Authors: Donna Ford
While Helen was still with my Dad, I didn't see much of him apart from the times he was asked to 'deal with' me. One particular incident that sticks in my mind happened shortly after we moved to Edina Place in 1967, when I would be seven or eight years old. It must have been a school holiday because I was at home but my Dad wasn't. This day was like most. I heard Helen get up and move about, make tea, switch the radio on, blaring out the latest hits. I heard her feed her children. Meanwhile, I lay frozen in bed waiting for her first command. It came this particular morning with a thump, thump, thump as she banged on my bedroom door. 'You! Get up! Get out of bed, NOW!' she screamed. I did as I was told (I always did), and then I stood behind the door, trembling, waiting for her next order.
There were chores every single day: the dishes, sweeping up, washing the woodwork, scrubbing the floors, polishing the linoleum, cleaning out the fire, polishing the brass, bringing in the coal, taking out the rubbish – anything that needed to be done I and my older half-siblings would have to do. My most hated job was cleaning out the toilet. I had to pour bleach down it, then, with a cloth, I'd put my hand into the water and scrub every inch of the thing until it was 'spotless'.
Then there was trampling the blankets. I didn't really mind this chore if I was left alone to do it, but Helen was in a bad mood that day. I was dragged from my bedroom by the hair and smacked across the face with the back of her hand for looking at her 'like that'. I never knew what 'that' was. I know now she just hated me and having to be a parent to me – those things and the fact that I was my father's firstborn were my real crimes. There was never any rhyme or reason to Helen's behaviour or mood swings. She could go from being quite chirpy and offering me food or the chance to get out and do the shopping or to brush her hair (which I hated), to this.
That day, I was dragged into the bathroom and ordered to fill the bath, with Helen reminding me that cold water would be good enough. Then I put the bleach and blankets in. The bleach gave off such a stench it made my eyes sting, and I knew my skin would be red and irritated afterwards – but those things were the least of my worries. The smell of bleach is often a trigger for me, bringing back a memory of those times. I hate swimming pools for this reason.
Trampling the sheets or blankets was usually a once-a-week event as Helen was very particular about keeping a clean house. The bedroom she shared with my Dad – which was wholly out of bounds to me – was immaculate, and the amount of cleaning we each had to do daily ensured the rest of the house matched. I don't think she was obsessed by it; I just think she liked the praise she got for the effort. I remember the look of pride on her face when one social worker commented on what a nice tidy house she kept. The woman jokingly questioned how Helen managed it with all those children. Little did she know that it was us who kept it that way; maybe she could have dug just a little deeper rather than make light of it.
So that day, first thing in the morning and before breakfast (which I was never guaranteed to get anyway), Helen was standing there beside me in the bathroom in a nylon quilted dressing gown combined with the worn leather slippers she always had on her feet. Her eyes were magnified by her NHS glasses and her false teeth clicked furiously in her mouth as she screamed at me: 'Get in the fucking bath, you useless little bastard!' I did everything that she said without hesitating, as I always did. I trampled the blankets in the bath, walking up and down until she was satisfied that I was doing my job properly and could continue unsupervised. She left me to get on with it. I heard her boys going out to play for the day, bouncing their football down the lobby as they went, and I heard Helen move about in the living room. I carried on with my task, trampling up and down the bath, squeezing all the muck out of the blankets as my spindly legs got bluer and bluer with the cold water. As I trampled, I imagined that I was in Kinghorn, on holiday again, and that I was really splashing through the waves looking out for the baby flounders that lay just under the sand.
I was rudely awakened from that thought when Helen yelled at me to 'get wringing'. This meant I now had to drain the water out of the bath, rinse the blankets then wring the water out by twisting the wet blankets. I was never a big child – Helen made sure of that by starving me – and that task is a difficult enough one for an adult. For me, with my tiny frame, it was nearly impossible. I was supposed to get all the water out, enough for them to be taken down to the back green to be hung out to dry. I did my best and folded them as well as I could before putting them in the plastic wash basket in the bath ready for Helen. I went back to my room as instructed and waited there for my next order. I was obviously not getting breakfast that day. My only hope of food some mornings was if I was on dishwashing duty and could scavenge a leftover from the plates of the others.
I could hear Helen going about her business while the radio blared out. She was in a foul temper – if there was one thing I was aware of, it was my stepmother's moods. I waited for her next move towards me. It came soon enough.
She had got dressed and was about to take the blankets down to the back green to hang out to dry. However, due to my poor attempts at wringing, water splashed onto her as she picked the basket out of the bath. That was like a red rag to a bull. She thundered along the lobby towards my room, shouting and screaming: 'You little bastard! You nasty little bitch! You did that deliberately, didn't you?' I was terrified and braced myself for what was to come. I was trembling and, in my fear, I completely forgot that I was sitting on the bed when I hadn't been given explicit permission to do so. When Helen charged into my room, she was therefore faced with yet another crime I had committed which would allow her to vent her anger on me.
'You little bastard,' she screamed again. 'Look at the fucking mess you've made! And who told you to sit down anyway? Having a nice fucking layabout, are you?' She grabbed me by the hair and dragged me up the lobby to the bathroom, shouting and screaming all the way. When we got to the bathroom she hissed, 'Over the bath. Get over the bath.' Trembling, silently crying, and bracing myself for what was to come, I bent over the old cast-iron bath, feeling the cold through my threadbare vest. I gripped the curled metal edge of the bath and waited for the first wallop of the leather belt across my back and legs. It came soon enough. The leather slaps rained down, every wallop stinging and biting my flesh as she screamed at me and told me to say over and over, 'I am bad! I deserve to be punished! I am a horrible little girl!' It went on and on until she'd decided that she'd given me enough. When she was finished, she yelled at me to get the job done properly this time and to cut out the tears and petted lip. So I got on with it – wringing and wringing the blankets out, over and over, until she was finally satisfied. I was hurting, cold and hungry but I had been really, really bad so I needed to be punished further.
It was barely morning, but I was already on to the next step of punishment that Helen had ruled necessary for me. 'You will stand there, you ugly little witch, and you will keep your hands by your sides without moving a fucking muscle, or I will know.' She screwed up her eyes at me behind those huge glasses and added, 'And that'll be your day until your Dad gets home.'
I could feel the welts rising on the skin on the backs of my legs and my back. I was morbidly comforted by the warm glow of my wounds. Beatings always hurt afterwards but not as much as when I received them, and I had got used to that 'after beating' feeling, taking a little comfort in the fact that for now it was over. With my hands by my sides, I surveyed my surroundings and used all the little tricks I had developed to help get me through the hours. I counted the cracks and the tiles. I sang songs in my head – '10 Green Bottles', 'Ye Cannae Shove Yer Grannie aff the Bus' – any song I knew that had lots of verses, and nursery rhymes such as 'Jack and Jill', 'Old King Cole', 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'. I'd do anything to relieve the boredom.
To stop myself from getting numb, I'd step from foot to foot. I'd sometimes stand with one foot on the other. Occasionally, a weevil would work its way out from under the bath and I'd amuse myself as I watched its journey, thinking how lucky it was to have so much freedom. Sometimes I would just close my eyes and listen to all the sounds outside that room: the television, the children playing in the back greens below me, dogs barking and gulls calling. Then I'd be making plans for the things I would do when I finally got away from there. Sometimes I took a risk by going to the toilet because, even though I stood there all day, I was not allowed to use it until I was told to by Helen. Most of the time it was just her in the living room as the boys were out all day.
My only break came from stepping into the lobby every now and again when someone came to use the toilet, and sneaking a mouthful of water from the cold tap when I thought it was safe to do so. That was tricky because I couldn't allow there to be one bit of noise or mess. I would put my mouth right over the cold tap and turn it on very slowly and swallow back a mouthful, and then I'd resume my usual stance. Once I was caught right in the act. Helen sneaked up on me while I had my mouth over the tap, standing on my tiptoes. I thought I'd been so clever, that she was still in the living room. Just as I was about to swallow that delicious mouthful of cold water, a hand came whacking on to the back of my head and my teeth clattered against the tap. I felt them cutting through my lip and the water rushing up my nose as I choked and yelped all at once. My heart was racing and I was terrified. I waited for the onslaught, for the beating, for what was going to come next, but that time she didn't do anything more. 'Bed!' she shouted. 'Hands by your side!' I couldn't make sense of that either – this wasn't a punishment; this was luxury compared to standing all day. I was suspicious but just glad to have got away so lightly.
On the day of my punishment for not wringing out the blankets properly, I stood in the cold bathroom all day, from just after breakfast time. I heard the boys come home for something to eat at lunchtime then go out to play again. Later, I heard them coming back in for their tea, and then each of them wanted to use the toilet. I stepped out to let them in.
Then I was given some scraps of tea by Helen's eldest – the boy who had grown from that baby I used to watch her cuddle when she visited me in Barnardo's. He opened the door and put my plate and fork on the floor in front of me before saying, 'You've to leave the plate outside the door, pissy pants.' He shut the door and left, laughing at me. As I stood there, devouring every pathetic morsel on that plate, I could hear them all having tea and giggling and the telly in the background. Today I was on 'half rations' due to me being bad. This surprised me because normally when I was so bad, I'd get no food at all. But, that day, I was fed one slice of chopped pork, a few strands of spaghetti and a couple of chips. I licked the plate clean, put it outside the door as I was told then waited to see what would happen to me next.
After tea, one of the boys came and got the plate, and then they went back out to play as it was still summer. It must have been just after six o'clock when my Dad came home, as I'd heard the opening music of the six o'clock news on television just before I heard the key in the lock. Fortunately, the bathroom wasn't as cold as it was in winter but I was still cold after standing there, hardly moving, all day. As the front door opened, the torture for me was the sun shining down the lobby, and the sound of children playing out in the street. Why couldn't I be one of those normal kids who got to spend the long summer days playing rounders and hopscotch or skipping in the street? What was wrong with me?
I heard my Dad's footsteps coming up the bare floorboards of the lobby. As I listened, my heart raced with fear. I heard him putting his postbag in the cupboard halfway up the hallway. Through the frosted glass window of the bathroom door I watched his shape getting larger as he came nearer, then I watched it disappear as he went into the living room, the television becoming momentarily louder as he opened the door. I heard the kettle whistling for his ritual cup of tea and I heard their voices. It was, at first, just a muffled sound but then Helen's voice got louder and louder as she screamed at my Dad about me. I heard my name being yelled out over and over again. I thought how strange it was that she only called me by my name when she was talking
about
me and never
to
me.
This argument was much the same as any I'd overheard while sitting in my bedroom and listening to every word. My bedroom was more of a boxroom than a bedroom, and its layout made it easy for me to listen in. Helen went on about how I was always being bad; how I wouldn't do as I was told; how I was cheeky to her. She said that she was at breaking point, and that her sons were missing out on things because she had all this extra work with me. I was lazy; I was insolent; I stole food and I wet the bed. All more work for her; all more work for poor, put-upon Helen. It always followed a pattern. After she had ranted, she would ask my Dad what he was going to do about me as she would claim she was at the end of her tether. I'd hear her say, 'I'm trying to be a good mum but she hates me!' and wondered how she could speak that way without the words choking her.