Simon Mark Smith’s Autobiography
CHAPTER 9
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1969 – Worcester Park
Throughout my years in care, I’d regularly stay with my mum who lived in her mother’s house in Worcester Park. Ruskin Drive was the road we lived in, and it was situated at the top of a hill from which the main high street ran down steeply to the station at the bottom. I still have vague memories of journeying up and down the hill in my pushchair. When I was about five Mum got a car but up until then, we travelled by public transport. Sometimes Mum would carry or push me, but I’d often trail behind her when she couldn’t carry me any further. I’d call out to her to wait for me, and she’d stop, turn around, and tell me to hurry up.
1969 – The Social Worker
When the social worker realised my mum wasn’t going to be put off by such a long journey, she pushed for me to be moved to a home even further which was well over 90 miles away in Chipping Norton, just north of Oxford.
2005 – Worcester Park
Worcester Park still looks pretty much as it did back then. Sometimes, if I’m nearby I’ll drive through it for nostalgia’s sake. At one point, about ten years ago, I thought about buying the house we’d lived in. In fact, I dreamt it was for sale, so, I went to look at it the next day and sure enough, it was. But the urge to buy it was probably more about the desire I had as a child to be permanently housed there, than based on any sound current reason. Mind you it’s trebled in price since then so maybe I should have bought it after all.
* * *
The Paradox of Memory
Much of what we do in the present is influenced by memories from the past, but the paradox is there are so many we can’t consciously remember, and yet they continuously whisper to us.
I wanted to buy the house ten years ago and came up with a few good reasons why, but those underlying feelings surrounding my motivations were not obvious without a bit of analysis.
* * *
1935 – Worcester Park – Dream
I once had a dream in which I was a kind of Charlie Chaplin tramp-like figure who walked past my grandparent’s house soon after it had been built. There was still a lot of sand around the property from the building work and a couple – my grandparents possibly – were planting vegetables in the front garden. I stopped and asked them if I could have a drink of water. The woman went into the house and called me from a small window at the side of the building from which she passed me a glass. I could feel she was a bit nervous, so I drank it quickly, thanked her and went on my way. When I woke up, I wondered if there’d ever been a window in the side of the house, so, when I next saw Mum, I asked her and she confirmed there’d been one in the pantry. I’m sure I’d have seen it too, but my conscious mind had completely forgotten about it.
There was also another interpretation I didn’t see at first, and this was one that linked to me asking gran for a glass of water when I was a child, and when handing one to me, she’d always say, “Now don’t upset it,” even though I never did. By the way, the cup would always be half full. Of course, some may see it as being half empty, but maybe the glass was just too big. Anyway, on a more serious note, perhaps in my subconscious I related her reaction to me asking her for a glass of water as making me feel second-class and consequently ‘homeless’.
I don’t remember my grandmother being at all affectionate towards me. What stuck in my mind was she made me feel I had to keep my distance from her, that I wasn’t welcome and barely tolerated. One day I started to cry because I thought I’d broken a toy when I heard her say “What’s he crying about now?” I looked up at her and said, “You bitch” in baby language, which fortunately she could no longer speak. This as well as a lot of other similar instances may also have been what she was apologising for from her deathbed.
However, there were other times when the notion of “my enemy’s enemy” applied, or maybe it was something else. For instance, one day, soon after Mum bought her first car, she reversed into Gran’s driveway and caught her tail-light on a post. As I got out of the car Mum warned me not to say anything to Gran. I nodded as accomplices do, however, as soon as Gran opened the front door, I looked at her, in full angelic pose, my arms stretched up to the sky, and said “Mummy told me not to tell you, but she has just crashed the car into the gate post”. Maybe I thought I could finally win her over by becoming an informer, but instead, both of them stared at me with a “No one likes a tattle tale” look.
Besides this tension between Gran and I, the family home was filled with love, as far as I was concerned. Gran’s way of showing love was, so my mother tells me, through offering practical help. She would occasionally make me a drink of milk with sugar, which I loved and probably paved the way for my present-day taste for sickly drinks such as Chai latte and snowballs and dental bills.
Mum was a different story. Perhaps the lack of tactile affection she’d experienced drove her to shower me with it. Bedtimes had a particular routine. Firstly, Mum would give me a drink which signalled bedtime was coming, so I’d take as long as possible to finish it, and even when I’d accidentally done so too quickly, I’d mime sipping from it for a good while longer. Once Mum finished whatever she was watching, she’d look down at me and raise her eyebrows and smile, pick me up and carry me upstairs to my bedroom where I’d jump from the windowsill onto the bed. Then I’d do a roly-poly and get between the cold sheets. I still prefer a cold bed now, and back then I’d kick the hot water bottle away from me if one had been put in.
Mum would read to me for a while after which I’d lay down and we’d rub noses together (Eskimo kiss), then there’d be a butterfly kiss, which involved either flickering eyelashes together or stroking the other person’s face with one’s eyelashes, and finally a kiss and a cuddle. As Mum would go out of the room, I’d ask her not to close the door properly and insist she didn’t switch the hall light off. After she’d gone, I would look at the pattern of the wood in the cupboard doors or the flower design in the curtains and see faces which would scare me, so, I’d close my eyes and swing my head from side to side as I’d drift off.
This rocking of my head was something both my grandmother and one of my children, have done too. Is it genetic or just a case of many people doing it? Whatever, I’m sure it hasn’t helped as far as my bald patch goes.
* * *
Extended family – 1970’s
My mother’s older sister, Yvonne, and her husband, David, would throw a Christmas party each year when I was a child. The whole extended family including the great aunts and uncles, their children, – my Mum’s cousins, – their partners and, of course, their children would all be invited too.
Uncle Albert was a memorable relation, with a large personality and physique to match. I quite liked him especially as he’d give me money, not that I’m easily bought or anything. He’d put coins in my Christmas pudding when I wasn’t looking and buy some of us premium bonds. These were savings certificates that also acted as lottery tickets. Later it turned out that he wanted the lot of them back and had been using us as a means to dodge tax. He’d been the chief concierge at the Trocadero in London so, no doubt had to find a way to launder his non-declared tips.
He also wasn’t one to go without ruffling a few feathers either and went out in style when, as he approached his last days, he fell for a woman who helped “care” for him and decided to leave everything to her, including the house he lived in which had been partially owned by his siblings. Still, while she got the house, the rest of us managed to hold on to a few of our premium bonds.
Every Christmas three generations would come together, have polite conversations, then go away none the wiser. For us kids though, Christmas meant new toys, or if we were unlucky, items of clothing or a leg-shaped cardboard cut-out with a few chocolate bars held in place to it by some red or blue netting. Sometimes we had to do the churchy bit too, but we accepted this as a somewhat necessary evil given Father Christmas was technically a religious figure.
1970 – Aged Five
I woke up in the early hours of Christmas day and found a pillowcase full of presents at the end of my bed which Mum, sorry I mean Santa, had left for me. The first parcel I pulled out was an odd shape, it had a long thin bit as well as a bulbous part so given it was so dark and I couldn’t see anything I felt my way around the object while slowly tearing the paper from it. The more I unwrapped it, the more I was convinced it was a toy trumpet so by the time I’d stripped it bare, I thought it worth blowing down it as hard as I could, but the only sound I heard was the pressure in my ears nearly bursting my ear drums. The lack of an early morning bugle call was probably fortunate for Gran and Mum, who were either still sleeping or blindly opening their presents too. Eventually, I left it and went back to sleep. In the clear light of day, all was revealed. It was a red elephant-shaped money box whose trunk I had been blowing. And that your honour, is the case for the defence.
* * *
1969
The thought of how cold the house was, gives me a nostalgic warm glow now, as does the smell of toast and bacon cooking. Well, that just makes me hungry, but I also associate it with home. The kitchen was the main warm room in the morning during the winter and it was there Gran would get dressed, so, I’d have to wait in the hallway till she’d let me in. Once in I’d sit at the table and Mum would serve up cornflakes in blue and white striped bowls, then a boiled egg and bread soldiers. I even have memories of Mum doing the “Here comes a train, now open up the tunnel [my mouth] and let it in.”
Perhaps home became an unrealistic version for me because not only did I idealise it in relation to being in care, but also Mum was able to give me more attention as our quality time together was so limited. There was an unsaid deal, something along the lines of, “If you give me lots of attention when we’re together I won’t make a fuss about you not being there for me when we’re not.” But this required me to split off my anger from my feelings of missing her. Still, that rage would surface from time to time, deal or no deal.
* * *
1969
There’s a sudden silence, Mum is kneeling and holding her head with one hand as she cries. I am looking on, having just kicked her hard just above the eyebrow with my built-up shoe. Five-year-olds can deliver a hard kick. Even now I feel a great sense of guilt and sorrow toward my mother for this. How could she understand where the motivation for such an attack came from? Likewise, I recognise the frustration and sense of betrayal that lay behind my traitorous action.
Strewn across the floor was the debris of my coveted electric car racing track, which I’d smashed up during the same tantrum. By breaking it, I had taken myself hostage and looked at my mother for the ransom. However, when she pointed out the obvious truth, that it would serve me right if it didn’t work anymore, I struck out at her, because she didn’t understand. The silence that came from this emotionally shocked and physically stunned moment has stretched out through my life and serves as one of the many reminders that wrap themselves around me to contain the un-containable anger that both drives and destroys me. What boy would dare to strike his mother if his father was at their side?
I have often felt that I am at the mercy of my destructive self. Perhaps this kick was aimed at sending a message beyond the obvious one of, “I hate you and want to kill you right now.” It might also have been a call to control me, to get me a father so I wouldn’t be like this! To be blown around by a storm of emotions can be very frightening for anyone, let alone a child. Whether there was any basis in reality for me to believe a father would have made a difference, I can’t tell, but to live in a home without a father, certainly left me feeling that something was lacking.
* * *
1969 – The Social Worker
In a way, the social worker’s issue about me not having a father was something Mum wanted to address too. She did what she could to find a good man but firstly, those who would have been okay about there already being a disabled child on the scene tended to be quite caring types and Mum’s self-destructive inclinations didn’t tend to find them attractive, and secondly, the memory of Ian still blocked her from falling for anyone properly. Instead, short-term flings with bad boys were the only form of excitement she could indulge in. With that in mind, you may think the social worker had a point, but the bond between Mum and I was very powerful, so to try breaking it carried its risks too.
1969 – Boyfriends
When Mum brought boyfriends around for me to meet, I would view them as potential daddies. I didn’t have a conscious checklist I’d run through, but if they were willing to play with me that would normally qualify them in my eyes. One such man was Mick. Unbeknown to me at the time he fancied Mum, but she wasn’t having it, which meant he wasn’t either. I don’t think I helped matters when one day Mum told me to have a bath with him, don’t worry back in those days child abuse just didn’t exist, did it? So, I was ok. Unfortunately, Mick wasn’t. Mum stood outside the bathroom while we all chatted when I decided to shout, “Oooh yuk, Mick has a horrible-looking tongue between his legs”. There was a brief pause while Mick gave me a look that said, “I’ve played with you for hours so I could get into your mother’s knickers, how could you betray me with such a revelation, even if it is true?” Mum burst out laughing, which translated as, “I wasn’t sure about Mick, but now I definitely am”.
A few years later, Mum had another boyfriend, Michael, who took me into a public loo where he decided to have a pee too. Don’t worry the only abuse was adult abuse. On seeing his penis, I hollered at the top of my voice, “Goodness your tail is massive!” to which he quite proudly replied in a raised voice, “Yes, it’s a good eight inches”. Of course, nowadays such public announcements would have the loo door broken down in seconds by a lynch mob, but back then he just got a pat on the back from his fellow loo-goers while for the rest of the afternoon, Mum got a lot of knowing looks from their wives.
1970
One of my favourite pseudo-dads was Colin who was the husband of my Mum’s friend, Val. They had two daughters but showered attention on all of us equally when we were together. He even let me sit on his lap and steer his Lotus Elan (I called it a Lotus Lamb) sports car up and down his street. Colin would spend hours playing with me but alas he was already taken.
Colin took me to Battersea Funfair one afternoon where he introduced me to a shooting range. Everything was ok until he let me aim the gun. I didn’t understand what a target was so shot at the prizes. Colin laughed but the stall holder was not amused.
When I got older Colin told me how as he carried me on his shoulders people would openly say nasty things about me and he’d want to get into a fight with them, but that wasn’t feasible right then.
* * *
On one occasion at Colin and Val’s place, Mum showed off a new pair of black and white check trousers she’d just bought me and warned me not to get them dirty as we played in the garden. The first thing we did was eat some of the tomatoes growing in the vegetable patch, so, Mum called me and asked if I’d been eating Colin’s tomatoes. I denied it so Mum showed me my tomato-stained face in the mirror. It was then I suddenly recalled a brief incident where a tomato may have accidentally passed my lips and as I trotted off, I could hear her laugh, and say something about me getting into politics when I got older, but she laughed too soon as things were about to take a turn for the worse.
When I returned to the garden we decided, to play pretend families which involved sitting on wicker chairs in a circle facing each other and shouting out what we had to pretend to do. Someone told me to pretend to go to the loo, so I did a straining face. (I think you know where we’re going). My shit mime brought rapturous laughter from the others, so, I did it again, this time with a little bit more gusto. There’s method acting and then there’s a thin line between reality and make-believe and I crossed it. “Oops I’ve just poohed myself,” I said. The other children laughed even more. With a rather serious look on my face, I shouted, “No I mean it.” I didn’t think it was a good idea to stand up, so I asked for someone to get my mum. The look of disgust on her face as she helped me change back into my old trousers is etched upon my soul. “They’re ruined!” she said with venom. I wanted to tell her about a good washing powder I’d seen advertised on TV, but thought it better to just stay quiet… “Still”, I reassured her, “I didn’t get any grass stains on them.”
* * *
1969
Home not only existed within the actual building but spread out to the domains of other family members, friends and neighbours. Apart from the occasional boyfriend, Mum had a close circle of friends, and most of them had children of a similar age too. Her sister Yvonne had three daughters; two who were of a similar age to me, Druscilla and Caroline, were playmates. The older one, Sarah, once played her recorder at my fourth birthday party, and was technocally booed off stage. I have a feeling that put her nose out of joint, and given the large age difference of three years, we were destined not to be that close. However, in adulthood she always made me laugh, and in time I came to love her just as I did all my cousins.
I was particularly close to Druscilla and even asked Mum if I could marry her when I got older. Apparently, in law, you can, but it also requires the other person to agree to it too and due to her not sharing the same desires I was forced to make other arrangements! Anyway, Druscilla, Caroline and I would often be left for hours to play together. Caroline was the youngest and consequently got bullied, but Druscilla bullied me too, so it was pretty equal, well okay it wasn’t, but as I thought Druscilla was beautiful, I didn’t mind. The story of my life!
Mum’s brother had two daughters. They lived around the corner, but we hardly saw them, mainly because he found Mum’s waywardness an anathema. Whenever we visited, he would grunt hello, and that was as far as the conversation with him would go. But his daughters, Christine and Nechama were very friendly and the memory of them bringing a chocolate egg with a creamy white and yellow filling to me for Easter thrilled me for years. That was my first experience of mythical food. Mythical food is something you eat which tastes beyond delicious but never tastes as good ever again. About six years later I had a Cadbury’s Cream Egg but, of course, it wasn’t as good as the one my cousins gave me and even now if ever I eat one I’m left feeling disappointed, wondering what magical egg it was they gave me that day.
The problem with cousins is no matter how much you love them, your parents, well in my case, my Mum, will often compare them to you. Telling you how great they are and how shit, in comparison to them, you are. So, after a while, you can’t help but resent them a bit. When I was informed their parents did the same to them too, that made me feel a lot better, even if it did come a bit too late and was probably not true.
* * *
1969
Having family members living very close by is not so common nowadays, but back then my family mainly lived within a few miles of each other, and visiting relatives was a big part of the weekly agenda. Even now my mother tells me off for not calling her regularly enough. For her, it is a rejection because visiting family members is a sign of caring, whereas for my generation a sign of caring is to leave each other well and truly alone. The word ‘Kindness’ has in it the word ‘Kin’ and in this, there lies a warning to us all.
* * *
1970
One day when I was five, I wanted to ride my tricycle up and down the road in front of Gran’s house. Mum stood in front of me and listed what I should be careful of including such things as, “Don’t talk to any strangers, if someone offers you a lift then come and tell me at once, and if someone says they’ve come to take you to see me, run away as quickly as possible,” and so on, including warnings about offers of sweets and ice cream (which got my hopes up). By the end of the list, I got off my tricycle and said I’d rather play in the back garden. However, there’s only so much appreciation of the scent of grass that a child can take especially as peddling on grass is hard work, so, I decided to explore the end of the garden. This is where the shed and vegetable patches were.
Between them, a maze of pathways crisscrossed and divided the different areas, so I marched and peddled along them. From nowhere, a voice said, “Hello Simon”, I looked up and over the fence, a neighbour’s head was looking at me. It was Mr Bertie. Mum walked towards us, picked me up and chatted with him for a while, then passed me to him. I’d often spend hours with Mr Bertie, his wife and their white Scotty dog. There must have been a connection between people with pets and those who liked looking after kids because the neighbours on the opposite side of the road, the Marchmonts, also looked after me although they had cats. In fact, people with dogs tended to be more fun. I base this on the evidence of Mr Bertie being playful while Mrs Marchmont was strict. Also, to prove my theory with undeniable empirical evidence, Mum’s friend Nechama had a cat called Sooty, and a dog called Kim, who, by the way, had puppies. Just having puppies made Nechama’s place magical, especially when we, that’s her son Peter and I, spent a whole morning pulling sugar puffs – a breakfast cereal – out of their fur after they’d got into the cereal box. I rest my case. Pets, especially dogs, indicated a receptive environment.
At five years old I was forced to wear artificial arms which meant when I wanted to stroke people’s pets, I couldn’t feel their fur unless I put my face to them. This would often get me a stern warning from any adults nearby because of the dangers of being so close to a potentially dangerous animal, but I was never attacked. I’d regularly be told that animals who tended to keep away from people would often warm to me. I still have this gift now, sadly though, it doesn’t apply to snakes but does attract the homeless and mentally ill.
* * *
2005
The days of passing kids over the fence are bygone ones for most people now, we live in a world where time after time even family members have often proved to be a danger to them. The other night I visited a friend who lives on a boat in Chelsea Harbour, her main living area is a room that has a glass front and burgundy red walls that curve around. We sat watching a Russian animation based on a lullaby that says something along the lines of”
“Go to sleep, little one, for Mama
If baby won’t go to sleep
The big wolf will come and eat him”.
As we watched it, I remembered my early fixation on the Wolf. The irony is that wolves tend not to attack people. However, people focused their attention on external enemies to avoid the terrible truth about our real greatest threat, our lack of control.
I read the bit I wrote about “adult abuse” a few paragraphs back to a friend the other day, and as a result, she told me how her mother had been a paedophile and had farmed her out to other paedophiles from when she was three years old. My friend, who’s now 50, has only recently been able to talk to others about this. For her, the Wolf was the least of her worries. A few years ago, I stroked a wolf and its fur was the most beautiful I’d ever felt. I don’t wear artificial arms now, so I didn’t need to bury my face into it: I wanted to, but I wasn’t quite up to taking the risk.
* * *
1970
Beyond the end of Gran’s garden, stood three very tall conifer trees. I would sit in the garden and look at them, seeing them as giants bearing over us. I’d most likely be playing with my Action Men, which were soldier dolls – I stress they were not only soldiers, but elite scar-on-the-face types so there could be no mistaking that this wasn’t a pursuit likely to result in overt homosexuality, but just to make sure, they didn’t have any penises. So, the giant trees looked on at me and I would look on at my brigade of post-op transsexual soldiers. There was a certain feeling of order to it all.
* * *
1971
One day a doctor from West Park, the psychiatric hospital where my Mum worked as a hairdresser, took me to a shop with his girlfriend to buy an action-man diving suit. I could feel him playing at being a daddy, but his girlfriend wasn’t so involved. If this was what it was like to have a father, then I wanted more of it. A few weeks later I asked Mum if I could see him again and she told me that sadly he’d committed suicide. I asked her what suicide meant and she explained that he’d been so unhappy he’d killed himself. She put it down to the pressure of his medical exams, but thinking about it now, I’m sure there was more to it. At that time, of course, I couldn’t understand how someone so nice could take themselves away from me and in the hope of creating a kinder world, I told Mum that I would never kill myself. “Suicide”, I said, “That’s the last thing I’d ever do.”
* * *
1971
The garden was a place for driving my trike, exploring, setting up Action Man battles and lying in the paddling pool while Mum got the hose and aimed cold water at me. Gran would leave jam jar traps out for wasps. You see just like the Bush Family’s battle with Saddam, my war on wasps was partb of a trans-generational conflict.
The garden with its apple tree, the old shed with curtains painted on the window, and the birdbath were all remnants of a grandfather I never knew. This was his domain, a world he once lovingly tended to, and was now maintained by Gran, possibly partly as a memorial to him. A photograph of him sat on the mantelpiece in the front room. He was a ghost of the dream I yearned for, maybe he watched over me or maybe it was me who, like a ghost, now haunted his garden. One of my cousins told me she remembered him pushing her sister’s pram, which back then was seen as a bit unseemly for a man, but he didn’t care and was always very affectionate to her and her sister. He’d have probably found the whole issue of me being born very difficult, but I wonder if he’d have ever come around and learned to love me too.
My Gradfather
When I was 23, I painted a large triptych. The central painting was called “Garden Stories”, and had a shadowy figure, (my grandmother), standing under the apple tree, while buried beneath the garden were my grandfather and their son, Neville, who’d died from meningitis as a child. Inside the house was the home of Mum and Gran, but outside had been the world of the men in my family, but now, they were all gone.
Garden Stories – Oil on Canvas (6x6ft)
* * *
Whenever we were going to go anywhere, Mum would take what felt like an interminable time to do her hair and make-up. Sometimes I would sit and watch her. If I did, she’d brush her hair up, so it looked like bunny ears and pull a rabbit face at me in the mirror. Even now I like watching whoever I’m going out with putting their make-up on, but instead of making a funny face they just tell me to get lost.
* * *
The routine of home life doesn’t generally lend itself to the exciting subject matter of a book but there were odd moments when it may. For instance, when I was about four, I put Mum’s bikini on and walked up and down in front of her feeling a bit sexually excited about doing so. I didn’t grow up to be a transvestite and I doubt even that momentary experience gives me an insight into what it feels like to be interested in that realm.
Then there was Gran telling me not to come into the kitchen because she was getting changed, I got a chair and stood on it to look through the keyhole, but then I thought, “I don’t want to see Gran undressed.” For a change, I made a sensible decision and got down.
Amongst other indiscretions, I occasionally ate a few of Gran’s grapes without asking and played with the light switch at the top of the stairs but at that point in my life, I didn’t seem set on a path of crime and misdemeanours.
Then, of course, there’ll be the experiences shared by many people of my age, such as hiding behind the couch when Dr Who was on TV, or the coldness of a house without heating, especially the cold loo, or being washed in the washing-up bowl in the kitchen. Even if all that stuff isn’t interesting reading, the routine, and boisterous regularity of family life, was what I yearned for when I was in care. From waking in the morning and finding toys to play with, being dressed, having breakfast, more playing, maybe some magic painting, which involved putting water on a page and watching colours appear, or colouring in pictures of exciting furry animals, and then, with me dressed up in my new spaceman suit, complete with a green visor helmet, going out to visit a relative and playing with their toys too. Then when we’d go shopping, we’d pass the mirror shop at the top of the high street where I’d play in front of the bendy ones, or we’d pop into the toy shop and occasionally get a treat. Normally a model aircraft would keep me quiet for hours and sometimes there’d be very special occasions when I’d be taken to the cinema where I’d get upset if there weren’t any aeroplanes involved in dog fighting, no matter what kind of film it was. If Mum wanted to go out for an evening, I’d stay at her friends’ places where their kids and we’d build camps and play with each other’s toys. I’d fall asleep but wake slightly as Mum carried me to and from the car in a wash of orange streetlights, then wake up the next morning in my own bed. If home is where the heart is then home spread out to Mum’s friends, their homes and their children. When I came home from “care” (the Home) I felt like everywhere we went together was home.
* * *
17 July 1969 – A day in the light of
Light streamed through the gap between my curtains. For a moment I was transfixed by it, but the call of duty was greater. Downstairs my Action Men awaited their missions, so I crept down to them. Mum was still sleeping but Gran was up and sitting in the kitchen. I said hello as I passed her and she briefly looked up at me. The back room was where my toy box was so by definition this was MY playroom. When I wasn’t there, it was the dining room. It had a burgundy/red wine-coloured carpet, and on the fireplace were ornaments, including china horses, porcelain deer and red glass vases. There were also French windows that opened onto the garden. I played until Mum, who’d finally got up, called me to the kitchen.
I ate cornflakes while Mum cut out some tokens from the cereal box. Cereal boxes, labels on marmalade jars, and Hot Wheels racing cars had perpetual offers for “free” items. When I’d eaten most of the cornflakes Mum poured the rest of the milk into a cup and I drank it. One particular morning, Mum was talking when she suddenly made a strange sound. I looked up to see tea gushing from her nose, she stood up and made her way to the sink, still coughing. The paper she had been reading was soaked. Mum cleaned herself up then came back to the table and said:
“Sorry Simon.”
“Are you alright Mummy?”
“Don’t worry darling, the tea just went down the wrong way. Come on let’s get ready.”
Gran added, “You won’t be late back, will you?”
Mum wanted to see one of her friends who lived behind some shops around the corner. To get to her flat we had to walk up a large black wrought iron staircase. Mum and her friend talked while I played with my Action Men. This friend didn’t have any children, so I was left to my own devices, so, when an ice cream van sounded its music nearby, I dutifully begged Mum to buy me one, but she refused. Instead, her friend offered me an ice pop, which was an ice lolly you squeezed out of its plastic wrapper as you ate it. It was so cold that I had to scrape it with my teeth. No doubt this was a deliberate ploy by the adults to keep me busy for half an hour while they chatted. After their catchup we made our way home, stopping at the mirror shop again for a quick play, as the toy shop was closed. When we got back, I played in the garden while Mum stood in the kitchen putting on make-up and doing her hair. I have tended in my adult life to go for women who put on a minimal amount of make-up and have plain hairstyles. This is possibly due to the nausea I’d feel after the initial 10 minutes of waiting.
“Are you ready yet?” I’d ask.
“Are you still not ready?” Gran would ask.
“How much longer are you going to be?” We’d both ask.
“I’m so bored Mum,” – that’d be me saying that, in case you’re getting confused.
“Can’t you see I’m going as fast as I can?” Mum’d be getting quite irritated by now.
I bounced off back into the garden followed by a stern warning, “Don’t you get your clothes dirty, young man!” Gran would be sitting waiting in the front room, reading and rustling her Daily Mail paper.
The shift of power between children and their parents generally takes place gradually. A parent stands over and protects a helpless child and if all goes to plan the child eventually stands over and protects a helpless parent; what a comforting thought that is. Similarly, Mum had recently bought a car, a Singer Chamois, so Gran was beholden to her for lifts. If Mum wanted to take a little longer to do her hair then she did, and there was nothing we could do about it.
Gran’s youngest brother, Eddie, had a daughter, Marianne, who was having her 21st birthday party. Nowadays this would probably be celebrated in a nightclub under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol but back then it was a sedate affair. When we got there, I realised it was the same lot who’d got together at Christmas, but this time there was no Christmas pudding to get rich quickly from, so, I turned my attention to Uncle Binks, who was an ex-RAF type with a handlebar moustache to show for it. To the adults present, Uncle Binks was a bit of a pain, but to me, he was quite magical. He had me believing there were crocodiles in the pond. So much so, I wouldn’t go out into the garden. In fact, I started crying at the prospect of being made to do so.
Marianne’s brother, Paul, had his soon-to-be-married girlfriend, Ann, with him. She had long black hair, and big brown eyes and was wearing a white and mauve miniskirt. She came up to me and said, “Come on darling there aren’t any crocodiles out there,” and as she gave me a cuddle I was, I have to say, persuaded and let her carry me outside. I wouldn’t meet Ann again for another nine years but both of us carried this moment with us for the rest of our lives.
As the sun shone on this family occasion, it shone on me. The light of a family’s love, even if it isn’t a strong one, is a precious commodity when most of the time you live under a shadow. As the afternoon drew on, I was jogged into remembering Mum would be driving me back up through London to JCH and might if I was lucky put me to bed and kiss me goodnight there, but the next morning she would be gone. Even the toy robots and battery-operated cars she’d bought for me could not make up for the mundane existence of family life that I knew I was missing.
* * *
1969 – The Social Worker
When Chipping Norton was suggested as a suitable alternative to JCH, Mum put her foot down and demanded I be placed somewhere nearby. The social worker, probably sensing Mum was getting an inkling of what was going on, then mentioned a children’s home about 20 miles south of where Mum lived, which on the surface looked like a gracious compromise. However, unbeknown to my mother, that place was run by friends of the social worker, and they already had a plan in place to make life very difficult for us.
End of Chapter 9
