A Tower Block

That was to become my new home where my mother and her husband, brother and sister lived. One of those ugly grey concrete things with a green in the middle of it for the resident scum to play, fight, destroy and tell the world and his dog their family domestic problems thank you the governments of the 60,s well done you’re reaping the rewards now with the children of the tower blocks

Well i suppose it was a little exciting at first , a flat with children in it, my year old brother and year younger sister but then it started , the smacks for nothing , the screaming of angry voices and then the quiet scary times , do i speak , do i ask , do i make a noise. Well most of the time the answer was no, so quiet was the best option. Mother had a temper which i found out very quickly and it wasn’t just me she took it out on, nobody was safe but i got the worst of it, why i found out years later, i was clingy, loving and quiet, mmm was i craving for something, funny thing was that i was craving to the mother who caused my suffering in the first place of course not recalling it was her it came from, i think it shows that i just wanted some kind of love and comfort and would go to anyone for it. Also the abuse was centered on me because i looked like my dad, sorry about that mother you made me with him genes pass down didn’t you know. Anyway onwards, well it must have been a year maybe two when along came a car and off i trotted with my bag again back to a care home in West Wickham, My mothers husbands sister had apparently witnessed the abuse i suffered and convinced her brother to call in the social services as she was afraid i would end up dead, she had tried quietly to see if she could care for me but was told it was too dangerous as i wouldn’t be far away from my mother. So off to meet a new bunch of forgotten children in a new care home in Kent for a short time and another mini adventure without the smacks screaming and fear started for a while.

Subject to change

A telephone call came one day to my carers house in South London and again changed the plan that was always subject to change. My mother was on the end the telephone line asking to speak to me. I believe i was around 4 years old at the time, so of course i was handed the phone the voice said hello chris its mummy and i answered hello mummy. Did i know what mummy meant was i supposed to after all so many people had been in my life since i was first taken into care, to me was mummy just another word a name even to call someone by. So a meeting was set up and with social workers in attendance i met my mother for the first time i can really recall the woman. Short with glasses and black hair and a big bag of sweets in her hand with which she blatantly came with to grab my attention I am sure. What was said between the adults i do not know but someone decided what my immediate future would be, but i was asked if i would like to visit my brothers and sisters and come and stay with mummy. Did the bag of sweets swing it, of course like that big dangling carrot to any child, the promises of sweets and fun, was i that shallow well forgive me i was four years old. So a new plan was hatched and my bag was packed i was collected at the door of my carers house  and all i can recall is a couple standing on the front door of their house crying as i was driven away in my mothers car with another man driving, who was my mothers new husband. Me i was on back seat waving back at the crying couple thru the rear window seatbelts weren’t law then. Did i care i suppose not, i was on another mini adventure to nothing, but i guess by the tears in the couples eyes it proved even i a small child was capable of inflicting emotional distress and pain to others as well but as before forgive me i was four years old and knew no better.

A New Start Just

I had a new home, I was placed in children’s home called Haydons house in Chislehurst and soon became a favorite of a newly married couple who were working as care workers in the home. Not that i can remember that specifically but i was being cared for and that’s what matters. I was taken for regular visits out of the care home with the couple to stay at their home nearby but that came to an end when they left to pursue different careers and the lady became pregnant, so they moved to south London and i stayed in the care home.

I was then given back to my mother for a while to see if things and situations had changed but was soon brought back into care in as abuse was evident; i think the small crack in my skull from the heel of a shoe may have done it. So i ended back up in the care home Chislehurst and came under the care of a social worker called Sandra, i forget her last name, but was told she asked about my welfare for years afterwards , if only the same could be said for social services today. Then  one day the same year out of the blue the couple from South London came and took me into their home on a temporary basis with a view to fostering me. They had a Baby daughter and a dog by then so i guess it was my first experience of family. Things then remained stable for me for a little while, but as with most plans, all are subject to change.

Pain

When people often recall their first memories they recall a song a television show a mad grandfather usually something nice and warming to take them back to that time. My first recollection of a memory was pain, inflicted pain the start of so called abuse pain, I was 15 months old and ended up in a special burns unit in a London hospital. How well i am ashamed to this day to say because of my mother. I was put into a bath of scolding water up to my waist and suffered burns to my legs and backside. Why who knows, did she not test the water, did she not see the steam or did as she say years later that not having hormone treatments as such available at the time and suffering from depression was the reason as well as at one point saying i turned the tap on. Did she not see and hear her 15 month old son scream and cry in pain, or was that what her reaction to hearing that noise from babies just to leave them i don’t know.

I was placed in a special burns unit for 3 months and had skin graft after skin graft on my legs. After Treatment and when I able to be i was taken into care in a children’s home in Kent. I did see my mother again and a catalogue of abuse followed and this was the making i believe of me the person i am now , walls up fully defended and sometimes unable to let anyone or anything in.

 

Why the question i always ask my self, was i a bad baby, can you be bad at that age, do you have a choice is it not the parents who shape you. Surely the love and warmth i feel for my son is in most parents, protective and understanding i hope so, but evidently not. So yes not all memories are good ones and you can remember things as a young child if they have that much impact on you.