walloping,’ including the time when Sylvie chased her eleven year old son along the street banging him about the head with a frying pan and screaming, “Come here you little b*****d, I’ll knock your bleeding brains out when I get hold of you!”

For the most part life just trundled on but things were to change when Sylvie started seeing her new love, Larry. By the time my adoption was finalised Sylvie was pregnant with his child. I’ve no idea how they met, which is strange considering the details of many other things I know about. He had been married with two sons, the youngest not much older than me and so it is possible that he was still with his wife at the time.

Larry’s presence meant that certain changes had to take place and whilst I do not blame him solely for the impact this had on the family, many events were triggered directly due to his appearance in our lives. The combination of his and Sylvie’s personalities and their handling of situations proved to be the start of immense disruption.

Never a Brand Label.

Label

….we were constantly having to economize, be careful with money and allow nothing to be wasted.

Lights had to be switched off when you left the room or you we would be greeted with a clip around the head and the words, “What do you think this is? Blackpool f*****g illuminations?”

There was always food in the house and we were always well fed but luxuries were few and far between. Sugar was limited and we had to use sweeteners in tea and coffee. Cereals and tinned foods were bought in large catering packs, never a brand  label, they were too expensive. We rarely had biscuits, sweets or chocolates and if we did they were allocated to us, one each.

Wasting food was something that could never be considered and the use of seasonal fruit and vegetables was the norm as was the use of leftovers for another meal. Ingrained within me is an inability to waste food and an ability to make good meals with whatever is available.

To this day I find it almost impossible to leave food on my plate and need to polish it off however full I am, bought about by years of being forced to clear my plate with Sylvie hovering over me with the threat of ‘You’ll bloody well sit there until you’ve finished it!” followed up with, “Or I’ll paste the bleeding living daylights out of you!” or “You’ll eat it cold for your f*****g breakfast!”

I don’t recall any of these threats actually happening, most likely because having the knowledge that she would carry them through, none of us would ever dare to take the risk.

Sylvie could make good meals out of very little and she could talk for hours about how she learned this from her mother. The softer side of Sylvie would emerge at these times and it was these talks with her that seemed to lighten things, take the pressure off for a short time.

I always recall these times with a warm glow and the memories of them conjure up a sense that it was a time of normality, everything was pleasant and I had a feeling of being loved and cared for. It didn’t matter that the talks tended to happen when I’d been ordered to help with laborious task such as washing, cooking, gardening or cleaning. It helped lighten the load, made time pass quicker and a was often a time when Sylvie would actually remain pleasant.

The Space under the Stairs.

Conquer

Larry, Sylvie’s second husband and my ‘step-father’ was a bully, he liked to be in control and could use his physical size to get his own way, as well as psychologically terrifying me.

Under the stairs in the house was small cellar type space that went down some stone steps to a small, thin room. At the end of this area was a hole in the wall that went only a small way under the house. This space was used to store food cans and other bits and bobs and it was cold and dark. There was a light in there but the switch was on the outside of the door.

A punishment Larry frequently used was to shove me in there, kicking and screaming, lock the door and switch off the light. It was probably the punishment I dreaded the most and I would much rather have endured a physical beating than be placed in that dark, cold room, with a gaping black hole from which I was convinced that all sorts of monsters and ghosts would emerge and tear me limb from limb.

No matter how many times it happened it was a fear I was never able to conquer and I would sob, weep and scream to be let out but to no avail. When eventually I would be freed, often after several hours, I would be reminded “That’s what you get when you think you can do what you like, you stupid bleeding Yank!”

Physical vs Emotional.

Luck

The physical punishments were real, they did happen and the thought of them makes me shudder. If I do think about them or describe them to someone, it causes me to cry. Not because it happened to me, but it is as though I am witnessing the scenes and their awfulness, causing me distress that this should happen to anyone.

I am aware that, compared to some, I had luck on my side in that whilst head whacks and slaps were a daily occurrence, the more viscous attacks were less frequent and could often be months apart or more. I am only too aware that some poor individuals suffer this type of torture on a daily basis and to the point of fatality at times. It is just the memories of the severity of these attacks that causes them to remain, the physical scars and the thoughts of the very real possibility of ‘But for the grace of God,’ I might not be here.

In many ways it is the emotional abuse and the isolation I suffered that had a more everlasting effect. As well as the isolation I felt within me, I was frequently physically isolated, separated from the rest of the family. My time in care was an obvious example of this but it was also evident on a frequent basis at home.  It was used frequently as a punishment whenever I had done something wrong, not done something well enough, not done something I should have or if I dared to open my mouth. I think even Sylvie and Larry realised that they could only punish me so much physically and isolating me was suitable alternative.

I would be made to spend long hours sat in my bedroom but only after I had completed the necessary jobs first.  I would be ordered upstairs to go and think about whatever it was I had or hadn’t done. On the face of it you would think that this punishment was preferable to some of the others but it would be long hours, sat bored and lonely, toys, books and anything that might occupy me, taken away. I would be made to sit on a chair with my hands placed under my thighs and every so often someone would be sent to check on me to ensure I was still positioned as such.

The Adoption Report.

 

Despite the resentment of Sylvie having to toe the line, the social worker visits were duly carried out and the following report was produced for the purpose of the court and for a Judge to make a decision.

This is the report I now have in my possession;

“I have interviewed Mr and Mrs P in their home and they have confirmed that the statements made in their application are true and complete. They have been married since August 1953 and there have been three children born of the marriage. Mrs P’s illegitimate child Gina, aged 16, is also a member of the household. Both Mr and Mrs P appear to be in good health and medical certificates are attached to the application.

The applicants occupy a Corporation house, where the accommodation comprises four bedrooms, two reception rooms, kitchen and bathroom. They pay a rent of £3.2s.7d a week. The house is clean and comfortably furnished and Mrs P maintains a very high standard of housekeeping.

Mr P is employed by (Company name)  as a truck driver and his wages, with overtime, amount to about £20 per week. Mrs P does a small amount of outdoor work for hosiery firm and is paid on a pro-rata basis for this.

Child A is the illegitimate daughter of Pamela T of (Address) Mrs T has been interviewed and reaffirmed her consent and identified the attached birth certificate as that of her child. She is 21 years of age and since her marriage in March this year has not worked outside the home. She has consented to the adoption because she found that she could not manage to bring up A on her own. The putative father is said to be  Mr G, an American Airman who returned to the United States in February of this year. Mrs T associated with this man for a fairly long period of time and said that at one time they had hoped to marry. For a period of about five months from the date of A’s birth, Mrs T stated that Mr G gave her sums of money up to £4 a week towards her own and the child’s maintenance. This financial help ceased when the couple broke off their engagement and from approximately April 1966 until October of that year, Mrs T maintained the child on National Assistance.  At this time she felt that she could no longer carry on and she placed the child with the applicants whom she had previously known as friends of her sister. On several occasions prior to the placement, Mrs P had undertaken A’s care for an evening or weekend when Mrs T had wanted to go out. Mrs T states that Mr G was aware that she had placed A with Mr and Mrs P with a view to adoption and this statement was independently corroborated by Mrs P.  Mr G is reported to have said that since he now had no intention of marrying Mrs T, he thought that this was the best plan.

Child A was received into the care of the applicants on 3^rd September 1966. The Welfare Authority was notified on the 14^th December, 1966 and the probationary has been successfully completed. A satisfactory reference has been received from the referee named in the application, who is also the family general practitioner.

Child A has not yet been baptised, but the applicants intend to bring her up in the Church of England faith. She has been medically examined and serological test for syphilis taken with negative results.  A satisfactory medical certificate is attached to the application.

No financial inducement has been offered or accepted on either side. The infant has no right to or interest in any property. No insurance policy has been effected for payment on the death of the child of money for funeral expenses.

Mr and Mrs P are aware of the responsibilities they incur in the adoption and seem happy to undertake them. Mrs P said that she felt particularly concerned for A’s future when she knew that her mother could not keep her because she had been in precisely the same position herself as an unmarried mother. She feels very strongly for the plight of illegitimate children and is confident that she and her husband have the facilities to offer a child a good home and upbringing. Mrs T is, of course aware of A’s whereabouts and the risks of this to both parties has been discussed. I feel that it is in A’s best interests for the adoption order to be made”

Something that I was never informed of and was to learn of many years later was a visit made by Pam and her new husband to see me at Sylvie’s house. No doubt this was kept from me as it might have actually put Pam in a good light, given me some hope that she had wanted to see me, might have cared about me or even have wanted me returned to her.

Whether this visit was of her own undertaking or suggested by social services I do not know, but part of me hopes she had gone there seeking reassurances, wanting to be sure that I was ok and that she was doing the right thing.  Had her new husband considered taking me on, to become my step-father and in doing so change the course of my life?

Pam and  her new husband and would have been received the same ceremony as the social worker, reassuring them how fortunate I was. Having not seen Pam for some time I did not know her, would not go to her and cried when she tried to hold me, the exact opposite of when Sylvie or her daughters picked me up and I cooed and chuckled happily.

By the time Pam left the house, although upset, she had made her decision. She turned to her husband and simply said, “I have to leave her there, she’s in the right place.”

She Outlived her Usefulness.

Instinct

One of the dogs we owned at the time was Vikki, a little brown poodle. She was quiet, timid, sweet natured and totally blind.

She was my favourite and whenever I called her she would toddle up to me, wagging her tail and would snuggle into my arms. With so many dogs around her and not being able to see, she would stand and shake when they were jumping and barking. If I picked her up and spoke to her she would relax and bury her head in any crevice she could find, such as under my arm or in my neck, as though trying to shut out the noise.

When the time was right Sylvie had her mated and she produced two puppies. However, within a few days they were found dead in the kennel. It appears that Vikki had killed them and eaten away their front legs. I often wonder if it was nature at work, maybe she had an animal instinct that they had the same genetic condition as her, which had caused her blindness.

Soon after this, Vikki was to disappear.Noticing one day that she wasn’t in the old stone pantry with the other dogs, I looked high and low, checking all the kennels with a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. She was nowhere to be seen and I was coming to the realisation that, to Sylvie, she had outlived her usefulness, was not providing the necessary puppies to earn her keep.

I hardly dared to ask Sylvie where she was but plucking up the courage, I approached her. Looking sheepish she just turned away and mumbled that she’d sold her to another breeder. I don’t know if this was the truth and didn’t dare think about what the truth could be.

I simply turned away and cried deep down inside myself, devastated at the loss of my sweet, frightened little friend.

A Record of Lies and Misrepresentations.

via Daily Prompt: Record
Record

In order for my adoption to proceed a record of a social worker’s visits and findings was made in order to produce a report for the courts. I now possess a full copy of this report and the record of lies and misrepresentations contained within it.

To anybody reading the report it would appear that I was incredibly fortunate, in a wonderful situation, a loving family, a warm, clean and tidy home and that I couldn’t have been better cared for. I don’t dispute that at this stage I was well cared for but the actual situation in the household was a far cry from the impression given to the social worker, documented into my record and subsequently entered into the report.

To some extent, a lot of what was done in regard to the social worker visits was probably normal and what most people would do in such circumstances, wanting to give the right impression and achieve a glowing report. However there were untruths, fabrications and deception in regard to the situation within the house at the time.

Whether Stan was still living in the house by now I do not know but it is certain that he and Sylvie no longer had anything left of their marriage. He had obviously appeared for the social worker visits and subsequent court dates, nodding and agreeing as appropriate and signing on the dotted line.

Sylvie was now involved with another man and from the timeline it is evident that by the time of my adoption she was already pregnant again, as was her eldest daughter Gina, aged sixteen. Less than eight months after my adoption, both children, another girl for Sylvie and boy for Gina, were born, their births only two days apart.

Had Stan gone along with the whole charade because he dare not incur the wrath of Sylvie? Had he been badgered into it or did he think he was doing the best thing for me?

Sylvie’s take on Stan’s involvement was like a double edged sword, “Give him his due, he stood by you, went along to the court and signed, let the adoption go through. Then again, he’s too sodding lily-livered to do anything else. It’s about the only thing he ever did do for you, the lazy b*****d!” I have to say here that there were several times during my life when I really wished he hadn’t.

The events occurring within Sylvie’s marriage and household at this point were to cause immense changes and upheaval that impacted greatly on the family. For me, it was to have a massive effect on the nature of my upbringing due to the way circumstances evolved as a result of these changes.

Had the information regarding the state of the marriage or Sylvie’s relationship and pregnancy to another man been known to social services causes me to question whether my adoption would have strictly been regarded as legal?

The Adoption.

If the fact that I came to stay with Sylvie and why she took me on, given her situation, is baffling, then the eventual adoption and the circumstances evolving at the time are quite incredible. I could go so far as to say that the adoption could have been declared illegal given the untruths and misrepresentations it was wrapped up in.

I had first started staying with Sylvie and her family around mid-to late 1966. My adoption was handled as a private one and although dealt with through the courts, it did require a social services report.  After I had been living with Sylvie for about ten months a social worker visited on a few occasions and a report was duly produced for the court, giving its recommendations  in regard to my future.

Sylvie resented this social services input, the visits to her home and the fact that she had to toe the line. With her greasy hair, baggy clothes and Jesus sandals, the social worker Jane was something of ‘Hippie’ type. Sylvie always described Jane as “Dolly f*****g daydream! I never saw such a scruffy looking f****r in all my life!  She was neither use nor ornament!”

For the visits Sylvie had obviously schemed and worked her magic, putting on a wonderful display and creating the right impression.  The house was scrubbed and polished from top to bottom, the best china tea set making a rare appearance and the home made cakes offered. Stan had been made to have a bath and to shave, ordered into a clean shirt and a tie, the kids into their Sundays best and hairs and brushed and gleaming. All of them had been given stern warnings about what to say and how to behave.

Having been bathed and dressed in my finest, I was placed in the garden in the Silver Cross pram to get some healthy fresh air as was considered best at that time. However, this was the one time that Sylvie’s treasured pram was not to serve her as well as she had planned.

Jane had arrived, this time to finalise the report, and after offers of tea and cake and polite chat, she had requested to see me. Sylvie happily led her through the kitchen but looking through the window to the pram at the bottom of the garden, she let out a scream, “Oh my god, where is she?” and flew out of the door and down the garden. On reaching the pram she was able to see me plonked down in the bottom of the deep well of the pram, playing with my feet.

“You little git!” she uttered. Whilst the social worker and Sylvie’s daughters had hesitated, surprised by Sylvie’s sudden flight down the garden it took them a few moments to follow her. By the time they had caught up with her and came into earshot, the words ‘you little git’ had magically transformed into a sweet “Oh you little angel, you gave me such a fright.”

The carriage body of the pram had a deep well with boards that slotted over the cavity to provide a base for the mattress. I somehow had been able to get my fingers under the boards and remove them, meaning that I dropped own into the well and out of sight. Along with the blankets, sheets and pillows, the boards were strewn on the lawn where I discarded them, ruining the image that Sylvie had wanted to present of me beautifully bedecked in the lovely pram.

Jane had picked up the boards and questioned the safety of the pram. Reassuring Jane that she would get Stan to fix it, she turned her back to her and said through gritted teeth to the girls, “Could you please ask your father to look at the pram for me,” in the sweetest voice she was able to manage.

Quickly realising she needed to rescue the situation, Sylvie turned on the charm. Leading Jane back into the house she commented, “Jane you do look lovely today, is that a new skirt you’re wearing?” secretly grimacing at the bright orange, frayed hem and ankle length hippie type garment. Jane had apparently lapped up this and several other compliments that Sylvie bestowed upon her. Sylvie found this hilarious and would often declare, “The dozy mare, she lapped it up. Nice skirt my arse! F**k me, I’ve seen better dressed scarecrows,” Or another favourite was, “I wouldn’t have used that bleeding skirt to wipe my arse!”

 

 

An ice cold bath.

Pattern

…… I lowered myself down into the rising, freezing cold water. However, my overriding memory is not the icy cold numbness, it is Sylvie’s words that will ring in my ears forever…

..”You adopted little bastard! That’s all the thanks that I get for everything I’ve done for you. It’s no wonder your f*****g mother didn’t want you, that’s why she couldn’t be bothered to feed you, too busy f*****g around with other blokes. Do you think she’d ever have bothered about you? F**k all on your back when you came to us and this is all the thanks we get. Then you go and behave like that. You evil little sod!”

I tried to object and explain but the instant my mouth opened it was swiftly closed with a slap. At this point I started to cry, still dazed and mystified as to what had happened. I was ordered out of the bath and sent to bed, even though it was only mid-afternoon, where I remained without food or drink until the next morning.

The whole episode didn’t last long and Sylvie didn’t leave me in the bath for more than a few minutes, but the whole incident was to set a pattern and was to become the start of my realisation that I really wasn’t thought of in the same way the other children were, something separated me and set me apart.

I now feel that it was from this point that my childhood was lost.

Why did Sylvie take me on?

I don’t think anybody will ever be able to say exactly why Sylvie was to take me on, I’m not sure that even she would have been able to tell me with any real certainty. She did love having babies to care for but I’m not sure that this was due to any overly maternal or protective reasons, I more suspect that it had more to do with an element of control.

Having a baby in her care meant that she was able to dress them up, show them off and display ‘what a wonderful mother I am,’ pushing them around in the beautifully decked out Silver Cross pram. Babies did not argue back and and she could start to mould them as she wished.

Contrary to this, I do not think that taking me on was done with any malicious intent or monetary gains, I believe that she probably had the best of intentions in that she thought she could provide a better start for me. Trying to understand it all I can only believe that circumstances evolved as they did due to a mixture of Sylvie’s own complex personality, the people involved and events that occurred over the coming years.

Sylvie loved to relate the story of my arrival into her home to anyone who had ears and I suppose I like to think that it did trigger some maternal instinct in her. However, over the years, it was often used as a way of reminding me of my beginnings and how fortunate I was that she had ‘rescued’ me.

I was around nine months old at this time and the attire I was said to have arrived in has been described to me in great detail on many occasions. I was dressed in an old, dirty, tight fitting, yellow cardigan, the wool matted together. My nappy was described as badly stained and hanging off of me, heavy with acrid, smelly urine.

There was little else other than the shawl I was wrapped in; “The only decent bleeding thing you had!” Sylvie would often sneer. “And she soon took that f****r back as she said she wanted a reminder of you.  Reminder, my arse!”  Apparently there was little else in the way of clothes, nappies or toys.  “Little and f***k all,”  was Sylvie’s comment, “And what there was went straight in the f*****g bin!”

I was promptly stripped, scrubbed and dressed in hastily borrowed clothes, from friends and neighbors who had no doubt been regaled with stories of the dismal state of my arrival. I was then plonked into the immaculate Silver Cross pram, bought out of storage, and wheeled along the street for Sylvie to be admired for her ‘wonderful deed and kind heart’.

Whilst I am sure that some elements of the story are truthful, I am also sure that there have been many  embellishments over the years in order to blacken my image of Pam, whilst placing Sylvie in shining light.

There but for the Grace of God..

Nervous
He could have killed me, of that I am fully aware, but for the Grace of God, my life could easily have ended on one particular day….

Larry was raining blows down on me again and again, at any part of me he could get to and shouting as he grabbed at me to try to keep me still, “You thieving little b*****d, you can’t f*****g help yourself can you, you greedy, thieving little b*****d!” all the time continuing to use his full force with each blow of the bat, hitting my head over and over. It was like I was in some nightmare, being attacked by some monster and desperately trying to fend off the blows. I didn’t know what else to do, what was going on. I didn’t have time to try cry or question, only to scream and use my arms and legs to try to ward of the blows to my head and body. Dazed, I felt that my head would explode, that one more blow and my head would split open and my brains erupt all over the room.  Larry was getting more enraged and carried on shouting out the same things, accusing me, but I had no idea what of, not that any of this was really registering at the time. I tried to escape but he would grab me by my clothes with one hand and continue hitting me with the bat with the other

…..I was on the floor, trying to prop myself up, dazed, confused, scared, crying and hurting all over. I still didn’t know what had happened and was petrified it would start again. Julie came over to help me up but Larry shouted at her to “Leave the thieving little b*****d where she is,” followed by the all too familiar; ‘adopted little b*****d, ungrateful, what can we expect, the way her mother was,’ etc speech that I was so used to hearing, so much so that it almost failed to register any more.

Physically, the wounds of that day remained for weeks but the psychological impact has always remained and can never be erased. I had already lost respect for Larry but this beating bought about something deeper. It changed something within me and whilst beaten down in one respect, it triggered something, sowed the seeds of survival, a need to live and get through it all. My head was heavy and ached for weeks, my scalp tender to touch and brushing my hair made me wince and yelp. I had bruises everywhere, especially my forearms, that had taken many of the blows intended for my head and body.  As it was the start of the summer holidays there wasn’t a need to keep me away from school until the bruising disappeared. The bruises would eventually fade and the aches and pains would resolve but I continued to shake inside, nervous with an anxiety that simmered within me for many years to come.

My adoption, -‘Another bloke there!’

Being a hopeful for the USA  Olympic wrestling team and also because of air force postings, it meant that Grant had to spend periods of time away from England. Whilst I was growing up there were frequent references to the fact that at one point Grant had been away for some time, leaving Pam living alone in the tiny flat with their baby daughter. Arriving back in England, Grant made the trip to see Pam, unannounced.

As would be repeated to me numerous times whenever my history was bought up, “She’d got another f*****g bloke there!”  No attempt was ever made to soften this information and no matter how many times I heard it, it never failed to hurt immensely. By insulting my natural mother in this way it was also a personal insult, another verbal dig at my unfortunate beginnings.

Many years later, the presence of another man was more or less confirmed, but this time in a much more tender and considerate way. Whilst the presence of another man seems indisputable, the biggest part of me tries to justify things for Pam. Did she think he had gone away, left and abandoned her and their baby? Not being able to communicate in the way today’s technology allows, no mobile phones, no Skype, no Facebook, even the use of a landline telephone was not always accessible or affordable.

Did she think that she was alone, abandoned, a single parent, struggling to cope and so had started seeing someone else? Although my head suspects that the truth is possibly less palatable, my heart clings to the need to think the best of her, give her the benefit of the doubt, hoping that she hadn’t caused the break-up by knowingly being unfaithful to Grant.

It couldn’t have been easy for Pam, living in the tiny, cold flat, coping with a small baby alone. No mention has ever been made of any contact or support from her parents and, for some reason, I suspect that they may not have known about me. Bessie was busy working and caring for her own daughter and by now was making arrangements to move to America, having secured a job there as a housekeeper / nanny.

For some time, Bessie and Sylvie had been having conversations about Pam, her break-up with Grant, her poor living circumstances and the difficulties Pam was having coping. Sylvie offered to babysit for Pam, an arrangement that gradually extended by a few more days each time. Before long, Sylvie had offered to take the baby for a while, supposedly to help Pam get back on her feet. How long either of them intended this length of time to be for I shall never know, but it was the start of the life with Sylvie and her her family.

‘Fag Ash and Baked Beans!’

Doubt

“An ugly little bleeder,” was how I was described. Fat and bald! Nothing so kind as  chubby or chunky, big or pleasantly plump but without a doubt, quite simply ‘fat and bald’.

It seems quite so much so that the family would rub my bald, shiny head and declare ‘Happiness is Egg-shaped.’  This slogan, amongst others such as ‘Eggs are Cheap,’ ‘Eggs are Easy,’ and ‘Go to Work on an Egg,’ was used by the Egg Marketing Board in the late 1960’s to promote eggs and the slogans became popularised through advertising campaigns. It obviously became a source of amusement for the family to apply this likeness to me and I’m told that I would chuckle along every time they rubbed my head.

How I came to be fat as a baby could be said to be somewhat of a mystery given my apparent diet prior to my adoption. On asking what it was I liked to eat, my mother Pam had flippantly replied, “Oh, she loves Fag Ash and Baked Beans!”  This reply would come to haunt me for many years to come and was repeated to me whenever I did something wrong to remind me how ungrateful I was to have been saved from a lifetime diet of fag ash and baked beans.

At the time of my birth…..

At the time of my birth in late 1965, Pam was living in tiny flat, more of a bedsit, in a large terraced villa, close to the city. The houses remain today, large bay fronted , three or four storeys high, with small front gardens and several steps up to the front door. Being on the first floor and at the front of the building, the flat combined of a combined living / kitchen area and there was a small area off to one side, barely big enough to fit a small double bed and with a curtain across so as to serve as a ‘bedroom’.

Winter was freezing cold in the flat with only a small paraffin heater which would burn yours knees if you stood near it to try to get warm, whilst your back would remain frozen. Consequently, any time spent there required the wearing of an overcoat or resorting to getting into bed.

Very little cooking was ever attempted on the tiny, two burner stove and the need to constantly feed coins into the electricity meter meant that often, by the end of the week when money had ran out, evenings would be spent sat in the dark, or again getting into bed to combat the cold, loneliness and boredom. Luxuries were few, there was no television or telephone but some of the residents were fortunate enough to own a transistor radio.

The bathroom and toilet were shared by all the residents on the same floor and at times would result in a queue of crossed legs along the landing, especially in the mornings. As a result, it was necessary to keep an old fashioned chamber pot under the bed in case of emergencies!

A bath was allowed one per week per resident and it was hard luck if you missed your slot. Some of the residents, with their obvious lack of concern regarding any form of personal hygiene, made it possible for deals to be made, exchanging a ‘couple of fags’ or ‘two bob’ for them to give up their allotted bathroom slot.

As was normal at the time, the landlord or one of his ‘assistants’ would call each week to collect the rent, paid in cash and the appropriate entry made in the rent book. Inability to pay was met with very little sympathy and it was common to find somebody’s belongings thrown out onto the street, the lock to their flat already changed and  a new tenant already installed.

It’s never too late to have a good childhood.

Hesitate

I hesitate – just for a moment.

Every time someone discovers that I was adopted they invariably ask ‘did you have a good childhood?’ or something to that effect. In their heads I can picture the scene that they imagine; the lovely childless couple, eager to adopt and provide a loving, happy home and shower affection on a poor parent-less mite.

During that split second, when I hesitate, it is as though my childhood flashes before me, all of the aspects and memories of it. What comes out of my mouth are the words that sum up my overriding feelings.

Whilst my upbringing could not have  been further away from this idyllic image, I always respond with, “Yes, I had a good childhood.”

The negatives were many and, at times, in the extreme. However, I see the sum of my upbringing as being what I am today.

I will not ignore or deny the darker times and will speak frankly about them, it is necessary to tell that side of the story.

Choosing to draw on the love, immense laughter and rich memories is not something I do consciously. It comes from within me, enabling me to be the person I am today, with the belief that ‘Its never too late to have a good childhood.’

Two gaping wounds.

Quicken
Standing in the old stone kitchen by the sink, Larry was standing to the left of me, buttering some bread with a large, old butter knife we had used for years. I had been made to stand there whilst he ranted and raged at me about whatever it was I done wrong. I was stood with my right hand rested on the edge of the sink and suddenly, as swift as a flash, Larry grabbed my right wrist, fixing my hand flat to the top of the sink and shouted’ “I’ll teach you, I’ll chop you’re f*****g fingers off!” Being left handed meant that he was in the perfect position as he was able to grab hold of my right wrist with his right hand and using his left hand, holding the butter knife, he bought it down in two sharp whacks onto the back of my hand. Two gaping wounds instantly appeared on the back of my hand and blood spurted everywhere. It had happened in an instant and I’m not sure who was more shocked, me or Larry. I squealed and wanted to be sick, blood was gushing everywhere, I could feel my breathing and heart rate quicken and I thought I would faint. Larry stood open mouthed and wide eyed for a few seconds then started shouting, “Sylvie, get in here quick, she’s bleeding all over the place!”………..

………… as it was, I was to be left forever with reminders of that day in the form of the two scars to the back of my right hand. They are now more faded and blend somewhat when tanned but remain as a reminder and something that makes me shudder at the memory of that day.

Isolation.

Center
A sense of isolation cloaked me for as far back as I can remember. Sometimes the reason for it was obvious; my adopted status, the venomous words alluding to it and the noticeable differences in the way I was treated. At other times it could be more subtle and less noticeable, even to me at times. Inevitably, something would always happen to remind me, put me in my place, in the center of a dark cloak of loneliness that would wrap around me, engulfing me with a sense that I might as well be stranded alone in the middle of a desert.

My father – Grant.

Wrestling for the USA team, Grant was a hopeful for the Olympic Games. It wasn’t the WWF hyped type of commercial wrestling more familiar today but as a disciplined sport, common in America.

Being around five foot eight tall, he had a head of thick, brown, wavy hair, he wore glasses, and although slim, he had broad wrestler’s shoulders and deep chest. His walk, with rounded shoulders, is the same walk I have always had. As much as I have tried over the years to improve my terrible posture, I always naturally revert to this stooped, round shouldered stance.

Meeting my maternal aunt Bessie for the first time, one of the first things she said to me was, “You walk exactly the same as your father!” This was despite the fact she had not seen him for twenty eight years and time has proven her to entirely correct.

Grant recalls his trips to see Pam in her home town, at the small flat that was more of a bedsit. Somebody he knew owned a little old sports car and he would hitch a lift from them whenever they were heading that way.Making the trips on early mornings, they would drive through thick fog on the cold, damp, journeys with the wind whistling into the car and no heater working.

Although Pam wasn’t living at home Grant must of met her parents as he has memories of Sunday dinners and he fondly recalls her mother’s enormous Yorkshire Puddings, the size of dinner plates.

Sometimes Grant would catch the train and he and Pam would would drink at little club close to the train station, a place frequented by several US airmen and also where Bessie would often go to.  With Bessie being eight years older, quite forceful and opinionated, Grant always felt a little overpowered and intimidated by Bessie and consequently, like Pam, they were not close.

I’m not sure of the timeline but I’m guessing that Pam was pregnant before too long as I was born just after she turned twenty. Far from being abandoned Pam and Grant made plans to marry. Whether those plans were made out of necessity, due to the pregnancy, or whether they were truly in love I cannot say.

Coming directly from the orphanage into the military, I would guess that he had not had much experience with the opposite sex. He once talked about Pam and stated, “She was my first love, my first everything.”

Pam and Grant completed the necessary forms required by the US Air Force for the marriage to go ahead. I now have these forms, given to me by my father -Grant. Along with a couple of photograph slides of me as a baby and a few other items he had kept them safely for more than thirty years.

Death at 36.

via Daily Prompt: Baby
Baby

When speaking about Pam, Grant is always hesitant and I sense him needing to be truthful but wanting to be kind towards her. Partly, I feel that this is done to protect my feelings, but like myself, I can see that he is acutely aware that she is not here to defend herself or to have her say. I suspect that it is also associated with his own mother’s death; like Pam, at the age of thirty-six, the similar uncomfortable circumstances surrounding it and the fact that she too is not able to defend or explain her actions.

His mother had been an alcoholic, married twice and had six children at the time of her death. Days had been spent drinking heavily and she had amassed enormous debts. At the age of thirty-six, she was found unconscious at the bottom of a flight of steps in the cellar of a drinking place. It is thought that she had been there for two days and she died shortly after due to pneumonia. There must have been endless stories and rumors about his mother and her behavior and similarly, like the ones regarding Pam, I’m sure that they were less than complimentary.

Unfortunately, like Pam, her death had robbed her of the chance to have her say, put forward her side of the story, or even just have the chance to say ‘Sorry’.

Despite hopes and dreams of a ‘happy ever after’, their plan did not work out and Grant and Pam separated.  The association between Sylvie, Bessie and Pam offered up a solution to a single mother who, for various reasons, found herself alone, with a baby,  in 1960’s England, with no support and struggling to cope.

My natural parents – Pam and Grant.

Pam was an office worker, working in the engineering and shoe industries. One of the few things that the man she was married to at the time of the death was able to tell me of her was her incredible numeracy skills and how she put them to good use. He spoke of how she could instantly work out the amount of leather needed to make different styles of shoes and also, how she could add up long columns of numbers on the factory spreadsheets, in her head, in a matter of seconds.

Travelling along to enjoy the evenings at Alconbury, Pam would have been eighteen or nineteen years old when she met an American airman  called Grant. Being the same age as Pam, their birthdays were only a few weeks apart.

Our histories could well have been very different if fate had deemed it, as after initial training with the US Air Force, half of Grant’s squadron were sent to Vietnam and Grant, with the other half, was stationed in the UK at Alconbury.

Grant had entered the US Air Force after leaving an orphanage in Pennsylvania. His mother had died at the age of thirty six, coincidentally the same age of death as Pam’s would later be and also similarly, in strange circumstances. He had been six years old and the youngest of six children at the time of his mother’s death. Struggling to cope, his father eventually had no choice but to place the younger children  into the care of the famous Milton Hershey School.

The Milton Hershey School had been established in 1910 and at that time was called The Hershey Industrial School. Having been founded and funded by the chocolate industrialist and philanthropist Milton Hershey and his wife, it was established;

‘for impoverished, healthy, Caucasian, male orphans between the ages of eight and eighteen, ‘

the guiding principles being that;

‘every graduate should have a vocation’  

‘every student should learn the love of God and man’

and that;

‘every student should benefit from wholesome responsibility’.

The school still exists today as a philanthropic, private boarding school, funded by the Milton Hershey School Trust, which holds controlling interest in The Hershey Company, owning the Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company. It is overseen by the Board of Managers and today is one of the wealthiest schools in the world.

The school became racially integrated in 1968 and female students were first admitted in 1977. Admission criteria are based on age, financial need, social need, potential to learn and geographic preference, as preference is still given to students from Pennsylvania.

During Grant’s time at the orphanage, the children would be placed with families on the farms in and around Hershey. They were mostly deeply religious families and the children were expected to follow the beliefs of the families they were placed with, sometimes with extreme religious instruction.

Hard work on the farms was rewarded with a roof over their heads, food, an education and healthcare. Grant is thankful for his placement there and has declared that it probably saved his life. However, there could also be beatings with canes or leather straps and they were forced to endure the ridicule of the local children, who commonly termed the orphanage boys ‘cows’.

The name ‘cows’ had evolved due to the fact that the orphans had to care for the cows on the farm, often being seen in the fields, feeding and herding them and also,  due the fact that the boys had to milk the cows twice daily, something that only ceased to a requirement in 1989!

 

My adoption; Bessie and Pam.

Eight years older than her younger sister Pamela, known as Pam, Bessie always felt that Pam would copy anything she did. It was Bessie who first started making the weekly trips to Alconbury but, before long, Pam was following suit.

Whilst writing this story and thinking about the people involved, the stories I have been told and any memories that I have, it has struck me very harshly and with an immense deal of sadness, the realisation that of all the people involved in my life, the person I know the least about is my natural mother Pam.

Bessie has told me as much as she is able  but she and Pam were never close due to the eight year age gap, their very differing personalities and the fact that they did not mix in the same groups of friends.

Bessie left for the USA when Pam was only twenty an although she made several trips back to the UK, their time together was limited and the trips would be some years apart. Compared to today, communications systems were limited to writing letters and the occasional costly phone call.

It causes me great sadness that I was never to meet Pam as she died in strange circumstances in 1980. There are very few photos of her but the ones that I have seen show us to be similar in looks, fair haired, slightly taller, slimmer and big busted. I also inherited her prominent nose and her fondness for the odd Gin and tonic or two! It would also seem that we are also more similar in personality, quieter and less forceful. This is one of the areas that forces me to question the ‘nature or nurture’ debate. Was I born this way, or is it a result of my upbringing; the constant suppression of any attempts to express an opinion, to defend an argument and the physical repercussions if I persisted in trying?

Much of what I was told about Pam when I was growing up was, to say the least, unkind, uncomplimentary and at times cruel. Unfortunately it has to be said that a fair amount of the stories held some truths. In my head I hear the facts and know that I have to face them, but deep within my heart I feel that I almost need to speak for her, to justify her actions at that time and the circumstances that led to them. Perhaps this comes from the fact that she hasn’t been able to speak up for herself, to tell me how she felt, had she loved me and if she had regretted giving me up.

Truthfully though, I am forced to admit that I think it is more a desire within me to see my beginnings with a more romantic glow, through rose tinted glasses, ignoring some of the unpleasant, glaring truths.

Sylvie, my adopted mother – Sylvie and Bessie.

In her mid twenties, red -headed, short of height, quick witted, humorous, strongly opinionated and determined; all of these summed up Bessie. Like Sylvie had been, she was a single mother with a young daughter, aged about six years old. Bessie was academically very bright, having studied aeronautical engineering and was working in a large, local engineering factory. She had a longing to go to America, not as a result of any romantic notions or her trips to Alconbury; she saw it as a place of opportunity and the chance to make a new life for herself and her daughter. Realising her ambition she was to successful in making the move to America, remaining there to this day.

Like Sylvie, Bessie loved to talk and so the conversation flowed once they had started chatting and, having become friends, Bessie sometimes visited Sylvie at home. On one of these visits Sylvie was wearing a white skirt and as she turned to put the kettle on Bessie noticed a clear black hand print on each buttock of the skirt. “Sylvie, what on earth have you done to your skirt?” she asked. Looking down at the offending marks, Sylvie burst out laughing and said, “Oh nothing, that was Nutty Slack, the coalman, he just called in!” Bessie related this story as one of her memories of Sylvie and when relaying it to Sylvie’s older daughters, they too laughed, confirming it to be true and well known and absolutely typical of Sylvie!

Bessie was hard working, independent and resourceful, turning her hand to most things. before entering engineering, she had spent some time working as a bus conductress. These were the days of open backed, London style buses, where the conductor or conductress would be there to see people safely onto the bus, help with bags, children, pushchairs and the like. They would take your fare and dish out tickets from the little ticket machine hanging on a leather strap across their body to rest on their hip. They were smartly dressed in uniform skirts or trousers with a jacket and hat, making sure that their buses ran in an orderly fashion and on time.Passengers were expected to behave or they would be ejected if necessary. Bessie took a pride in the job and was more than equal to the tasks it imposed.

With fond memories, Bessie recalls the frequent nights working the ‘late bus’, and the evenings of thick fog, known as ‘Pea Soupers’, a thick yellowish, greenish or blackish fog caused by air pollution. On one occasion the fog was so thick that the driver could not see even a few yards in front of him. Walking in front of the bus in order to guide him, Bessie too could hardly see and had to inch along, terrified that she may guide the bus and its cargo of tipsy, merry, late-night passengers off of the road and into a building or a ditch.

Sylvie, my adopted mother, Sylvie and Josie.

Although it would appear that Josie was somewhat course and hard-nosed, she was actually, in a lot of ways, kinder and more soft hearted than Sylvie. Josie liked having a good time and never made any excuses for it. She wasn’t one to care about the state or cleanliness of her  house, didn’t ever think to put a meal on the table and would go off out in the evenings, leaving her children to fend for themselves. Whilst she could be regarded as being neglectful, I don’t ever remember her being cruel, unkind or violent towards her children and certainly not in the same manner as the treatment I received from Sylvie. Many times I felt envious of Josie’s children, of their freedom, their easy going lifestyles and the luxury of not having to endure frequent tongue lashings or physical attacks.

How long Sylvie went along to Alconbury I’m not sure but it was long enough for her to have an affair with an American officer there. Again it wasn’t something she talked about much but there were references to him occasionally. Sylvie’s older daughters were aware of him as they were old enough to understand what was going on at the time, remembering hushed conversations between Sylvie and Josie. They got the impression that Sylvie and he were deeply in love and desperately wanted to be together. He was a married man, maybe with children, and Sylvie was obviously married with four of her own, putting many obstacles in their path, forcing them to part.

As a child I recall Sylvie having a large jewelry box and within this was a smaller box containing a matching set of Blue Wedgwood and silver earrings and a necklace. It was common knowledge that the American officer had given these to Sylvie as a parting gift. They remained in pristine condition in their original box and sadly were never to be worn.

The pivotal aspect of my story is the acquaintance of Sylvie and Bessie. As well as making the trips with Josie, friendships were made with other women, on the coach journeys and in the nightclub.

The meeting of Sylvie, Bessie and eventually Bessie’s younger sister Pam was to start a series of events that would result in my adoption and my life story.

Sylvie, my adopted mother, Sylvie and Josie.

Sylvie would tell us stories like this right from when I was a young age and really shouldn’t have been privy to some of the contents. She didn’t hold back and would go into great detail, having us all in fits of laughter, largely due to the fact that she herself would be nearly hysterical with laughter, almost wetting herself and tears rolling down her face. No matter how many times she told these tales, she never failed to get the same reactions.

Despite only being in her early thirties, Josie had none of her own teeth and needed to wear dentures. Unsurprisingly, the dentures were to become more fodder for Sylvie’s stories. My sisters and I were present for one incident but it didn’t stop Sylvie relaying the details time and again over the years in her usual hilarious fashion; Eating and cheese and tomato sandwich in our house one day, Josie suddenly put down her sandwich and started running her tongue vigorously around her teeth, top and bottom and each side of the insides of her cheeks. Stopping this action, she said, “Oh these bloody tomato seeds!” and promptly proceeded to remove her top denture and without any flicker of embarrassment or effort to conceal them, she turned the denture over, and ran her tongue along the underside to remove the seeds. With a quick inspection and satisfied look, she popped it back into her mouth and continued eating, totally oblivious to our open mouthed, stunned reactions.

On another occasion, on one of their trips to Alconbury, Sylvie and Josie were stood at the bar having a drink when one of their companions, a tall, well-built American airman, arrived to join them and greeted Josie with a playful and exuberant slap on the back and a loud “Hi there Josie!” At this point Sylvie loved to relate with elaborate gestures the way Josie’s dentures flew out of her mouth and whizzed along the bar to land, smiling upwards at another airman who sat there drinking his beer. He took one look at the smiling teeth, put down his beer, looked at Josie with a raised, questioning eyebrow and with an American drawl of the Deep South, just said, “Excuse me Ma’am?”.  Apparently, Josie simply hopped down from her barstool, skipped along the bar, picked up her denture, popped it back into her mouth, said “Thanks very much,” then slid back onto her stool and continued her drink and chat as though nothing had happened.

 

 

Sylvie, my adopted mother, her life – continued.

Stan worked long hours as a lorry driver but it seems he did little else other than that. Sylvie complained about his lack of personal hygiene and the fact that he had very little interest in anything except smoking. I did get to know Stan, he even came to stay with us many years after their divorce when I was aged about eleven or twelve, when he broke his leg falling off of a lorry and wasn’t able to look after himself. He was a quiet man and seemed soulless, he didn’t seem to have any life in him, smoking constantly, skeletally thin and tall; he never appeared or smelled clean. I don’t know if he ever went to work again after the accident and there was never any suggestion of him being involved with any other women after Sylvie.

A third child was born only eighteen months after the second and this time it was a boy,the only boy Sylvie was to have. There were numerous rumours circulating on the estate as to the paternity of this child as by now Sylvie had gained somewhat of a reputation due to her liaisons with some of the men who lived there, including married men and the husbands of neighbours and friends.

As recently as last year at a family wedding, Sylvie’s sister, when speaking of her, mentioned the fact that Sylvie was rumoured to have slept with all three brothers in one family at one time or another, a family we had known well. At Sylvie’s funeral one of these brothers had turned up and announced himself to be the father of Sylvie’s son; it has to be said that there is a striking similarity. Despite being aware of these rumours for many years before, Sylvie never went to any effort to confirm or deny them, she would simply smile and shrug her shoulders.

Despite the rumours Sylvie and Stan stayed together for some years after, having another girl four to five years after the son was born. However, within a few years after that they no longer had anything that they could call a marriage. By this time Sylvie was living life as though she was a single woman, going out when she pleased, sometimes staying out all night. It was around this time that she started making the trips to Alconbury with her friend Josie.

Josie had been married two or three times and had lived with several different men, She was a large character, both in personality and size. She was tall and statuesque, with long dark hair, wore bright red lipstick and red nail varnish on long talon like nails. Standing about five foot ten, with size nine feet,  she had manly features and a deep voice from many years of heavy smoking. The reason I knew about her size nine feet is because of a story Sylvie would love to tell us; Josie had been proudly showing off a new pair of thigh length boots that she had bought, Sylvie described them as being enormous, size nine with immense stiletto heels, about six inches. When asking her how on earth she could wear them, Josie had replied that they were great for in the bedroom. Sylvie had questioned what for, picturing Josie dressed up in the boots and little else, when Josie declared, “Well when I’m on top, I can straddle a single bed in these!”

Sylvie, my adopted mother, her life – continued.

Sylvie remained at home throughout her pregnancy and until after her daughter was born. She continued to work right up to the end of her pregnancy, working as an overlocking machinist in the local hosiery factory. It was hard work, long hours and required the lifting of heavy bags and piles of sections of knitwear ready for overlocking. After stitching the sections together, the heaps of completed sweaters, tank tops and cardigans would need to be counted, bagged and hoisted around. Returning to work only a few weeks after her daughter was born was a necessity, her father and step-mother were certainly not going to support her, it was made quite clear to her that she was lucky that they had let her remain at home with a roof over her head. Returning to the hard work of the hosiery factory was a brave move in itself, as it was a hotbed of gossip and disapproval. Relying on the services of a childminder was something she could ill afford but it did mean that she was able to keep her child, something that many women at the time were unable to do. It was common for families to disown their unmarried, pregnant daughters if they did not conceal their pregnancy and put their child up for adoption.

With stubbornness and determination Sylvie worked hard to keep her daughter. She knitted and sewed outfits of clothes for her and spent long hours after work soaking and boiling her terry towelling nappies, proudly hanging them on the line, glowing pristine and snow white. She certainly wasn’t going to allow the neighbours to gossip and say that she did not look after her daughter or keep her clean. She saved hard to ensure the the baby had the best Silver Cross carriage built pram, the Rolls Royce of prams, large but elegant and something that gave her immense pride. She no doubt saw this as a way of thumbing her nose at the disapproving family and neighbours, making a clear statement that she had nothing to be ashamed of.

When the baby was about one year old, Sylvie started seeing Stan but I don’t recall any mention of how they met or if they had already known each other. They went on to marry and there is only about a two year age gap between her first and second child, another girl, so I suspect she was probably pregnant again. Sylvie never gave the impression that there was any great love affair and its seems more likely that it provided a way out of the difficult home situation, to leave her father and step-mother and provide a home for her daughter.

Sylvie, my adopted mother, her life – continued.

There was obviously a deeply held resentment towards her father and her step-mother – Evie. Sylvie was stubborn and and hot headed, similar to her father, leading to great difficulties in their relationship.There was also frequent arguments between Sylvie’s father and Evie and Sylvie would relate stories of these to us when growing up. On one occasion Evie had left him and he had spotted her in the local Co-op store and proceeded to chase her around the shop. Evie was running around shrieking , with both of them chasing up and down the aisles and popping their heads up and down like meerkats trying to see where the other one was. Describing these scenes with full actions  and shrieks to demonstrate, Sylvie would have us in stitches.

The fact that Evie was always immaculately dressed and made up,  having her hair washed and set at the hairdressers every week without fail caused further resentment. The vague memories I have of Evie are of her being slim and well dressed with dark, highly coiffured  and heavily lacquered hair piled on top of her head, thick, heavy make-up, dark painted eyebrows and heavily mascaraed lashes. I must have only been very young but thoughts of her always bring to  mind the image of a big, black crow, maybe influenced by all the dark hair, eyelashes and eyebrows and possibly enhanced by Sylvie’s  dark opinion of her.  Despite the spending on clothes, hair and make-up, within the home it was a very different story as, although the home was kept spick and span, she was extremely frugal. Sylvie would relate to us how Evie could buy the smallest piece of meat but made it last  for many days; “She’d cut it so bleeding thin that if a gust of wind blew in it would blow it right off the sodding plate! Tight as a f*****g duck’s arse she was.” It has to be stressed here that Sylvie swore like a trooper, something that could cause great amusement and laughter but at other times extreme horror and embarrassment, depending on the situation.

Growing up, I was to hear these and many other related stories  and invariably they would end with Sylvie declaring, “I can’t wait to dance on that f*****g old cow’s grave!”

In contrast, Sylvie had deeply loved her mother and was obviously devastated by her death. She would spend endless hours telling stories of how her mother had looked after her, her brother and sister and her father, cooking, cleaning and feeding them well, nursing her father back to health when he had suffered TB.

Sylvie, my adopted mother, her life – continued.

Sylvie was unhappily married and already had four children. Her eldest had been born when Sylvie was twenty years old and she had been a single mother, something considered a disgrace and met with total disapproval in the 1950’s.  Very little was ever spoken about the father of this first child and Sylvie avoided any conversation about him. Now and again there were whispers about him having been a actor although there was never a suggestion of him having been anyone famous. It was also rumoured that Sylvie was besotted with him, but when she told him of her pregnancy he made it abundantly clear that he had no interest in the baby. The relationship ended there and then and, by all accounts, he was never to  be seen again. Pregnancy outside of marriage in the 1950’s was seen as shameful, terminations were not available and so for many, giving up their child for adoption was the only option. Despite all the shame and disapproval at the prospect of being a single mother, Sylvie stubbornly and defiantly decided that she would keep her child.

There was no family support for Sylvie, her father was enraged by the shame of an illegitimate grandchild. Sylvie would often tell us of the time, during a heated argument, when he once kicked her heavily pregnant belly when she was kneeling down to scrub a floor.

Sylvie’s own mother had died from TB when Sylvie was fourteen years old, leaving also a younger sister and brother. Her mother had previously nursed her father back to health some years before when he, himself has suffered TB, but Sylvie always maintained that when her mother became ill herself, there was nobody to care for her in return. Continuing to care for her family for as long as she could, Sylvie’s mother gave up eating and neglected herself. Sylvie was always adamant that whilst her mother lay dying her father was having an affair with the women who was supposed to be there to help the family. He did, indeed, go on to marry this women shortly after Sylvie’s mother died. There was a difficult and resentful relationship between Sylvie, her father and step-mother and I can only recall seeing them on few occasions. My older siblings have clearer memories and knowledge of them so I assume that they were more present in their lives when they were younger, before the changes that came about and shifted all our lives.

Nature or Nurture? -You walk just like your father!

Recognize

via Daily Prompt: Recognize

I’ve always had a terrible posture. I’ve always sat, stood and walked round shouldered and with my back slightly stooped. Over the years I’ve often tried to address it, making an effort to walk with a straight back, putting my shoulders back, and hold my head and neck upright, but I always end up in the same old lazy, bent slouch. It is a real shame because being slightly on the tall side, just under five foot eight, I could look quite elegant when I did make the effort to stand correctly.

I had always assumed that this poor posture was due to my years growing up, with endless hours spent slaving over a sink washing pots, bent over a cooker day after day preparing endless meals for our enormous family, long days spent washing and ironing piles of laundry or the years stood in the old stone kitchen, grooming dogs until my back and shoulders ached and drooped with exhaustion. I’d even put the blame at times on the oppression of my upbringing, the tongue lashings, the need to keep my head down and avoid trouble.

After some searching for my natural family, at the age of twenty eight I travelled to America to meet my maternal aunt for the first time. I walked across the airport lounge to meet her, where she hugged me and declared, “My God, I’d recognize you anywhere  – you walk just like your father!” At this point I had not met my father  since I was a baby and knew very little about him. Reuniting with him for the first time some years later, I was given a stark reminder of  what my aunt had said at our first meeting, especially when I watched him walk. Videos of the two of us walking together have confirmed it beyond any doubt; our posture and the way we walk is exactly the same

This has often caused me to consider the question – Is it Nature or Nurture?

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

via Daily Prompt: Overwhelming

At times during my upbringing it was all too overwhelming, the constancy of the hard work, the harsh words and  the isolation. Many times  it would overwhelm me and I thought I could not survive it. I would like to recall some dramatic event or ‘eureka moment’ that changed things,  a bolt of lightening, some sort of epiphany or a fairy god mother, but I can’t recall any such any such occurrence. Looking back at how I came through it all I can only believe that ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’.

Overwhelming

Sylvie, my adopted mother, her life – continued.

Sylvie was unhappily married and already had four children. Her eldest had been born when Sylvie was twenty years old and she had been a single mother, something considered a disgrace and met with total disapproval in the 1950’s.  Very little was ever spoken about the father of this first child and Sylvie avoided any conversation about him. Now and again there were whispers about him having been a actor although there was never a suggestion of him having been anyone famous. It was also rumoured that Sylvie was besotted with him, but when she told him of her pregnancy he made it abundantly clear that he had no interest in the baby. The relationship ended there and then and, by all accounts, he was never to  be seen again. Pregnancy outside of marriage in the 1950’s was seen as shameful, terminations were not available and so for many, giving up their child for adoption was the only option. Despite all the shame and disapproval at the prospect of being a single mother, Sylvie stubbornly and defiantly decided that she would keep her child.

There was no family support for Sylvie, her father was enraged by the shame of an illegitimate grandchild. Sylvie would often tell us of the time, during a heated argument, when he once kicked her heavily pregnant belly when she was kneeling down to scrub a floor.

Sylvie’s own mother had died from TB when Sylvie was fourteen years old, leaving also a younger sister and brother. Her mother had previously nursed her father back to health some years before when he, himself has suffered TB, but Sylvie always maintained that when her mother became ill herself, there was nobody to care for her in return. Continuing to care for her family for as long as she could, Sylvie’s mother gave up eating and neglected herself. Sylvie was always adamant that whilst her mother lay dying her father was having an affair with the women who was supposed to be there to help the family. He did, indeed, go on to marry this women shortly after Sylvie’s mother died. There was a difficult and resentful relationship between Sylvie, her father and step-mother and I can only recall seeing them on few occasions. My older siblings have clearer memories and knowledge of them so I assume that they were more present in their lives when they were younger, before the changes that came about and shifted all our lives.

Sylvie, my adopted mother – continued.

The women were close knit, they lent each other milk, sugar, eggs and the like and the odd ‘ten bob’ until payday. Often they needed to deliver each others babies, they babysat each others kids, shared secrets and tears, laughter and heartache, complained about their husbands and swapped make up and hairdressing tips. Gossip was inevitable, with certain individuals commonly being the target due to their inability or refusal to conform, failing to keep a pristine home or for their real or perceived affairs.

The men were mostly hard working and generally wanted a quiet life, to go to work, dinner on the table when they came home, cigarettes and a few beers at the working men’s club at the weekend.

The children all grew up together, went to the same schools, were not expected to go to college or university and many started their working lives in the same industries, and often in the same factories. A house phone was still considered a luxury and very few of the neighbours had cars and and were regarded as very well off if they owned one.

Sylvie was in her early thirties when she started making the trips to Alconbury during the first half of the sixties. I have seen very few pictures of Sylvie as a young women but have one taken, it would appear, in around the 1950’s. It has the typical look of those days, softly focused with brown hair, just above shoulder length and softly pin curled. She was very attractive with beautiful, pale clear skin, ‘cupid’s bow’ lips, gentle features and a very slender build. Later pictures, taken in the sixties show her look to have changed a great deal. She was still very attractive and dressed in the fashion of the time but she now had a fuller, more womanly shape, wearing much more make-up, having cropped ‘pixie style’ blond hair that was peroxide blond and somewhat harder features.

Sylvie, my adopted mother.

Inevitably, acquaintances and friendships formed among the groups of women who made the trips to Alconbury, united in their aim to have a good time and thumb their noses at those who disapproved. Among these friendships the circumstances of my adoption evolved, tangled up amid romances, engagement, illicit affairs, heartache and single parenthood. It was far from a conventional adoption, involving deceit and untruths, leading to a complicated and chaotic life of hard work, abuse and oppression. It was also a colourful life with much love and laughter and a rich tapestry of treasured memories, forming strongly held values and enduring family relationships. The negative aspects of my upbringing and are there, they cannot be denied and are indelible. However, the positives will also forever remain, I choose to let them outshine anything else with the belief that ‘It is never too late to have a good childhood’.

Amongst the women who travelled to Alconbury every week for some time in the early to mid sixties was Sylvie. She would travel with her long time close friend Josie who lived close to Sylvie on a large council estate. It was the typical council estate of the 1960’s with the familiar council house semi- detached houses of that time, with brown brick or cream coloured rendering and large gardens. The houses were built with families in mind with large living rooms and good sized kitchens. Prominent were the large green, grassed areas, frequently inhabited after school, at weekends and school holidays by hoards of children, from toddlers to teenagers, banished from the house to get them from under their mother’s feet.  These areas were central to the estates, an oasis, taken for granted that the kids were safe there, everyone knew everyone, looked out for each other,they all gathered there and the area would be visible from many of the homes. A typical day when the weather was reasonable would see groups of boys playing football, laying down sweaters and coats as goal posts, whizzing around on bikes and climbing the trees. Girls would be singing as they skipped or chanted along to clapping games or sitting, cross legged, chatting away.

The homes were inhabited by proud, working class families, labouring away in the hosiery, shoe and engineering industries. Everybody knew each other and they all knew each other’s business. There was a deep sense of pride in keeping the home and gardens clean and well maintained, anyone who didn’t was frowned upon and gossiped about and generally regarded as slovenly.

The Airman’s Club, RAF Alconbury.

So women were shipped into RAF Alconbury and The Aquarius Club every Friday and Saturday evening to socialise with the airmen and were able to do so for the affordable sum of fifty pence for the round bus trip. I’m sure that many of the women made the trips with romantic notions of handsome American airforce men who would come along like a knight in shining armour, whisk them off their feet, marry them and take them away to the glamour of the USA. Some of the women were regulars who made the trip every weekend but most weeks would see a few new faces, enticed by their friends, hoping for romance and excitement.The ratio of women to men was two to one at weekends, so it is easy to see why some saw this as a ‘meat market’ and women seen as ‘easy pickings’.

Nicknames for the women from various towns emerged such as ‘Corby Commandos’ and ‘Leicester Molesters’. The origins of these names are uncertain but one story goes; the entrance fees were usually paid for by the by the man who signed the woman in and escorted her. Before singing in was required, the first fifty women through the doors were allowed in free of charge, creating a stampede to be one of the first in. Viewing this rush one evening and the women fighting to get into the club, a young airman is said to have turned to his friend and said, “Look at them, they look like a bunch of bloody commandos”.

The Aquarius Club obviously became extremely popular and every weekend it would be packed with standing room only. Most of the people were in their twenties but there were also some groups of slightly older members in their early and mid thirties. Whatever their age, they went along to enjoy the atmosphere, music, dancing, to indulge in cocktails and pizza and to play the slot machines. Undoubtedly, the biggest attraction was the the chance to enjoy the company of the opposite sex. Many did go on to meet their future spouses, some women moving to the USA and some US airmen married and remained in the UK. For many though the attraction dwindled over time and they stopped going. For many there were illicit affairs, frequently leading to heartache and tears. For some women there was pregnancy and being abandoned with an illegitimate child, the father long gone back to the USA with  no chance of tracing him, the repercussions extending for generations.

Those who made the weekly trips were generally working class women, seeking some glamour and excitement to take them away from the monotony and drudgery of their everyday lives. Wanting to break free from factory work, the cold, grey climate and the large council estates where many of them lived, it offered them an escape route, a glimpse of a different future and the the possibility of a new life, far away from their nosy and disapproving neighbours.

 

 

The beginning – Alconbury.

My story is complicated so I guess the best place to start is at the beginning, before I was born, before I was even thought of, to try to tell the story of the people involved, their associations,the circumstances surrounding my beginnings and the resulting consequences to my upbringing.

I was born in late 1965 and so cannot remember the sixties but I imagine most of us have an image in our heads of the 60’s and what life was like at that time. It was a time of rapid changes, the ‘black and white’ of the 1950’s was replaced with the multi-colour and the psychedelia of the 60’s. Post war austerity ended and mass consumerism took over as increased employment in factories and industries meant that people had more money to spend on goods and leisure. More women were employed in the workplace, there was the emergence of the the Women’s Lib movement and rules on equal pay and opportunity were established. Advances in technology, colour television and transistor radios enabled people to enjoy TV and listen to music. Conscription ended and suddenly young people were free to choose what they wanted to do.

It is universally acknowledged that one of the greatest changes at the time was to the music scene. There had already been influences from America such as ‘Rock and Roll’, the Everly Brothers and Elvis Presley but it exploded with the emergence of groups such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Who and artists such as Jimi Hendrix. Song lyrics influenced the young, encouraged rebellion, disregard for the establishment and the standing up for their rights and beliefs.

We can all imagine the clothes of the 60’s and the influences of fashion icons such as Mary Quant who popularised the ‘mini skirt’ and clothes of simple shapes and strong colours. Together with models like Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton, they bought fashion to younger people and clothes that were unimaginable the previous decade were now youthful with psychedelic prints and vibrant colours.

In 1963 ‘The Profumo Affair’, a heady mix of sex, lies, spies and government,resulted in a public mistrust of politicians and the relationship between the government and the press was changed forever. Previous deference to figures of authority was converted into mistrust and suspicion.

There was a place in England where people were able to delight in the changes and freedom that came about in the 1960’s. It was at RAF Alconbury, situated in the Huntingdon area of Cambridgeshire. Growing up, there was often talk of Alconbury, evenings spent there and the American airmen but it is only as I have looked into my beginnings that I have discovered more about it’s history and the things that went on there.

Alconbury had opened as a satellite airfield in 1938 and handed over to the United States American Air Force (USAAF) in 1942 during the Second World War. After the war the base was handed back to the RAF and sat mothballed. Later on, increasing tension in Cold War hostilities created a need for the USA to provide a military presence in Europe and in 1951 Alconbury was again allocated for use as an airbase with USAFE ( United States Airforce in Europe) officially moving in in 1953 and remaining until 1995.

I have found out that during the early 1960’s, The Airman’s Club at RAF Alconbury became known as the ‘Aquarius Club’, and was regarded as one of the best nightclubs in the UK. Every week on Friday and Saturday evenings, two or three coach loads of women, mainly from Huntingdon, but also from the outlying areas of Corby, Northampton and Leicester would make the trip to the airbase to socialise with the airmen.

 

 

The adopted one.

Aware
For much of my life I was defined by the circumstances of my birth. As far back as I can remember I have been aware that I was adopted and it defined me, both in the ways I have regarded myself and in the way other people have considered me.

I don’t remember being told I was adopted so I am guessing I must have been very young. Growing up I was told a story several times about why the need to tell me had arisen, that I had heard something that had caused me to question it’s meaning.

The story goes that an aunt of my adopted mother had called to visit, not having seen the family for some time. After initial greetings she had looked at me and said, “Oh, is that the one you adopted?” which caused me to ask the question, “What does adopted mean?” and resulting in hasty explanations.

I have no recall of this happening and whilst it is possible that it is true, I have reason to question it. In the context of my upbringing it seems too innocent and naive and almost as though it was created in order to erase the truthful events of its disclosure. I am aware of an overriding feeling and possibly a deeply held subconscious memory,  that it is more likely that the facts were hurled at me during one of many vitriolic rages and verbal attacks, as were many the details of the circumstances of my beginnings.

I was, however, to hear a similar sentence again many years later at the age of thirty at my mother’s funeral. Her sister whom we had not seen for many years attended the funeral and the wake afterwards. There was chatting for a while and then, when she thought me to be out of earshot, she asked, “Is that the one she adopted?” Already reeling with the shock of my mother’s sudden, unexpected death, these words were to hit me like clap of thunder. Despite having spent the previous week together with the family, organising the funeral, drinking endless cups of tea, crying, laughing and talking about my mother and her life, I already had a sense that the person who had tied us all together was now gone and the family, as we knew it, was likely to drift apart. The words served as yet another reminder of what separated me from the rest of the family and isolated me away from their blood ties. they once again defined me and the way people regarded me and I was  acutely aware that, for many people, I was viewed as and would always be ‘the adopted one’.