Simon Mark Smith’s Autobiography
CHAPTER 8
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Background politics tend to have a far greater effect than those taking place in the open. Likewise, when it came to where I was allowed to live as a child, the same was true. Well-meaning but detrimental agendas were playing out behind the scenes that would come to play their part in scarring me for life.
My mother lived with her mother, Ethel May, at 30 Ruskin Drive, in Worcester Park, a suburb of South West London. The hospital and nursery where I stayed were ten miles away, so journeying to visit me daily was still practically possible, however, my next place of residence was to be in the north east suburbs of London, which was a far harder place for Mum to get to.
At the time it was made clear this was the only option available, but, as I discovered when I acquired my records many years later, this proved to be part of a plan to get me away from my mother. One particular social worker had taken an immediate dislike to Mum and the report didn’t hide why. Firstly, my mother having a child out of wedlock was almost unforgivable in her eyes, and secondly, she believed Angela to be stupid, fanciful and irresponsible. For instance, when my mother said my father had told her he was Spanish and Russian, the social worker asserted Angela was talking rubbish. As it turned out, what he said was a half-truth, as the Spanish side came from what he believed to be his mother’s Sephardic roots and the Russian, his father’s Ashkenazi ones. As it turned out, when I got a DNA test my Jewish heritage was completely Ashkenazi. But, anyway, as far as this social worker was concerned, it would be better for me not to see my mother.
The result of this social worker’s machinations was I was moved, at just two and a half years old, to a Barnardo’s home in Woodford Bridge known as John Capel Hanbury (JCH). So, instead of an hour-long journey to visit me, it would now take between five to six hours for each round trip. Consequently, from then on, we’d only see each other on alternate weekends and some holidays.
* * *
2005
I have friends who have had childhoods which were far worse than mine. Yesterday I spoke to one who had been systematically sexually abused for ten years from the age of three, and when the abuse was discovered, her parents turned on her for bringing the family’s name into disrepute. So, I’m well aware my story is mild compared to many others, however, that’s my point, you don’t need a massive tragedy to bring you into a world of instability, and you shouldn’t feel guilty just because your past wasn’t as bad as others.
* * *
In 1987, soon after I’d got my first car and was looking for any excuse to drive it, I decided to go to the old Barnardo’s home I’d stayed in. I wasn’t quite sure of where it’d been situated, but eventually, I found a building that resembled it, although since then it had been converted into a posh-looking restaurant. It was winter and the sky was already darkening everything to a faded blue. I stood there feeling a bit tearful. I was almost tempted to push my face up to the glass and mime taking a mouthful of food as one of the customers put their fork in their mouth to see if I could get a sympathy meal.
Fortunately, someone walked past me just as I started to approach the window. “Excuse me,” I said, “but do you know if this was the old Barnardo’s building?”
It turned out they used to work for Barnardo’s and the place I was talking about had been knocked down to make way for a housing estate quite a while back. I wiped the tears from my eyes and drove home vowing from then on to keep my sentimental outbursts to places which were definitely the right ones.
* * *
1967 – JCH – Barnardo’s
The John Capel Hanbury (JCH) “home” had originally been a hospital. It had large double-fronted doors opening onto the main entrance hall with corridors going off to the left and right. These led to what were originally wards, but when I was there, were either play areas, dining rooms, or dormitories, at the end of which were smaller, ‘end rooms’. The one at the end of our dormitory had a black and white television in it and a doorway leading to a fire escape from which I’d wave goodbye to my mum as she’d set off on her arduous journeys home.
When I lived in the ward it looked more like the older photo above
To the front of the building there was a large lawn with a driveway running up to the main entrance and to the right of the building a more modern, portacabin-type, annexe had been added. This was where our school room was, and beyond that were other mysterious places.
The corridor to the dormitory upstairs had a bathroom with light-blue-coloured walls, a colour that’d come to haunt me later in life. Due to my right foot being so twisted, most of my weight was taken on the side of my big toe which would regularly result in the skin blistering, becoming hard and in time cracking open. Not a pleasant thought I know, but worse than the crack itself was I’d be taken into this blue room every evening where surgical spirit would be applied to the skin on my feet. The stinging sensation was extremely painful and eventually, knowing what was coming I’d have to be dragged in screaming.
My mother often tells me I was happy when I was in JCH and on the whole, I was. The place was a mixture of Victorian values and flower power. The matron and her deputy walked around followed by their Labradors, while most of the female workers were long-haired, miniskirt-wearing hippies. The male versions had beards, but apart from that, they looked similar, bar the miniskirts. Well, in public anyway.
A few years ago, I met up with one of my teachers from JCH, Ms Parker, and she showed me some photographs she had from those times. One of them was of her sitting in front of a small group of children, she was wearing a miniskirt and her long slim legs curved around her. One of the children in front of her was me and the look on my face was one of awe.
From my adolescence to my early thirties, I found I was drawn to leggy women with long dark hair, my mother on the other hand was blonde and voluptuous. So, as I grew up, I seemed to have a split idea of the type of women I was drawn to. I do realise that as a man I’m drawn to most women, however, I seem to have these two very different looks imprinted in my mind. For instance, the voluptuous blonde type draws me in with her breasts and hourglass figure, but I carry a severe mistrust of her desire to be with me, while the dark-haired slim woman pulls me in with her dark eyes and beautiful face and is enigmatic from the outset. She is the unattainable, the object of unrequited love. Even so, both dance around my issues of yearning and jealousy, or more accurately I dance around them.
* * *
1969 -Dreams and Reality – Memories Are Made of This
One morning one of the hippie workers came to help me get up and ready for breakfast. I told her that this was a special day for me as I was going to have breakfast with Matron. I said that after I was dressed, I was to have my breakfast put on a tray and then proceed to the Matron’s quarters. So, we did so.
Standing at the Matron’s door I was filled with feelings of privilege and excitement, especially at the thought of being able to stroke her dogs, who I loved. As the door opened, she stood there, glaring at us in her dressing gown. “That’s very informal,” I thought, “how nice”.
“What’s going on?” She asked.
“I’ve brought Simon down for breakfast, as instructed,” said the hippie helper. Unfortunately, it was the hippie helper who was just about to be had for breakfast. Matron, who must have been a frustrated actor bellowed, “By whom?” The helper looked down at me for help, “He told me you’d said he could.” Matron had obviously once played a cunning interrogator, “And you, you believed him, did you?” The helper clasped her hands together, “Well, I did, he was very convincing and he was so excited about seeing you.” The matron gulped, then straightened her back a little, “Don’t be ridiculous girl, we don’t have breakfast with the children, whatever next.”
I was both confused and overwhelmed with shame at the same time, not only did I suddenly realise the invitation may have been a dream, but I had also betrayed this poor kind-hearted woman. I started to cry. The Matron looked down at me and pushed her lips tight together. She sighed, then offered to let me come back later to give the dogs a biscuit each. I sniffed back the tears and said, “Thank you.” Needless to say, my relationship with the helpers took a bit of a nose-dive from then on.
* * *
The line, as any good philosopher will say, between dreams and reality is a thin one. So, as I grew up and recalled incidents from my time at JCH it would sometimes be hard to tell if they’d been real or dreamt. It’s often said that as we get older our lives feel like a dream. So here are a few memories which I wasn’t sure were real or not.
* * *
1969 – The picnic
One day our long-legged teacher, Ms Parker, took us to the field at the back of the school. About four other children and I sat on a faded turquoise tarpaulin. We pretended we were on a boat, calmly sailing across an ocean, all went well till I thought I’d try running on water and made a bolt for the corner of the field. I could hear Ms Parker calling for me to stop, but there was no looking back, this was it, freedom was just a few strides away. The error in my plan lay in the fact that I had quite short legs, unlike our gazelle-like teacher, who had, as you already know, very long ones. So, my fate was very much sealed from the outset. Still, even in the face of certain failure, there can, at times, also be an overwhelming urge to laugh hysterically. Running with the ever-approaching figure of Ms Parker over my shoulder, was an adventure well worth the consequences. Was this my father’s nature literally running through me? Thirty-six years later, Ms Parker laughed about this incident over a reuniting lunch in her house in York. So that memory was real unless we both dreamt it. Maybe being picked up and held close to her on the journey back to “the boat” made it all worthwhile. Possibly, for both of us even.
Back on the tarpaulin, we watched a bull in the next field running in circles, bucking and generally going a bit mad. We soon started feeling a bit agitated especially as some of us had bright red clothes on. To our surprise and fascination, an older child, no doubt another Barnardo’s escapee, ran into the field and taunted the bull. Predictably it decided to chase after him. As you can imagine, we were all a little disappointed when the boy got away unscathed. Now that bit might be real, it felt real, but when I asked Ms Parker about it, she didn’t remember anything, but she was probably busy drawing up lesson plans for our next week’s study. So, we’ll leave it as a possibility.
As we played on, one of the others shouted, “There’s a snake”. We looked around and indeed a small orange snake approached us. We all moved out of its predicted path and then watched it slip under the tarp. We jumped or rolled off the mat and called for help. A few moments later Ms Parker came to the rescue and pulled up the mat, but the orange snake was nowhere to be seen. We looked at each other wondering if the snake was on one of us or worse still inside our clothes. Well, no one else thought that until I muted the idea, at which point there was general pandemonium and screaming.
For years, I thought this must have been a dream, and when I recounted it in therapy, you can imagine the field day we had with that one. “An orange snake you say?” But now, I’ve concluded it may well have happened. About a year ago I came across something about an orange snake-like worm in the UK on the Internet, and it was with this in mind that I started to question whether it might have been real after all. So, the other night I attempted to track down the existence of an orange snake in the UK on the net, but I couldn’t find anything that vaguely resembled what I’d seen. I then had a Gestalt moment – I studied them in Teacher Training but I’m still not sure what they are, maybe one day it’ll come to me. – Instead of using the word “orange” I inserted “golden” and behold a plethora of results came back. Apparently, in the UK we have a lizard that has no legs, – a lizard with a disability, I like that – so it looks like a snake, but it’s known as a Slow worm. – Confused? – Anyway, the young Slow worms are a golden colour with a black line. If you’re wondering what the difference between a snake and a lizard without legs is, the lizard has eyelids, not that I’d want to be close enough to find out.
So, was it a dream? The answer is, I don’t know, but there’s certainly evidence to suggest it might not have been. In this instance, it doesn’t really matter, but my reason for making an issue of it is that our childhoods, and indeed a lot of our adult lives, merge the worlds of dreams and reality, yet we rarely question the accuracy of our memories.
* * *
2005
I was talking to one of my friends the other day and she was telling me about how when a new boyfriend told her he’d started to have deep feelings for her she could almost physically feel a wall between them appear in front of her. I said she may have some issues from her past that might be worth paying attention to. Her father had gone away when she was five, so I mentioned that the incidents around her parent’s separation might have affected her. “No, I’m sorry,” she said “but that’s just nonsense. It was the best thing that could have happened. They weren’t happy together. Anyway, I can’t remember anything about my father.”
I said that the fact that she had no memories of him before his leaving the family home could be significant, and the words “It was the best thing that could have happened. They weren’t happy together” were not those of a five-year-old but of an adult, possibly her mother or herself, attempting to make the best of the situation. The thing is that for many of us, the memories that have a profound effect on our present are not ones we can always easily recall but instead come to us via smells or physical sensations.
One such memory I carried with me from a very early age, would often come as I tried to get to sleep. I’d see a small spot in the distance hanging over me and sense it was approaching me slowly. At the same time, I would feel as if a large object was bearing down upon me, smothering me whilst getting heavier and heavier. The feeling of fear that accompanied this sensation was almost unbearable and would often result in me getting out of bed and seeking reassurance.
One night I woke from this “dream” in the dormitory at Barnardo’s to find the night nurse snoring, her head resting on her arms on the table. I walked up to her and tried to wake her, but she didn’t, so I went back to my bed and tried to get back to sleep, only I kept hearing a voice inside me saying, “The wolf, the wolf, the wolf”. This continued for a long time. I wanted them to hush but they wouldn’t and the more it persisted the greater the fear I felt. I also noticed I could simultaneously hear other words or thoughts going on below those words and a more controlled conversation taking place above them. This internal chatter, perhaps it was a din, was something I possibly created as a reaction to the unbearable silence of waiting for Mother.
That night I wasn’t brought to tears but instead, I felt frozen with terror. Sitting on my bed I knew there was nowhere to run. That sensation of fear is one I know well now and can range from a humming cold sweat to a shaking body, fast heartbeat, profound sweating, heavy arms, aching knees, tight throat, tense chest and a heavy-hearted sensation. Even as an adult, these feelings are hard to cope with but for a child, they must have been overwhelming.
If having one’s feet on the ground, and feeling grounded, are terms we use to describe being more in contact with what’s real, as the words “understand” and “understood” also suggest, then feeling light and high above the ground, point to a feeling of being detached from reality. Sometimes I’d have awful dreams of being blown in the wind and tossed around in the sky and would feel sick from the sensation of my stomach churning. Just before they’d come, I’d often know such a dream was just about to start and unable to wake myself would feel utter dread.
* * *
1969
I was about four when, one morning one of the helpers, a woman with long dark hair was getting me dressed. I asked her if she was a witch, and she laughed and said, “Yes.” So, wanting to know more I asked if she ever got together with other witches, to which she said yes again. Excited by this I told her I was curious to know if, when they met up, they were naked. To my delight, she told me they were. I was feeling very sexually curious about the prospect of lots of women being naked, so enquired if she could use her magic powers to make me small enough to fit into a keyhole thus enabling me to watch them. I can’t remember what her reply was, I was probably too engrossed in the thoughts I was having. Nowadays she’d probably be in jail, or be dunked in the sewage of social media, but they were simpler times back then, and even now I look back and remember her fondly.
* * *
2005
That friend of mine, the one I mentioned a bit earlier. The one who felt a wall appear between her and her new boyfriend as he proclaimed his love for her. I want to return to her because today I’ve been thinking about the pursuer-distancer dynamic and its profound effect on people’s relationships, including mine. I tend to feel that because of my past, I’m more prone to this dynamic, however many others seem to suffer at the hands of it too, so, I thought it worth a mention.
This dynamic mainly occurs as one person distances themselves in a relationship and the other reacts, almost involuntarily, by pursuing them more than they were previously. The problem with this dynamic is as soon as it comes into play in any significant way, the relationship between both parties becomes inhibited, often so much so, that it’s no longer about who they are, but the dynamic itself. Although one could argue the dynamic is who we are, in practical terms, neither party continues to relate to the other without the presence of the dynamic and at that point the relationship, as it had been, ends.
For my friend, the one with the wall, her feeling of relief of getting rid of her pursuer far outweighed the feeling of loss of someone who, up to that moment, had been a pleasure to be with. It’s as if the pursuer-distancer part of her took her real self and cast it aside.
As I grew older, I realised that many of my relationships couldn’t avoid being affected by my feelings from the past, but, even so, there are some dynamics which nearly all of us are prone to, no matter the quality of our childhoods. Probably ever since humans have walked the earth, they’ve been dealing with emotions linked to what is known as the “romantic illusion”. Whether you see this in terms of biology or metaphysics, deep down you’re still likely to harbour a romantic illusion which generally manifests itself in ideas about there being a soulmate or someone with whom we can feel whole again. In other words, a dreamy idea about relationships that bears little resemblance to what most of us experience in reality. There may be moments within relationships that have us feeling as if we are at one with our partners, but generally speaking, this isn’t our day-to-day experience of “being together”.
In medieval times the notion of romantic love was set out clearly in stories that have been handed down throughout the ages and still echo through such modern-day “classics” as ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Lord of The Rings’. In our society, the idea of having a good relationship has almost become the new religion. We are duty-bound to feel we ought to be happily ensconced with someone else and through this relationship we will feel reconnected.
Many of our films climax with a reunion that brings most of us to tears and even the word Religion is derived from words that mean “reconnected”. Even the prevalent idea of what happens to us when we die includes a moment of being drawn into the light where we submit our individuality so that we can be reconnected to a feeling of immense Love or God. When I was growing up there were slogans everywhere saying “God is Love” so I suppose it’s no surprise that there’s an overlap still.
For many people, the reality of their relationships with their parents was a real, day-to-day, hustle and bustle of family life. But for me, it was a romantic illusion. I didn’t know what it felt like to be part of a family, all I had was, little glimpses and a dream. The problem with yearning for a dream is you can never feel satiated because, of course, the dream can’t ever be acquired.
As for the romantic illusion, I’ll come back to it again throughout these chapters as it’s such an important part of who we are.
* * *
1970
One weekend when I was five, a local policeman took me out for a drive in his Panda car, probably named because it was painted in blocks of white and blue. There aren’t blue and white pandas, but the police probably thought that associating themselves with pandas would be a good public relations exercise. I imagine the panda community must have been up in paws about it.
Anyway, the policeman told me as we pulled up outside a house that I was to wait in the car while he went inside and made some ice cream. I waited for what seemed to be an interminable time and when he did come out the ice cream was nowhere to be seen.
As a five-year-old one doesn’t question the local bobby but years later, well tonight, it struck me that he had probably entered the house to do a bit of undercover private investigations into his own romantic illusion, and I was just his excuse. If he’d come out with a choc-ice, I’d have been happy to play along, but as they say, there’s a thin blue line between the goodies and the baddies and while I didn’t want to judge, I did want to let him know I was rather disappointed. And you wonder why I’m so cynical.
* * *
1970
It’s hard to get across the sense of family that existed between me and some of the other children who I stayed with during this period because so few stories come to mind, but there was a bond between us.
I’m not sure how much this says of the human race, but my first experience of hysterical laughter was around the breakfast table when a small blond-haired girl – possibly called Paula – farted and I said it was an “eggy”. All of us had tears rolling down our cheeks. I guess at four or five years old it’s ok to be immature. However, I’m sad to say that even last night I was laughing hysterically as I did an impression of someone who had lost their ability to focus on what they were trying to say, as they breathed in somebody else’s wind. To those of you who have matured beyond such airy humour, I salute you.
* * *
1970
Lee-Roy was also a co-captive at JCH. He was black and walked with a limp, as we both did. One day there was a summer storm which we both got caught in on the front lawn. We decided to dance in a circle while the warm rain fell upon us and the staff called us from the main entrance. We ignored them knowing full well they didn’t want to get wet, or risk being struck by lightning, and given Lee-Roy wore callipers on his legs there was a strong chance anyone near him would. Left alone, we played in the rain for ages. Nowadays it would probably be seen as a little presumptuous and racist to associate Lee-Roy with Africa, but back then I was more concerned with finding my own roots than looking good, and perhaps my desire to do an African dance was motivated, well at least partly, by having been told my father was South African. I didn’t know what this meant, but any association with Africa was significant to me.
One day my mother and I were on a tube train. Just opposite us, a black man sat reading a paper minding his own business. I looked at him and said, “Excuse me, but are you my daddy?” I’m not sure how long the gap was between me saying that and my mother whacking me and snapping, “Of course not!” But I’d say it was pretty fast. The man laughed and looked at me and then at my mother, and said, “I don’t believe we’ve ever met, so I don’t think so. However, I think if I had, I would most certainly have remembered”.
“Thank you,” I thought “at least someone around here can deal with a simple question”.
My mother apologised and got off at the next stop even though it wasn’t the one we were going to. I imagine she was tempted to leave me on the train, but much to my possible father’s relief, she didn’t.
The lack of a father played on my mind. Even watching a group of contortionists on television who had come from South Africa had me getting my body into all kinds of small places for years afterwards. I have managed to stop myself nowadays but sometimes seeing a small suitcase does get me a little excited.
* * *
2005 – Hello Cruel World
As the song goes, there is “a time to kill”, and today was one of them. The air was dry-hot, we had prepared our weapons, gone through the plan and worked out what to do if it went wrong. David, who was heading the first strike, laughed and said, “Run and keep running”. I hate running.
The only way in was through our enemy’s well-guarded entrance. Our main strength was daring, and a lethal combination of nerve gases. David crept up quietly while I kept watch. They didn’t even see him place the nozzle of the pipe in position. He released the trigger and the gas poured in.
We are talking seconds from when he hit the trigger to when the first soldier tumbled out of the mouth of the entrance and down to the ground. David almost escaped unharmed but one of the first to exit took a swipe at the back of his leg. I wanted to shout out, “Watch it!” but I didn’t want to direct attention my way. It was too late though; he nicked the back of David’s thigh. David kicked him and the little bastard dropped and writhed around in silent agony.
We both retreated to a safer position to watch the results of our work. One by one they staggered out, white specks appeared around their faces, as they blindly followed the source of fresh air, but by the time they got outside they just dropped, hit the ground, their bodies in convulsions, and within minutes they were dead.
I’d like to tell you that I felt some pity or sadness for them, but I didn’t. One of their kind, if they can be called kind, had hurt me as a child, and another had ruined a meal out one night. From early childhood, I was indoctrinated to hate them, and throughout my lifetime they conformed to my stereotypical views. I can’t help it, I hate wasps. Call me a speciesist if you like.
The other night I had left the light on in the kitchen and hadn’t closed the window properly. Later on, I noticed about 20 wasps walking forlornly across the floor. The redundant wasp’s nest I’d seen in the attic last December now had a new one next to it. I’m going to have builders do a loft conversion soon, so I thought it best to get rid of the wasps before I got into a situation where they’d all be running away from the job in panic.
I got the local pest controller around. His name was David, and we set to work. I don’t know how we got around to discussing his sexual preference, but we did, and it turned out he’s a sadomasochistic domination and bondage master. He even has a website. I could see by the way he enjoyed killing the wasps and didn’t complain too much about being stung that this was undeniably the perfect job for him. I have to admit I too enjoyed watching them die, but I don’t need to get dressed up in leather or rubber to do so.
* * *
2005
It’s well known that much of our humour is based around cruelty. When a monkey smiles, its teeth are not bared in delight but aggression and I’m the first to admit I have a very dark streak of cruel humour, but I still try my best not to hurt people’s feelings when making jokes, in other words, I do it behind their backs. Like most of us, when we’re confronted with a difficult situation, we tend to deal with it through humour and, sometimes when faced with a person who looks different, like me, people will often cope by making a joke. Nowadays, I tend to forgive people for this trespass within certain limitations, but it wasn’t always so. To me, it’s okay to laugh at stereotypical tropes and jokes as long as we consciously realise that’s what they are and we should at least temper such beliefs with a bit of common sense, and decency. However, I wasn’t always so tolerant.
Near JCH there was a local infant’s school which I was invited to attend. During break time a group of children surrounded me and started calling me Captain Hook because I was wearing artificial arms with hooks on. Not seeing the funny side of it I attempted to make them stop by swinging my arm toward one of them at speed. There was a clunk, followed by a thud as his body hit the ground, and then there was some wailing, well actually quite a bit of wailing. The other children, however, fell silent, which, as far as I was concerned, was a good result.
I wasn’t invited back the next day, or any other day as the experiment hadn’t gone quite as well as hoped. But for me, I’d learned a valuable lesson, and that was violence can be an answer sometimes, even if it isn’t the right one but a right hook one.
* * *
1969
During the summer holidays, a group of JCH kids and staff would stay a few weeks in Clacton, a seaside town not far from the Thames estuary on the east coast of England. This was a place where occasionally when the tide went out, there’d be hundreds of stranded jellyfish covering the beach. Along with them, there’d be the crabs too, lots of them. It was the stuff of nightmares, so much so, that one night during our stay I dreamt of a crab chasing after our minibus (I’m almost certain it was a dream), and lastly there were the wasps to top it off. At one point I was pretty sure a wasp stung me, but one of the hippie helpers told me I hadn’t been stung and as she had such a pretty face, I was inclined to believe her, so I soon recovered. Even the fallen red berries along the pathway from our hotel to the beach were poisonous but at least the blossom wasn’t, but that didn’t taste too good. Given all the natural threats posed by Clacton, I couldn’t help but think Matron had sent us on a “survival of the fittest” quest. What she probably wasn’t aware of was when the younger staff members took us there, it was like being part of a 60’s hippie genre film such as, “Easy Rider”. There were journeys in the back of trucks with their orange plastic windows. The drivers would slalom as they knew we loved being thrown around in the back. Then there were the late-night parties on the beach with campfire-cooked food, guitar-playing singers, dancing in the firelight and waking up with long-haired men and women sleeping on the floor in the guest house next to us.
One morning I woke up with a bearded, half-naked, man lying on the floor next to me. He sat up and said, “Hi man,” to me, then someone entered the room and passed him a mug of extra sugared black coffee. He looked at me, I was probably still staring at him as I had no idea who he was, and held the mug towards me saying, “Go on, try it, it’s coffee, have you ever had coffee before?” I shook my head. The woman who’d brought the mug in told him I was too young for coffee, but she was too late, I’d taken a swig. It was delicious and I wanted more. “Hold on soldier,” he said pulling the mug from me, he took a mouthful, then let me have the sugary remainder.
* * *
1970
By the age of five, the world had shown me that it was a dangerous place, where people could be cruel, and while I hadn’t been totally abandoned, I was aware that for much of the time I’d have to cope without family support. I’d also learned destroying threats through anger could be of use, and the feeling of control doing that was a powerful sensation. In time, actually a long time, I learned that understanding and letting go could be a far more creative and less self-damaging means of dealing with these situations, but still, even now, I can often get flashes of fury.
* * *
2005
Last night a man in a car drove at me on a roundabout so I made sure I didn’t give way to his aggression. His forcefulness had nothing to do with me until I let it, but something in me must have wanted to connect with him and all he symbolised. To me, he was a bully and I wanted to stand up to him, but I know it’s not my job to rid the world of such people, that’d be exhausting. Still, though, I couldn’t let it go. Whether it’s something biological, sociological or related to childhood experiences that makes some of us more aggressive than others, I don’t know, but what I can tell you, is not far below the surface lies a rage inside me, especially when it comes to bullies and wasps.
* * *
1970 – Auto-contact
At five years old I was moved into a more formal class setting in JCH. I sat near the front of the class and could feel the hot sunlight upon my face through the glass. I noticed a reflection of the sun on my artificial arm’s hook. I put it up close to my eye so I could see into the reflection and what I saw looked like a field of grass. While the teacher spoke, his words became distant as I drifted into this green and not-unpleasant land. At the same time, a small piece of nylon string used to help my hook open and close touched my face. As I moved, it stroked me and as it did that, I fell further into a world of sensuous pleasure. If the people I depended on could not be with me or offer physical affection then I would have to provide my own comfort and escape.
Within the “self-help” community there seems to be a consensus that when it comes to being happy, being so in one’s skin is a fundamental prerequisite, but regarding being independent, that’s far less clear-cut. The point I’m getting at is, there’s a difference between being happy in our own company and being independent and it’s easy to get confused by the two. There was a time when being independent was seen as something to strive for and to a degree we all need to feel we can cope on our own, but that’s just it, it’s to a degree. In reality, we need other people, whether it’s to bring us up, educate us, build the infrastructure we use, and so on. And on a more personal level, most of us need understanding, connection, friendship, family and love. With that in mind, it might be better to think more in terms of being interdependent rather than dependent or independent. We don’t get to choose our families, and some say our friends are God’s compensation for that, but how do we choose our friends and lovers if we repeatedly choose badly? If that keeps happening, we’re eventually going to end up asking ourselves why. Is it simply a case of there not being any good people for us to find, or are we drawn to making bad choices? I shall come back to that question in later chapters but one thing I realised looking back to my time in Barnardo’s was I came to find the things that’d sustain me when I was alone both back then and for most of my life.
In JCH there was a playroom in which we’d be placed for both a treat and a punishment, but to me, it was always a pleasure because there was a wind-up gramophone available. I’d sit listening to old records while watching dust move through the beams of sunlight through the gaps in the curtains. I had my own audio-visual show going on. And then there was my interest in the visual arts, which started very early too. When they sat me at a table with a paintbrush, paper and paint I’d be happy for hours. At four years old I won a national painting competition with a painting called “Mummy and Simon”. I even got a spot on the national news. The interviewer asked me about the painting but all I wanted to talk about was a toy aeroplane I’d just got which could be swung around in a circle and “would actually fly.” It seems I wasn’t able to tell a story without going off on a tangent even then. So, both the process and results of painting made spending time alone doing it very rewarding.
Away from the playroom, there were other areas of interest. There was a small hut-type house on the grounds which I’d try to ‘do up’, if only in my imagination. This I now see as the start of my interest in property development and right next to the hut was an old wreck of a car we’d play on, yep, you’ve guessed it, I love driving cars, it’s very meditative. We also had a sandpit, but apart from going to the beach and occasionally building sand sculptures, I don’t think it had a profound influence. So, there you have it, my passions as an adult were pretty much mapped out by the age of five, and nearly all of them resulted from spending time alone. Except of course flirting with women, which as can be seen from the photo of me making eyes at Miss Parker, also started at a very young age.
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When I planned out this chapter, I wanted to discuss the truth behind things, not just what is in front of us, but the underlying factors that are so often obscured. I was particularly interested in the factors that come into play in our relationships, especially those that stop us from relating honestly with one another. Even the word “care” was a paradox to me as a child because while it was used to define the place I lived in, the care I yearned for couldn’t be found there. Well, not to the same extent as the type I’d experienced at home.
From the outset, there was a discrepancy between the meaning of people’s words and their actions, and being a victim of this resulted in me having a mistrust of the words people used, especially those who were supposed to be caring. Beyond those early years, and possibly throughout my whole life, I’ve experienced the contradiction of “care”. Sometimes it can be with the best intentions that people offer help with what they think is best for me, but in reality, it isn’t. And anyway, we all know what the road to Hell is paved in.
For example, at five years old, a non-hippie older helper saw I had a very runny nose as a result of hay fever, and within minutes she’d tied a load of tissues together and made them into a kind of necklace that went around the back of my head, across my face and under my nose. When Matron saw this, she ordered me to take it off. I almost thought about bursting into tears to see if I could get another bone-feeding treat with the Labradors but thought better of it. Under her breath, I heard her snarl, “Something has to be done about that woman.” Needless to say, it was a time before unfair dismissal was around and the non-hippie inventor was never seen by me, or possibly anyone else, ever again. Come to think of it, those labradors were rather portly.
This experience of being offered aids and adaptations continued throughout my life, and as we shall see later it did have some devastating results. I grew up with a serious mistrust of any adaptation being offered to me and aimed for a life where I barely relied on any piece of equipment if I could help it. Even now, when people ask if my car’s been adapted, which they often do, I say, “Yes, I’ve had an extremely loud and expensive stereo system installed.”
What I learned from this was that the first step in caring for someone is to try to find out what their needs are. I’d often have people inventing adaptations for me which were not only of no benefit to me but were not necessary in the first place. To them, I had a problem, and their way of caring was to offer solutions, but most of the time I found my own way to do things and instead of working with me they felt they knew best. To many that may come over as ungrateful, but it wasn’t a case of me not appreciating their motives, I did, but there was also a sense of not being listened to. And then there’d be the opposite situation, where someone offered a solution, but their motives were not good at all. I’ll come back to that another time, but if you want the short version have a listen to my song ‘Grateful’.
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This sense of things not being as they seemed also came from the relationship with my mother, possibly long before I ever arrived at JCH. The big discrepancy was, that I couldn’t understand how if my mother loved me as much as she said she did, she could leave me alone in this place. One winter evening I waved goodbye to my mother from the JCH TV room fire escape and as we blew kisses at each other, she cried and I sobbed uncontrollably. The care worker who was with me told me to come inside and stop crying, that my mother would be back next week and if I stopped, I could stay up and watch The Virginian, a cowboy programme on television, so I did as she said and stifled my tears. The next day someone gave me a toy tractor as a consolation prize but the plastic it was made of smelt awful. I informed someone else and they told me not to be so ungrateful. I soon came to understand that saying what you think, and expressing what you feel, is bad and should be discouraged, so, slowly I learned, as you probably did too, that both the word and world of truth are not as welcome as you may think. Even now I hate the thought of people close to me lying, and yet I am an expert at doing it myself, so, obviously, I know it has its uses.
There’s a line in the original version of my song. ‘This is Me’, which goes, “You may say it’s a problem I’ve got but I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not”. (If you think Kurt Cobain wrote those lines he didn’t, it was me.) But not everyone thinks it’s a good idea to be honest. When I asked Monica what she thought of white lies, she said, “They are neither good nor bad. They are essential.” But to hear her say that unnerved me because generally speaking, I’d rather argue than deal with a lie, unless, of course, it’s about an infidelity, in which case I’ll lie.
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1969 and 2005
One day as a group of us Barnardo’s kids and our helpers sat out on the lawn to pod peas when I found one with a maggot in. From then on for the next year or so I squashed every pea before eating it to check it was maggot-free.
A year ago, I got ill after eating some grilled sardines. Up until then, they’d been a regular favourite with me but after that single bad experience, even the smell of them made me feel nauseous. You’ve probably had similar ordeals. My point is, I have often heard people doubt whether negative childhood experiences affect us, but for me, if just a single upset stomach can – even in adulthood – then it’s not so hard to believe traumas in childhood could have profoundly damaging repercussions throughout our lives.
My stay at Barnardo’s was, on the whole, both traumatic and pleasant for me, but still good enough for me to feel sad when I came to leave. My last image of JCH was rather cinematic because a whole group of children and workers came to see me off. As we pulled away in the black cab, I waved goodbye through the back window, and they waved back and shouted, “Goodbye Simon,” and then as we turned the corner they were gone. The woman next to me told me to sit down, and if I stopped crying, she’d take me to eat fish and chips as a treat. I did as I was told and just like in one of those creepy thriller movies, she, the social worker who unbeknown to me at the time wanted to get me as far away from my mother as she could, put her arm around me and told me not to worry, I was going to a better place.
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End of Chapter 8
