Simon Mark Smith’s Autobiography
CHAPTER 7
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Part 1
Simon – 1964
Soon after realising she was pregnant, Angela made her way to Victoria Coach Station. This was where my father’s tours would start and end and eventually found him surrounded by a throng of well-wishing women. She pulled him aside and told him what had happened. He said “Let’s talk” so, they went back to his place.
The most important decisions in life tend to be made between two people in bed. Well, that’s what Billy Bragg knowingly crooned to me once, and it certainly resonated with me. Likewise, that night, when Boris asked Angela to live with him, she refused his kind offer unless it involved marriage, which he, in turn, declined. So, the next day they went their separate ways.
As Angela began “to show”, her mother had her stay in a “mother and baby” clinic. In 1964 unmarried mothers were severely stigmatised, so, for all concerned, having them disappear for a while was seen as the best course of action.
I was born in Epsom District Hospital, at 3 pm on March 18th, 1965. It was a sunny Thursday and the mottled pattern of light coming through the trees danced around the walls, but when I first made my entrance or exit, all in the theatre became still and fell silent. Angela immediately knew something was amiss, and as the nurse passed my naked bloody body to her, she looked at me and cried, “Poor thing”. While said with compassion, I’m glad I couldn’t understand her back then, otherwise, my self-esteem would have taken a dive from the outset.
My mother was beautiful, and not just to me, her biased son. She was affectionate and loved me. She’d get on her knees and hug me, she loved me, oh yeah, she loved me, but there were times when it wasn’t like a rock, but tidal water. I felt her love all around and deep inside me, yet for a lot of the time she wasn’t there.
From the day the midwives showed me to her, I was put in a nursery where she would come once a day to feed, clean and hug me. The sensation of knowing what it’s like to be loved but to yearn for it because it isn’t there enough has haunted me far more catastrophically than having short arms and deformed legs ever did. Of course, one could argue that having a disability meant it was far easier to have me institutionalised, especially as my mother’s mother, Ethel, was also shamed by my illegitimacy, alien blood, and disability, and didn’t want anything to do with me, so without her mother’s support, Angela had no option but to have me put into “care”.
Even so, my mother would visit me nearly every day and I’d respond accordingly but the long gaps between meetings meant that as the loving commenced so too would the fear of it ending. Instead of a regular pattern of feeding and loving followed by short moments alone and then being heard if I was to cry, what I experienced were countless long bouts of being left alone.
It’s hard to know what really went on in my mind but it’s probably reasonable to assume that the fear of being abandoned was likely followed by anger at being ignored. Even today I can still feel those feelings rise from the depths, as an overwhelming fear and collapse of any internal strength.
My mother was not abusive, but a victim of circumstances. In 1965 the state did not recognise how important it was to keep children close to a parent and even though there were people who did, my mother, as in love with me as she was, was not one of them and had little idea of what damage was being done.
I spent the first two and a half years of my life living between the nursery, Roehampton Hospital and my grandmother’s house, where I was allowed to stay occasionally, and to me, that was home. My mother would come to see me at the nursery about four evenings during the week and both weekend days. When I recently asked her about this, she got a bit defensive and couldn’t understand why I didn’t appreciate how much effort she’d put into seeing me then. The point I wanted to make to her was simply, that the irregularity and “long” gaps will likely cause problems for most young children, but even so, that was still better than being abandoned totally, which for some at the time was the logical answer. “If it upsets him to see her go, maybe it’d be best for him to not see her at all.” As one social worker put it to my mother.
* * *
1965
Soon after I was born a friend of my mother suggested that given my father was “foreign” – he held a British passport but was technically South African, and originally from Latvia – it’d probably be best to get him to pay her a lump sum rather than have him agree to regular payments and then disappear. So, my mother started legal proceedings against him.
My father hated the thought of being forced into anything so decided to fight her and on top of that was angered because the summons to the court was delivered to his office and that resulted in him being summarily sacked for playing around on the job. How little they knew. So, feeling coerced and humiliated Boris went to court with the defence that he was not able to have children due to an accident he’d had as a child that damaged his testes. However, he omitted to tell them he’d already had a daughter.
The court ordered blood tests and as they sat in the waiting room of the clinic, neither my mother nor my father spoke to each other. My mother said she would have, but her mother was with her, so she felt inhibited. Then when it came to the day of the proceedings my father made an offer of a one-off payment of £400, which was about one-fifth of the price of an average house back then. My mother accepted it and put it into a savings account where it gradually lost its worth and was one day spent on something insignificant.
My father got to hold me for a few minutes in court, and then, Angela and Boris, my mother and father, went their separate ways.
* * *
When Boris would see children with short arms later in life, he’d call the name “Simon” to see if they’d react and when he painted pictures, he’d put a little figure somewhere on the canvas as a memorial to me. But for Boris that was the limit of his involvement as a father. He did try to find me on several occasions, but they were half-hearted attempts. For Boris, it was more convenient not to be involved. My original reaction to this was as to be expected, but later in life I experienced a similar situation and came to understand just how hard it is to connect to a child when there’s so much resentment flying around. It’s easy to say it shouldn’t make a difference, but it does.
* * *
Part 2
Surgery
I had been born with the fibula, the small bone, in each of my lower legs, missing which consequently resulted in my feet turning out. At six months old, I was taken to Roehampton Hospital in the south west reaches of outer London where surgery was performed to fuse my ankles throughout the following year. When I was brought in from surgery my mother sat next to me, watched me twitching in my sleep and cried.
* * *
Roehampton Hospital had been one of the centres in the world where after both World Wars, soldiers could be put back together again, well at least partially. For me, throughout my childhood, it became a second home. Half hospital, half factory it was built around an old mansion and its gardens. Situated in the far corner of the hospital was the ward I stayed on. At first, it was known as C.P.U. but this was later changed to the Leon Gillis Unit, (L.G.U.). Over the years it had additions built on, but its original layout was a square room with a column in the middle of it. This was where we played and ate, and another square room next to this one was where we slept. There was a further corridor which went off from that room to the kitchen, bathrooms, and staffroom.
The square room we slept in had about 9 beds sticking out from the walls and next to each of them was a small bedside cupboard. On top of each bed would be a fleece which was dyed a strong hue of either gold or purple. Above us on the very high ceiling were blue round lights that stayed on throughout the night and illuminated the internal world of anyone who slept there as a child for all their remaining days.
At about four years old, a girl I was friends with was put into my cot one morning. She snuggled up to me under my Golden fleece which was all very cosy, but then she started telling me the blister on my foot was going to get bigger and bigger until it was as big as the room, at which point it would explode. I screamed out in fear, which resulted in the girl being removed and told off by the nurse. I guess some patterns start very early on.
Simon, aged about three playing on a climbing frame
End of Chapter 7
