Authors: D. G Torrens
My mother and Robert left shortly after the
ir
affair was discovered. They moved to a tiny village in North Wales and rented an old terraced house from the
W
elsh
C
ouncil
, which backed onto
a cornfield with just a farmer
’
s dirt track separating the house from the field. Our new home was cold
,
a
s there was no central heating. We had an old coal fire in the center
of the small living room, by the side of which was a bucket of coal. I remember the coal man used to knock
on
the door every Friday selling coal to everyone in our street.
We had moved
there in the depths of winter. T
he snow would reach
up to our knees, and
we could not open the back gate for
the
snow blocking the path, which was only occasionally used by the farmer and his family. At
night,
we would have three or four blankets wrapped around
our freezing bodies
to keep us warm
.
I remember screaming one night
when I saw a
rat crawling along the wall in my bedroom
.
I jumped on the bed screaming,
and
our step
father
ran upstairs and took care of it.
Jake and I were very young
,
and our memory banks were just approaching the age of storing memories for the future.
On one particular day, Jake was very cold and
he was crying non
-
stop, which wa
s annoying our mother immensely.
She
shout
ed
at the top of her voice
,
“
S
hut up
,
for
God’
s sake
,
or I will put you outside until you stop
.
” Of course Jake cried harder
then
, so our mother took o
ff his clothes in temper and dressed
him in just
a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.
She opened the door,
pushed him outside
,
and told him he w
ould
have to
remain there until he stopped
whining.
The snow was
at least two feet deep,
I could
bare
ly see him. By
that time
I was crying very quietly so not to arouse my mother to the fact. I kept looking outs
ide to see if Jake was all right. H
e was crouched down in the corner of the garden sobbing quietly. A long while later
,
she
opened the door and let him in. S
he ga
ve him back his clothes and said,
“I don’t want to hear another word from you today
,
Jake
,
or you will be straight back outside
,
do you hear?”
S
he asked him in that tone that
reminded me of someone
running their nails down a blackboard. Jake and I never said another word that day; we sat behind the sofa playing quietly
,
so as not to disturb our mother while
she was watching her program
and smoking away like a chimney.
We would receiv
e a powerful slap most days
just for looking
at our mother in the wrong way. If we
slightly raise
d
ou
r voices when she was watching television,
we would receive a barrage of verbal abuse
,
followed by an almighty slap around the head.
Times were very tough, and
we had no money at all. Jake an
d I were given a regular chore. E
ach day we had to go out into the farmer
’
s fields and collect the old
s
wedes that were thrown out for the sheep to eat. We
were given an old basket to fill up. I
f we were lucky
,
the farmer sometimes threw out old cabbages too,
and
this would make for a much tastier stew that night. W
e would sneak around the field, and
one of us
would be on the lookout
, while the other would pick up the old vege
tables,
and if we saw a glimpse of the farmer we would run as fast as we could back home!
On our return
,
our mother would sort
the vegetables from
the bad from the really bad
,
and cut out the remaining e
dible bits to throw in the pot
to make a vegetable stew with a few old potatoes and some fresh garden peas
,
which were also taken from a garden down the road. Life was hard
,
and m
oney was virtually non-existent.
W
e had to make do with what
was available—
socks were darned, old clothes would be recycled to make something e
lse, and
holes in our trousers would be pa
tched up. There were many times
when we would spend nights by candlelight because our electricity had been cut off, or we were told to hide behind the sofa when
there was a knock at the door,
as it was always someone chasing
our mother for
money.
There was no money for the bus to school
,
so we had to make a two-mile walk every day
. This
was not easy when the harsh winter was
upon us, but we did it every day
and actually enjoyed the trip to school. We both knew that as soon as we reached our destination there would be warmth as well as a hot dinner later that day. Not forge
tting the two glasses of milk we received at break times, which was worth
walking the two miles as far as we were concerned! It gave us a much-needed break from the cold
,
damp house and vegetable stew
.
Wales proved to be far too isolated for our mother
,
and it was not long before we were on the move again. We all moved to a very po
or council estate in Shropshire, and
Robert managed to secure a job packing
shelves in a nearby supermarket.
I remember that mother put up the net curtains from the old house to
re-use
in the new one
. Every Friday on his return home from the supermarket, Robert was always armed with
large bags of sweets for us all.
This was the highlight of our week; we used to wait by the front door
and watch him come
up the front path. Our step
father always looked tired and weary;
he worked longs hours for very little money
, and
once his shift was over, he would walk the
three-
mile journey home.
T
his never satisfied our mother; Robert
tried very hard to please her all the time to keep her wrath at bay. Her temper
had become a
lot worse
,
and it was
becoming even more frequent. S
he would
lash out and attack Jake and I. T
here were times when our
stepfather
would stand between
mother
and I when she was about to attack me, simply because I was the one nearest to her. My mot
her had no intention of working;
s
he relied far too much on
her
looks
to get what she wanted,
only
this time her looks landed her with a poor man, who now had a job
that paid the absolute minimum.
As best as I can remember,
our
stepfather
tried his best to please her, but it was never good enough. The lack of cash was starting to agitate my mother more and more as each day went on. She could not cope with the situation, despite Robert
’
s best attempts, and was gradually getting angrier and more unpredictable by the day. She would often scream at Robert be
cause she saw him as a letdown.
“You’re useless,
”
“G
et a real job, like a real man,
” and,
“
I don’t know what I saw in you”
w
ere her
favour
ite phrases.
He knew not to respond and just to let it go for all our sakes. She was not a
woman
who could be reasoned with,
and
reacting t
o her would only feed her anger;
this meant we were all victims of her w
rath. As she hit lower depths, M
other
started
locking our bedroom doors on a nightly basis from the outside with huge indu
strial bolts. She placed potties
in our
rooms that
would not be emptied until the following morning, regardless of the number of times we
had
used them
during the night
. She removed the light bulbs from our rooms a
nd even nailed down the window
to stop us from alerting the
neighbour
s
about what
was going
on behind closed doors. At that
point I was around seven
years
old
,
and Jake
one year younger. W
e we
re both petrified of our mother.
I remember to this day she only had to move and I would flinch.
The frightening thing was
that
she seemed to enjoy scaring us,
and
the more frightened we were, the more amused she became and t
he worse she would be. We learned
never to look her directly in the eye when she was at her worst
,
as this would only encourage a beating or two. Jake and I have spoke
n
in depth about our childhood and hav
e never understood our mother. W
e
tried to make sense of it all—the
reasons and excuses for her
behaviour—
but there is no reason o
r excuse for locking your seven-year-
old child in a room
with no lighting and the wi
ndows bolted down. I have learned
over time that sometimes
we human beings look for reason
where there is none
,
only pure evil.
Unknow
n
to me
, as we were far too young,
my mother was already on the
Social Services’
watch list for neglect of my brother and I. We
were being
sent to o
ur rooms after dinner
and were not al
lowed
out until the following morning
. T
he doors would be locked to ensure
that
we did not venture out. Thi
s was quite normal to me at that
time; mother would lock us in our rooms and then get ready and go out for the evening to the local pub, leaving us home
all
alone. I have discovered through my research that
my mother
put sleeping pills into our drinks
to ensure that once we were asleep
we stayed that way for a long time.
When we
woke up the
following morning, our doors would already be unlocked if she had been
out drinking the night before. T
his would be her last job of the night
,
as she knew full well that it would be a late start for her. However, if she had not been out the night before, we would have to wait until she decided to unlock our bedroom doors. We both hated being locked in
our rooms
at night; we could not understand
why she had taken to doing this.
Jake and I were petrified of the dar
k, and she knew this about us
,
yet
still she locked us in our rooms nightly and would not allow us the simple request of
turning a light on
.
On the mornings that our doors were unlocked following her drunken spree, we would tip
toe
down the stairs mindful not to wake our mother. As always,
we
help
ed
ourselves to breakfast
,
trying not to leave a mess in our wake. We would be so
quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Jake and I would get dressed a
nd quietly let ourselves out
the front door, leaving the back door on its latch so we could get back in.
On one
particular day
,
I had dressed myse
lf in a very pretty blue skirt.
I loved it and wanted to show my friend across the square.
But when
my mother woke up and saw me playing in this skirt, she flew outside in her dressing gown
and hurled
expletives at me. I was ordered to get back inside the house and take off the skirt. She told me I was only allowed t
o wear it when she said I could. She then
gave me such a hard slap across
the face that I ran upstairs crying.
I had no idea I wa
s not allowed to wear the skirt;
it was kept with all my other clothes
,
so why could I not wear it? Maybe it was just anoth
er reason for her to vent while
feeling hung over from the night before.
Mother had soon begun to fall out with all
her
neighbours. T
here were frequent arguments
, and we were
strictly forbidden from playing with the children
whose parents she had
fought with
. Of course
,
we children would just meet up around the corner, out of si
ght
of our a
r
g
u
mentative parents. Jake and I were very careful not to be seen
,
as we would receive an almighty slap right
then and there
in front of our friends. There was an underpass where we used to meet and play two
-ball up against the walls. I was really good at it, and it
was a
favour
ite game of mine
because I spent more time outside of the house than inside.
Our mother shared all
her troubles and woes with us,
the falling out with her neighbo
u
rs, or the last person she had assaulted in the stree
t for daring to stand up to her.
E
ven though we did not understand these troubles,
we
just nod
ded
in agreement
,
not daring to ask questions. She was always in the right
,
of course
,
and everybody else was always at fault. These were things you should not discuss with your children
,
let alone involve them in the arguments.