rest of us woke up. She did this so not everyone was in the kitchen all at once. She would cook a full breakfast on Sunday as a treat. As soon as she left the room, he sexually abused me. I hated it. When Mum came back, he would act as if nothing had happened. I was too young and innocent to understand and just felt so confused. I knew in a way it was wrong but I dared not tell. How could I explain it? I felt scared if they didn’t believe me I would be in more trouble and everyone would know and look at me disapprovingly. Our sleeping arrangements were far from proper and Paddy took advantage of the situation.
I was always frightened of him. Paddy was a horrid, large man with a loud voice and he spit and slobbered when he spoke. My memories of him are ugly. I hated him and yet I felt guilty for my hatred. This was the man that my mother loved and trusted. Perhaps I was really the bad one. In my innocence, I judged myself, unaware that I was actually a victim of this awful man. I started wetting the bed and suffering a lot of bladder and stomach problems, as well as becoming very underweight for my age. The school doctor was worried and suggested to Mum that I should see our local doctor. After seeing several doctors and a specialist, I was finally admitted to hospital under observation. I stayed there for ten months. The doctors considered I might have tuberculosis of the bowel but never made a definite diagnosis. As I look back now, I believe my illness was caused by the undue stress I was under while my mother’s boyfriend, ‘the pig’, was living with us for almost a year and a half.
I loved it in the hospital because I was away from Paddy and I made many friends with the other kids in my ward. We had fun playing board games and colouring pictures. There was a teacher who came in to the hospital to keep us up with our school work ready for when we returned to school.
I was finally discharged from the hospital to go home, but to my surprise and disappointment, not to my grandparents’ home. It was a bit of a shock. Without mentioning it to me, my mother had moved to a new house, without Paddy. I tried not to look too excited. Secretly, I wanted to celebrate. I could hardly contain my happiness at that moment of such intense relief. Mum had been given priority to be allocated a council house. Normally this would take ten years or more, but due to my health problems and the fact that she was pregnant—another event I knew nothing about—and there would be no room at the Howard Road house for all of us.
My mother now had three children and a new home for us all. This of course meant a new school for me, but I had to change schools either way as I was of senior age. My sister had been born whilst I was in hospital. I got to meet her when I returned home. She was ten months old. Her name was Barbara and she was a chubby little thing. Paddy, my sister’s father, was a womaniser so I assume he found someone else. In a positive light, at least we got a house out of it—one I didn’t have to share with him.
I missed living with Grandma and Grandad. Living with them had provided me with much needed stability and routine. Grandma was of the generation where women never worked outside the home and men were the providers, unlike my mother’s generation. I was lucky to have those few years with my grandmother. Every day, whilst living in the new house with Mum and my siblings, I wished I could return to my grandparents’ home. But I knew it was not possible; this was my new life in the council house.
Chapter 5
I was now twelve and my brother John was six. Barbara was two years old and went to the nursery school attached to John’s primary school. My school was in the opposite direction. Our new house was on a council estate and the majority of people living there were poor, including us. We had experienced the middle-class lifestyle and found it difficult to adjust. Our house had three bedrooms and one bathroom. In order to have a warm bath, the brick copper in the kitchen had to be lit and whoever was having a bath had to pump the water up to the bathtub. I have no fond memories of the place. It was very unappealing. In fact, I thought it was a dump compared to Grandma and Grandad’s.
To make things worse, I now had to do chores. After school, I had to light the fire which my mother had already laid the night before. I would then wash and dry any breakfast pots. I then peeled potatoes for dinner and put them in the saucepan ready for when Mum got home from work. Saturday mornings when Mum went into work I had clean the entire house. This task included cleaning and polishing all the floors. I had to get on my hands and knees to clean the kitchen floor. My brother never did anything to help. We fought about it all the time. It was very difficult adjusting from one lifestyle to another.
The girls’ school down the road was not as nice as I thought it would be. I felt out of place. Maybe it was the social class distinction as the other girls and their families seemed a lot poorer than us. The majority of them had nits and appeared scruffy compared to my pleated skirts and hand-knitted jumpers and cardigans. They must have thought I was a bit of a snob. Maybe if we’d worn a school uniform, there would have been less distinction between the haves and have nots. But a couple of years on the school officials made it compulsory for most senior schools to have uniform also gym uniform for sports and PT.
The lifestyle change was especially difficult for me. Before the move, I believed everyone lived like Grandma and Grandad, with lovely home-cooked meals and pudding, eating at nicely laid tables. This was what I had always known. Mum didn’t bother with setting the table nicely with serviettes and condiments. She just never had time. Once she arrived home from work, the table was just laid basically with knives and forks salt and pepper that were it. Breakfast in winter was porridge with milk and treacle. It was delicious. The warmer months called for cornflakes, sugar and milk. Weekends were different. Mum did lay a nice table whenever we had visitors, usually on weekends. It took a while but eventually I came to terms with the change. I tried to look forward to the future realising I could not change things beyond my control.
I eventually made friends with Hazel, a girl who lived nearby and was in my class at school. We became very close friends and confided in each other right through until the end of our school years. Gertrude, another friend of mine, also lived down the road. Whenever Hazel was with her boyfriend, Gertrude and I spent time together. She didn’t seem to have many friends. Gertrude and her family just did not seem to belong in our council estate. Unlike most of the families in the neighbourhood, they were very intellectual and always used proper English. Gertrude was teased all the time. Her mother had Alzheimer’s disease and sadly didn’t even know Gertrude was her daughter. Her four older sisters became like mother figures to Gertrude, keeping her out of her mother’s way to spare her any unnecessary upset.
I am sure I was Gertrude’s only friend and I enjoyed our conversations. Where my other friends talked incessantly about boys and all the usual mushy girl talk, Gertrude and I enjoyed talking about politics and other issues that were happening in the world. Her choice of music broadened my musical taste. While I was mad about Johnny Ray and Frankie Lane whose records I never stopped playing, Gertrude often played opera and classical music on her gramophone. This was a welcome change for me as I had never heard classical and opera music before. Thanks to Gertrude, I find the classics very relaxing to the mind and enjoyable.
Gertrude and I sometimes met up with a bunch of teenagers at the park about two blocks away. We would play cricket or just kick a ball around. Gertrude was a very tall and athletic girl. The others were all very sporty too, unlike me. My passions were dancing and singing but I never seemed to find anyone who liked them as much as I did.
I was thirteen when my sister Barbara and I were offered a holiday through an underprivileged children’s holiday scheme. We headed off on our own by train from Leicester to a beautiful place called Malvern Hills. We were so excited. On our arrival, we were greeted by two elderly women, dressed all in black. After a short car journey we arrived at an old dark house. We entered through a big black front door into a dark and creepy hall. The floorboards were worn and squeaked as we walked on them. In the corner of the sitting room, I noticed an old gramophone, the only luxury the house seemed to have. By the morbid look of the two elderly women, the rest of our holiday seemed very predictable. Barbara and I just looked at each other. We had no idea what to expect from these people. Would they be nice and kind, or as mean as they looked? I was immediately despondent. I simply did not like the eerie atmosphere. I felt that we would not have