A muffled thud

I was awakened from my dreams of beaches and sandcastles by the sound of shouting male voices in the room next door.

I know this room was the bathroom as my headboard was right against the wall and i would hear the door banging most nights until i fell asleep as the other children where waiting their turn for wash and bedtime. This was late though everyone in my room was asleep and no light was on. But within a few moments other boys in the room were waking because of the noise and the bed lamps were switched on. One boy was missing from our room and we guessed by the voice it was him next door shouting back at the other voice which was the male carer. The conversation was loud and angry and even with glasses against the wall the other boys could not make out what was said it was too muffled. But then came a thud against the wall and another and all the boys ran back into their beds as fast as they could. We all thought we could be heard against the wall and it was the carer telling us by hitting the wall to get back into bed. So we lay there with the lights turned back off still listening to the shouting a little more subdued since the thuds on the wall. A while passed and then the bedroom door opened and the bright light shone through and in walked the missing boy. He didn’t say a word but was holding his head and you could tell he had been crying. Gradually one by one the other boys began to creep over to his bed quietly and then the whisper of questions began asking what was going on. He had tried to run away and had been picked up by the police and brought back in the early hours. We were all fast asleep when he made his dash for freedom. Why he did it , well he had a girfriend outside of the home and wanted to go away with her somewhere. So he had had enough of being in a home and wanted out. I didn’t know any different i hadn’t been treated badly here and had a warm bed and nice food  and felt safe. But this boy had been on the end of the male carers temper a few times as he was the eldest i think he got most of the stick of it. This time his punishment for trying to run away was a couple of head bangs against the bathroom wall. I guess that if you have been around violence and abuse you know its there but you just close your eyes and ears as a child and think of nice things instead or pretend it has not happened, i think that’s the place i had gone to. Again writing this memoir brings back the things i have seen or had done to me to the forefront again and reminds me to try and be a better person than those who commit these deeds.

The tin bath

Back to another new school after my little getting to know where i live tour.

Strange school this one though although they did talk English here. The men had dresses on and collars round their necks. Yes it was to be my first foray into religion, that blessed comfort for some and the cause of turmoil and centuries of war for others. I myself am an atheist thank god, i talk to myself and give myself the answers may not be the right ones all the time, but it is what i have learnt to do thru little trust of others. So yes the school was a church one which religion i don’t really know, not that that meant much to me , but there was lots of singing, praying and shushing to the noisy children by the men in black dresses. i can recall the beach and the sea out of the window so close to the classroom and yet so far away during lesson time. But hey the life of a child isn’t meant to be all hard work is it. So when it was home time we couldn’t get back to the children’s home fast enough for tea. Why well, after your chores it was swimming trunks on and down to the beach for a swim, i can still recall it, the careers from the home all sat on their towels watching us, this group of children in front of them splashing around in the sea all excited. Even on the days we couldn’t go to the beach we had another way of cooling down in the summer sunshine. We had our own tin bath in the garden filled with cold water. The type your great grandmother used to bath in every night in the house in front of the open fire. I had a photo of me in the tin bath my only one from my time in Hastings but unfortunately have lost it on my travels. From memory i can recall nice times in this home a feeling of belonging and really the first time i felt a part of a group, we all had meals together at the table and all had our own coloured napkins, plates and cutlery, plates and cups, which we had to look after or the fear of being put into the naughty book was threatened and that meant no swimming. So these small things became your pride and joy to look after. The carers were called sisters and i can only recall one man present in the house at all times but i think he was the main person of the house. As with many stories of children’s homes that have come out thru the years since most have been closed i was too witness some abuse that was served upon some of the children by supposedly responsible adults and even my first witness of children abusing themselves. I was getting older now and i think i was beginning to realise that sometimes the way you think your life was quite normal as you put things you see to the back of your mind. When in fact it is really inst normal and shouldn’t happen that way.

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside

It was to be a short stop over in the care home in Welshpool, so short i cant really remember much of it at all. Where to now with my bag and my little purple car.

All i can say was it was another long and endless car journey who with i don’t know but i arrived somewhere new and another house full of children on a hill in Hastings. Social services must like sending you on holidays as ive done a fair bit of moving around so far. I share a room with another five boys and there are another five girls who live here too. The place has a massive garden and best of all its by the beach. You can hear the seagulls all day squawking and smell the sea air. I do the usual Chris thing and try to fit in playing with the other kids, we all have meals together around a massive table and all have to join in with the chores of washing up after mealtimes. I have a little time to settle in before i start my new school, so i am taken around this new and strange town and shown the sights. The beach , not a sandy one but a pebble one, with little huts all in a straight line and multi coloured. A big cliff with a railway coming down it, A pier heading from the beach into the sea, i had never seen anything like this and was dying to go on it. All you could smell while walking along the main front of the beach was candy floss and hot chips and there was so many people here, it was unnerving after being in such a small place in North Wales even frighting to see so many people and the noise wow, coin arcade music, the sound of money hitting slots and people shrieking with excitement at what they had won, and children’s voices all happy at being by the seaside and having so much to do and see. I was taken to the cinema for the first time, i think i never took my eyes of the screen once i was fascinated at the huge telly in front of me, i haven’t watched telly for ages and here is this huge screen that makes people look like giants. This is child heaven, i am doing things so new and exciting what a difference a car journey can make to your life. But its all cosmetic really , after all i don’t know how long i am going to be here but to a child the seaside is such a great place to be and it will make up for a time for the holiday i was promised by my dad when i taken to North Wales and the seaside i never saw. After all this fun and excitement i was having it was night-time i didn’t like. Even when the other boys had stopped messing around or chatting away and finally got to sleep, i would still lay in my bed not able to sleep, why , too much noise, cars and people going past the windows on the road outside, sounds i haven’t heard for ages while waiting to sleep and i miss the one comforting sound of the dog underneath me and the sound of that gentle soothing running river. But i am sure that little Mr adaptable me will get used to it in time he always does

Reflection time 2

Well here i am before the next step of the journey.

I so far have lived with both my mother and father and have been taken away from both of them , so i guess parenting skills were not the best asset they both possessed. Although saying that life seemed more normal with the short time i was with my father as no physical abuse was present, maybe a little mental abuse from his childlike mind and used abuse for a purpose but nothing that i can say at the time remembering to have affected me in later life, only the question where was he for all those years. Where as with my mother well that’s a different story, lots of questions to ask why things happened and answers still to come forth to this day as the one that have been given just don’t sit well with me.
Well so far i have been in three different children’s homes and have had numerous carers and social workers. Schools well i cant remember how many but i guess my education academically has suffered and my social interaction with people has become misguided , after all who do you trust, who do you get close too. Childhood friends and people you should trust and look up to will be there one day and then i wont be the next or they will have gone themselves. So in real terms i must be one mixed up little lad by now, but i don’t recall it that way, its what i am used to, if you have never had the security of family and close friendships do you miss it if it isn’t there anymore. It would be something i would and still in a way carry with me part of my defence mechanism. But i do have times now to remember that were good and fun and one thing i can take take from living with my father in later life is my appreciation for wildlife and the great outdoors. Years later i would be drawn back to that place i lived with him and remember that place with some warm feeling. I would also visit many other places i have lived or stayed as a way of piecing together my early years where the memories were blurred by the not so important or eventful times.

But on i go now with the next part of the journey and wondering where and with who i will end up next.