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Eventually she was moved into a local hospital by a concerned neighbour, and as I walked into the ward I saw her sitting up in bed, her hands over her face, crying. I sat down next to her and said, ‘What is it?’ She was doing a kind of dry crying, without tears, but she whispered in a husky voice, ‘The baby was mine, the baby was mine.’
Barbara was clearly very distressed, and said this as if she was sharing a terrible secret. I leant in and sat quietly beside her. ‘Which baby was yours?’ She peeked out of her cupped hands and looked up and down the ward to see if anyone was watching. ‘Shush,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell anyone, my mum will be angry.’ Then she paused. ‘It’s Tony. He’s mine.’
Tony was Barbara’s brother. Her father was an impoverished musician and heavy drinker, and she was brought up in Harlesden, London, in the 1920s (she was born in ’26, just as the Great Depression hit). Her mother was a cleaner. They had a wild and wandering life, moving all the time, paying rent, picking up odd work here and there. Then they ended up in the workhouse. Barbara had told me over the years, bit by bit, that her father was a violent, abusive drunk. She feared him deeply.
That afternoon, sitting up in bed, she went back to being a child, rocking back and forth. She spoke through her hands, covering her face in shame, about the men her father had taken her to for sex as a small child: the father and son next door, the local policeman, other men from the pub. Barbara had been her father’s ‘nice little earner’. She had been raped over and over. She had got pregnant, probably around the age of eleven or twelve, and she had given birth to Tony, her so-called ‘brother’, who was taken in by the family as if he was their son.
She gave birth in an outside ‘lavvy’ and the doctor sewed her up too tightly, possibly as a punishment to keep her on the straight and narrow. She was in agony. Barbara breathed out this story: ‘It hurt, oh, it hurt so much – it was too tight.’ I could see now why Barbara said ‘all men are rapists’, as she had actually been raped: by the next-door neighbours, the local policeman, men from the pub, perhaps even her own father or brother, or other men in the workhouse.
Her mother must have known, as did her father, but it was never spoken about. She whispered about the violence, the harshness, being made to eat dog poo by one of the workhouse warders as punishment one day. There had also been a warder who tied the children to their beds – exactly as she had done to William and I.
‘It was horrible, terrible,’ whispered Barbara on and on, telling me things she had never spoken of before. She ‘confessed’ all this to me in her demented state, in a childlike voice, and I began to understand why she had done what she did. She had been abused and raped as a child, treated inhumanely, and knew no other way to be. After the workhouse, she was sent to a convent in the 1930s, which was also harsh and tough with cruel nuns who made her scrub floors with carbolic and make beds with hospital corners. Again, her love of making me clean everything, of carbolic and the constant random slaps and attacks had their root in her own terrifying early experiences. I understood now that she had deep mental and emotional problems from her own childhood. It had been a nightmare. This didn’t condone what she had done, but it explained it to me, as she had never received any mental help.
Sex was always painful for the rest of her life, so when Ian tried she hated it. She felt she was being raped all over again, as she had been as a child. Her unnatural interest in Kevin was also a re-enactment of her relationship with her brothers and other boys and men, possibly the only comfort she had had as a child. It was all very twisted but somehow, despite everything, my heart went out to her. Later, when I saw my own records, I discovered that many of the social workers had wondered about getting Barbara to see a psychiatrist during the months when I was fostered, and then adopted, in 1967 and 1968 and then later. Some questioned her ability, but there was a shortage of fosterers and a large amount of unwanted babies. There were many notes about her ‘not coping’ and ‘needing support’ but nothing was ever done.
Barbara herself had questioned if she was able to look after me, and my notes showed that twice I could have been given to someone else during that first crucial year before she legally adopted me in 1968. And yet each time the system failed to protect me or to give her the help or support she needed. No one asked her about her own childhood or her fitness to look after children. The system was under pressure to suck up the unwanted children as a result of the huge glut of illegitimate pregnancies that occurred after the ‘summer of love’ in 1967. I was the product of that, and Barbara’s early traumas were completely ignored, unchecked and untreated. If only…
It may sound strange, but during the years of her decline I visited her as often as I could, and I even made sure she eventually went to a good care home. She became increasingly confused and, as she lost her powers, I felt more tenderness for her. One day I took her out for a walk in her wheelchair and her face slumped on one side: she’d had a stroke. After that she quickly deteriorated. She ended up in a hospital at the end. Luckily I had organised a green burial site for her on the South Downs, which she knew about and approved of. I felt protective of Barbara; I could see she was vulnerable and alone and, despite all that she had done to me – and to William – I could not personally operate from hate or revenge. I didn’t want to hand on the pain. I wanted to be a better person. For my own satisfaction and sense of what was right.
The day she died I had been to see her in the evening, and I could see her breathing was shallow. She was propped up on pillows and was quite out of touch. I looked down at the pinched, pale and pointed face – the one I had stared at all my childhood in terror. Now she was tiny, reduced, fading. I tussled with myself for a moment: should I stay or should I go? I realised that although I genuinely loved her out of some deep human compassion for her own suffering in her childhood (that no one but me knew about), I nonetheless could not sit with her and see her out of this life.
Before I left I put a film on for her on the TV and left it running. Then I looked down at Barbara for the last time, touched her hand and said, ‘I’m off now, bye.’ She raised a hand weakly from the bed, and mumbled, ‘Bye.’
I didn’t say, ‘See you later,’ as I knew I wouldn’t. I went home and made a cup of tea and got on with my household chores. I had forgiven her for so many things, but she had done some really terrible things to William and I and had left big bruises and deep wounds on our lives. I understood now what had happened to her, and I empathised, truly, but it did not make me want to be there when she died. It was too intimate, too much about unconditional love. I spent so much of my childhood scared and crying t
hat I felt I couldn’t comfort her on her very last stage of her journey, despite having been there as much as I could be in her last years and months.
I felt that after throwing me away as a child she had to go alone into her next life, whatever or wherever it was. I had also learnt to look after myself now, and being there at the very end was simply one step too far.
Luckily, Kevin had married and moved away to another city, so I was able to avoid him completely. Also Julie moved on again to yet another man. Vernon died an early death (to Julie’s obvious relief: ‘He was a bit boring and moaned about my spending – men!’) and her two children emigrated. Julie often tried to get money from me once I was earning. I discovered she too had a very confusing and hurtful childhood. As her own father had turned out to be a bigamist, when he died, two families turned up for the funeral with no warning and Julie discovered she had brothers and sisters she had never seen or known. It was so hypocritical for him not to allow her to keep her own child when he was cheating all the while. What a mess! It was no wonder she was unreal.
Amazingly, I eventually also managed to track down dear William, after a lot of dead-end leads, through a notice of his marriage in a local newspaper cutting in Barbara’s papers. I found the cutting when I was clearing out her house, finally. We eventually met after thirty-seven years apart. It was an amazing moment. We sat together on one of my favourite University Parks benches and cried and cried and cried. We could hardly speak. We just held hands and sobbed. He repeatedly said, ‘Why didn’t anyone help us?’
Today we are still piecing together the mad story of our broken childhoods. William’s story should also be told, as I think there must be many Williams and Louises who got lost in the system in the free-love era of the 1960s baby boom. Hopefully they didn’t get put into a family that was already being investigated for child cruelty like we were, and then ignored and abused – that was something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I still can’t understand to this day how that happened. And I would like to find out more, and make sure it never happens to any other so-called ‘unwanted’ children.
In the end I was lucky enough to meet a lovely man at art college who I was eventually to marry years later and with whom I am still incredibly happy. We have two children of our own, and we also foster children together. It is a joy and a challenge, and I feel incredibly blessed and grateful on that front. But that’s another long story, for another place.
As for dear old Irish Sean – the man who saved my life and gave me some lovely childhood memories – I loved him dearly until he died. I still do. He was my real family – generous and kind. I continued to see him as often as I could. He always welcomed me back with a warm ‘Hello, girlie, come in,’ until the very last. He would always get the whisky out, or some Guinness, and pour me a huge glass (‘Down the hatch, girlie’). He continued in his caravan as long as he could, and carried on betting on the horses, growing his veg and flowers and walking his dog, Frida.
One time I visited him towards the end of his life, when I had finished art school. There were several older men sitting on seats outside his caravan. The sky was glowing warm and orange in the summer evening, and the air smelt of jasmine and honeysuckle. As I got nearer to the caravan I could hear gravelly talk and raucous laughter and music. The men on the seats in caps and tweeds, belts and braces, all had instruments with them: a fiddle, a drum, a tambour, a penny whistle and a squeeze box. There was a crate of Guinness and brown ale by the side of the caravan and most were smoking ciggies or pipes.
‘Oh, there you are, come here, girlie,’ rasped Sean, laughing. He introduced me to his gang, all ex-navvies from his past. I was handed a bottle of Guinness and some crisps and then the men tuned up and suddenly struck up a wonderful Irish jig. I sat on the step of Sean’s caravan, listening to the fantastic bouncy music. My foot was tapping and my heart was full to bursting as I watched Sean tooting on his penny whistle, as all the players made the jig ring out through the orchard into the night air. As I watched Sean’s rosy cheeks fill as he blew, and listened to the wonderful sound, I thanked him with all my heart for the happy times and care he had given me in my childhood. I knew absolutely that I would not have survived without him. I could see the road ahead of me was going to be a long and winding one, just like the Beatles song I loved. But that along the way there were significant people, like Tim and Sean, and later my wonderful husband, who had simply made all the difference between me living and dying.
That was certainly something to be thankful for, after all.
Afterword
Child abuse is not a comfortable subject to think about. I will be honest with you: I was scared about writing this. Scared for all the reasons you can imagine and some you can’t.
There are four types of abuse: sexual, physical, emotional and neglect. The easiest one to prove is physical abuse, as long as the marks are still showing. Neglect can also be easy to detect, but not all neglect presents itself as a snotty face or dirty tangled hair full of head lice. Emotional neglect is the most recently legally acknowledged form of child abuse, but I suspect it plays a big role in all the other kinds.
As a stand-alone abuse, I wonder how many adults are doing this to children every day without any awareness that their behaviour is even abusive or that it will have long-term effects on that child’s mental health? I believe children are abused because they are young and vulnerable. I believe adults abuse because they can.
After reading my story you may be surprised to know that I think my educational neglect was the worst part of all the abuses I suffered. It has been my life sentence. I have managed to live with the other abuses, which have somehow settled into my form, and I think I’ve been good at hiding them; most people would never know and I have never told. But poor literacy skills, no basic maths and a narrow awareness of the world has been a terrible cage to be trapped in and impossible to hide. I have felt ashamed and humiliated as I have observed people thinking I’m thick.
In all subjects except art I was labelled remedial and, as an adult, I was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia. When I did go to school my head was fizzing with fear and hurt; there was no room to learn and I was not encouraged to do so. I’ve had to work hard to try and catch up, and I’m aware that my thoughts, ideas and approaches can be a little unconventional, but I put that down to a non-formulaic learning experience – or creativity: depends who’s asking!
Young Louise is part of me now; I keep her safe and make sure she has everything she needs. We get along well and she makes me smile. I know she will never leave me; our childhoods never do. These days I spend my time looking after other people’s children, as well as two stepchildren and two of my own. But when I began fostering with my husband a few years ago, we found a world that was far removed from what we had hoped.
