was one family in particular who used to bully everyone. We used to go round to their house quite a bit, even though we thought they were disgusting, often ending up sleeping on their couches or several of us to a bed. Their mother was a big brute of a woman with no teeth, who used to sit there with her legs apart and no knickers on. Even as kids, Christina and I knew she was repellent. She would get her boys to give her love bites on her neck so people would think she had a man. She organized all the robbing in the area, like a sort of modern Fagin, sending the kids off to pinch clothes off washing lines, taking the spoils back to her house to be shared out. She was always picking fights and her kids followed her example.
One day Christina got into a fight with one of her daughters in the street and came in crying. I think she’d had clumps of her bright red hair pulled out in the heat of the battle. That family was always fighting and bullying one another and anyone else they could pick on, but this time Mum decided it had gone too far and went round to tell their mum what she thought of her. Christina and I watched from the window as the two women set to fighting in the street outside, punching and scratching and kicking, until eventually Mum came back in with blood all over her face. I was frightened but proud at the same time that our Mum wasn’t scared to stand up to such a woman. She had stood up for Christina, just like I liked to believe Dad would have stood up for me in the same circumstances.
‘It’s all right, Mum,’ I kept saying, trying to calm her crying when she came back in, cuddling her and wiping away the blood.
That fight was the final straw that convinced Mum and Dad that we should move from the street. Just at that time Dad’s sister, June, announced she was moving out of her house in Cranbrook Street, a much better area, and asked Dad if he would like to buy it off her. Moving to the ‘private sector’ was like moving to another world for us. I guess Dad must have been able to get a mortgage at a good rate, working for the council, because they started to lay plans.
Despite this good news, there had been another incident that had left me troubled. We were on a family holiday to North Wales. We had driven down there in Dad’s old Transit van, which was always getting punctures and having to pull over for repairs, but we would all be piled happily into it, with me, Christina and Shirley sitting or lying on mattresses in the back. Travelling loose like that was hard for Shirley because she was always in so much pain and there was nothing to stop her from bouncing and rolling about on every bump and corner. Christina and I would try to comfort her, reassuring her it would be all right, but the pain was terrible for her.
Dad’s other sister, Doris, lived in a place called Penmaemawr, not far from Llandudno, and we stayed in a caravan at the Robin Hood camp in Prestatyn. I had never stayed in a caravan before and it all seemed like a great adventure. Being able to go to the seaside was so exciting and it reinforced the feeling we had that we were special and better than the other families around us in Smallshaw Lane. No one around our way ever went on holiday and I felt proud to have a dad who could organize such a treat.
Still being so small, just four years old, the beach appeared enormous. We spent the first afternoon building sandcastles and the girls were as happy as I was to be playing somewhere where there was no one picking on us or trying to spoil our fun. We felt completely carefree. At some point I decided to go down to the water by myself. The tide was out and I had to splash for what seemed like miles across the wet sand to get to the sea. The sky was bright blue above my head and the ocean stretched away forever into the distance, its edges lapping and rolling across my bare feet as I danced with delight in the foam, the rest of the world forgotten, including my family sitting behind me on the beach.
Back on the dry sand Mum must have noticed that I had strayed too far for safety, and Dad must have told her not to worry, that he would go and get me. I didn’t hear him coming, didn’t hear him calling me to come back, then suddenly I was aware of his presence and he was on me, grabbing me hard, hurting me.
‘You naughty little bastard,’ he yelled as he squeezed me with all his might. ‘I’ve been shouting for ages.’
‘I’m sorry, Dad, I didn’t hear you. I was splashing.’
‘You are a fucking liar. You’re just plain fucking naughty, aren’t you?’
He punched me to the ground, forcing my face down in the sand so that it filled my mouth and nose and eyes.
‘Do you want me to tell your mum that you have spoilt the fucking holiday and you’ve ruined it for your sisters? Do you? Do you?’ Every question was punctuated by another punch.
‘No, Daddy, please.’ I tried to speak through mouthfuls of sand. ‘I’m sorry.’
I was struggling in his powerful grip, unable to breathe, panicked. After what seemed like forever he yanked me up.
‘Get up, you little cunt, and stop fucking crying. If you don’t stop crying I’ll tell Mum you’ve been bad and naughty.’
As he let go of me I pulled myself up on wobbly legs, still able to feel his grip on my neck. Dad was cross with me and I just wanted to please him, and I didn’t want him to tell Mum how naughty I was.
‘Now get back there and put a smile on yer fucking face.’
My legs were shaking as I tried to run to obey him, shocked and unable to understand what I’d done wrong. I just knew that I must try much harder to be good, so he wouldn’t be angry with me, so he would love me. I tried to hold his hand as we made our way back to Mum and the girls but he pulled it away and walked too quickly for me to keep up as I stumbled along.
‘Have you been having a good time?’ Mum asked when we reached her, and I just smiled and nodded, not able to trust my voice to be steady.
Starting school, just a little way from our house, was an eye-opener, like my visit to hospital. The teachers were so kind and caring, so different from the adults in my home world. The kids in the class were different from the ones who played in our street and came round our house. They didn’t want to pull my ears or my hair or hit me or be nasty to me. When I realized what a friendly world it was it was like a huge weight lifting off my shoulders. There were crayons and pens and paints, drums and even a violin, which I’d never seen before, and I was allowed to touch them and use them and everyone encouraged me and praised whatever I did. No one seemed to think I was naughty. There were some familiar faces from our estate, which was comforting once I realized they were going to behave differently at school from the way they behaved in the streets and houses. It was such a relief to be somewhere that didn’t seem at all threatening or frightening.
Shirley had to go to a special school because of all her physical problems, so she would be picked up in a taxi or ambulance each morning, and Christina and I would make our own way to and from our school. One afternoon we came home to be told that we were going to be moving to Auntie June’s house in Cranbrook Street. From now on, Mum explained, it would be our house. Overcome with excitement, I begged for us to go round and look at it, and Dad agreed to take me and Christina round there.
It wasn’t far, so we walked there together, him striding ahead in his Wellingtons, us galloping along, trying to keep up as he cut down all the back ginnels and alleys. We’d been there before, to visit our cousins, who seemed spoiled to us, always having everything that we didn’t – carpets, wall lights, proper cupboards in the front room, a gas fire in a stone-built fireplace and fancy patterned wallpaper. The carpet was purple and seemed to blend with the walls. I would get into trouble for keeping on turning the lights on and off because I’d never seen anything like it before. They even had a proper television, which worked all the time and didn’t have to be hit. It seemed such a big, grand place, three storeys tall, and with its own cellar. We always wanted to stay there. Then it had been their house, but now it was ours and we could hardly contain ourselves.
As we approached the house that our dad was going to get for us, I looked up in awe. It stood at the centre of the terrace, its front door opening directly on to the street; the slot for the post low in the bottom of the glass front door – I hadn’t noticed that before. I never knew you could have a letterbox there. It seemed like another sign that we were moving up in the world. The roof rose up to pointed eves, like the sort of houses families lived