Authors: D. G Torrens
I
was not interested in a boyfriend at all, although I had become close to one particular boy
, Robbie, who was older than me.
Very tall and very good looking,
h
e always watched out for me and s
ought
me out wherever I was.
We used to play fight all the time, but he never tried to take it any further and cross that line, despite making it clear that he really liked me. I remember one day I was ill with a bad
cold and stayed in bed all day.
Robbie sneaked into the kitchen and made me chocolate spread sandwiches w
hile the cook was on her break,
and all day he popped in and out to check if I was ok
ay
. We were very close but never in a sexual way, although if I had given him any sign of being interested, I was sure he would have jumped at the opportunity!
There were
often fights
between the boys over the girls.
I
f one boy liked a girl and another started flirting with t
hem all hell would break loose
and a fight would take place. This was very common; the girls would stand back and watch
,
while the staff on duty at the time would do their best to break up the fights.
The school was on the premises and consisted of
ten porta-c
abins all clustered together at the back of the games room. From Monday to Friday we were all called for assembly at 9
:00 a.m.,
which too
k place in the games room.
O
ur names would be called out from a register
and
then we would each make our way to our classroom. Lessons were very easy and the tasks set out before us were quite simple. Our lessons consisted of basic teachings
,
which would have been better suited for primary aged children
; they were not challenging enough at all
. However
,
at least it was better than nothing. All children left withou
t any qualifications whatsoever;
Bryn Tyn just did not have the means to cater for examinations or the preparation
for
them. All the teachers were part time, some offered their time voluntarily,
and
some were hired from local schools in the area to work part time as and when they could.
A lot of the tougher kids from Brixton were very disruptive in class and made it very hard for any of u
s to read or write. T
he teachers could not control them at all and in most cases feared them. They would throw objects of any kind at anyone attempting to learn something. You just ha
d to keep those
children happy or they could make life very uncomfortable
for you after school.
A
fter all
,
it wasn’t like we all went our separate ways to our nice famil
ies and nice homes after school;
we all lived together
twenty-four
hours a day. If someone wanted to make your day a tough one
,
there was not always enough staff on duty to run to or to help you.
The best way to get through your days was to not stand out in any way
,
shape
, or form.
I
f you w
ere smelly, you would be bullied;
if you looked
different you would be bullied;
i
f you were well
behaved you would be picked on. O
ccasionally there would be the odd riot for one reason or another
,
and if you did not join in you would know about it. All in all you could never do right for wrong by someone’s eyes. If you were to do right by one person, then this act would annoy another. You had to be pretty quick and very clever to survive your time in care and come out the other end intact.
One day we wer
e all informed of a new arrival.
A
girl called Josie
, a similar age to me,
was being sent from another children’s home far away. Josi
e arrived much later in the day.
S
he was tall and feisty
and
as I learn
ed
over time, she was hilarious. I took to her immediately. We soon became good friends and were to become inseparable in the days that followed. Josie was the confident one out of the two of us, and a force to be reckoned with. She was great
,
and life became a lot more eventful
once
she had arrived. Josie was
a breath of fresh air and I really liked her. S
he made me laugh all the time.
Josie and I wer
e always getting into mischief
after lights were out and the remaining members of staff who were on night duty were settled in the staff room, writ
ing their daily reports. This was
when we would sneak out of our bedrooms and make our way to the kitchen at the end of the long wide corridor. This required some skill on our part a
s the kitchen was always locked;
however
,
we had mastered the art of picking the
old locks inside the building—
all that was needed was a hair clip and we were home dry! One of us would keep look
out
w
hile the other picked the lock.
O
nce we were in the kitchen we would
make
ourselves a midnight feast to be proud of,
and
quite often the other children would sneak into the kitchen to join us.
We always had a two-hour window before it was time for the night watchmen to complete the
ir
rou
nds. T
hese were performed every two hours throughout the night until the morning staff came on duty. During this time we would all feed our
tummies until we were bursting and
then we would lock the kitchen up again and make our way to one of the girl’s rooms for a chat. If ever we got caught
,
which was fairly often
,
we wou
ld be punished and put on short-
term scrubs for a couple of days, with all privileges taken away. Scrubs were not
so bad during the summer months.
D
onned in the custom shorts and t-shirts
and lace-less P
limsolls
,
we would sweep all the yards during the day,
we were not
allowed to watch a movie before bed
,
and we were not allowed to eat with the other children at meal times. I had become quite familiar with the routine of scrubs
,
as I often
ran away and was always caught.
I would be brought straight back and of course
placed on scrubs.
Josie and I were always running away from Bryn Tyn and on one occasion we manage
d
to make our way to Liverpool
to Josie’s a
unt’s house, but we were soon to be returned to Bryn Tyn. Our punishment this time was
one whole month on kitchen duty;
however
,
we had other plans
.
W
it
hin a week we had runaway again;
this time to Shropshire to my
mother’s
in the hope that she would listen to my request to see Jake again. We hitched a lift from a passing lorry driver who was kind enough to drop us off in Shropshire and share his sandwiches along the way.
Once we reached my
mother’s
house we were greeted with a very shocked mother who fed us then called the children’s home to inform them we had arrived at her house.
A couple of hours later,
we were picked up by a member of staff who made it quite clear we were in big trouble. Josie and I sat in the back of the van on the way back whispering to each other about our fate on our return. Jos
ie and I were kindred spirits;
we got each other, we totally understood each other, we thought alike
,
and
we
had the same sense of humo
u
r
.
S
he made my days happier because she was so f
unny and we were always
up to something! We always looked out for one another and had each other
’
s back all the time.
We finally reached Bryn Tyn and were escorted straight into t
he office for another reprimand.
A
s usual we were stripped of our privileges
,
which by now were not many due to the number of times we had run
away! We were to
be put on scrubs for two weeks with
no pocket money and meals were to be ta
ken separate from everyone else. We were allowed trips into town on
the weekend, and
we didn’t have the possibility
of earning extra money either. All in all we were just scrubbing the floors for the next two weeks in a pair of shorts and t
-
shirt.
Once we completed our punishment we were back on norm
al privileges, except “trust”
we would not have this privilege for a very long time. We stayed put for a while and tried to blend into the background. I often wondered how I would be living my life if I had been b
orn into a normal, loving family.
I wondered about the family holidays, the Christmas get-togethers, the family gatherings
,
all
the
things I still longed for
, but knew this was never to be.
This was all I knew—
life within
the confines of the care system.
A
fter a while you become institutionalized
. A
lthough you dream
ed
of
a
life outside in the wor
ld, you also started to fear it. Y
ou start
ed
to feel differently,
and you felt as if everybody could
tell jus
t by looking at you that you were
from a children’s home.
You worry about their immediate judgment
of you.
M
ost people just assume you must have done something wro
ng, or they keep a safe distance from you.
T
he truth is
that
most children in care homes are there for their own safety, and then sadl
y abused by the very people who
are there to protect them. I had suffered with bouts of depression throu
ghout my time in the care homes.
O
ne day I would just wake up smo
thered by a choking, black cloud—my abyss.
I would feel so low that it o
ften brought me to near suicide; I would feel total despair.
I could not understand why it wou
ld be such a bad thing at times;
after all, living in a world without love for most of your life would inevitably affect anyone eventually.
I was a teenager now, fourteen
years old, and all I had known was on
e children’s home after another. S
ome were bad and some not so bad,
but
these pla
ces all had one thing in common;
they were all filled to the brim
,
near bursting in fact
,
with desperate children all wanting the
love and attention from someone. All wanted to be seen, and
all want
ed
to be heard. The truth was every child in care has a desperate story to tell filled with sadness and rejectio
n, abuse and violence.
We all wanted to be noticed. W
h
en a member of staff talked to you and listened to you for a while or showed
a
little compassion toward
you, it
’s fair to say you would
then shadow that pers
on like a dog trying everything they could
to please their master. And I was no different; I would latch
onto a member of staff who
showed me kindness like my life depended on it.
When I was shrouded in d
epression I would write poems—
lots of them. I was able to communicate very well how I was feeling on paper; this helped me so much during my darkest days. One particular poem I wrote went like this:
When my destiny is in my hands,
I promise to appreciate all of my life.
When my destiny is in my hands
,
I promise never to cause any strife.
When my destiny is in my hands
,
I promise to love and appreciate my friends.
When my destiny is in my hands
,