Contains incestuous predation and attempted suicide but not detailed description of the crime itself.

 Carefree Nineteen Sixties 

Not Just a Book!

I had spent my entire life in a dark cloud, inside this cloud there were equally dark secrets that could not be told… could not be faced or confronted by me..

At 48 years old, I finally broke free from the locked in state I had been enduring since my childhood of abuse that had left me frozen inside. My entire life had been a platform from which I observed the world around me. I watched and listened to everybody, like an alien spy from another planet . I spoke only when I had to - I spent my life as an observer of those around me. I would delve into despair in my free time, stay at home, and sometimes weep. I would lock myself in my flat at weekends and drink alcohol until I developed migraines and had to stop. 

Somehow, at my midlife age, during a late night shopping trip at a nearby Tesco’s store, I found the courage to pick up a book - the misery memoir genre - of a woman’s tale of her life and the parental abuse she had suffered.. A hundred times previously I had glanced discreetly at books of this genre that were displayed on the shelves - never having the courage to even pick one up in case a fellow shopper noticed me doing this.  

Why, on this night, I at last managed to place this book into my shopping trolly, I'll never understand. But my reading of this book - the experiences of the author’s abuse, the details, the astonishing parallels with my own feelings and experiences was for me a healing like never before.  

After this, I acquired at least seven more of these misery memoirs - and for the first time, i had felt free to be myself .

 My father had raped me the day after my fifteenth birthday. It was a secret I could never share. It was the mid sixties - when teenagers were free and easy, pop music was the new rage and Saturday nights were fantastic at Club X, twisting and jiving around the dance floor, to the songs of the Beatles and at the evening’s end, smooching close with a guy to the romantic music of Elvis or Paul Anka.  Babycham and cigarettes were abundant at the tables. Oh those nights were full of excitement and anticipation of being paired up with a handsome admirer who may walk you home and you'd kiss outside your house for half an hour.. How grown up we all felt as we lit our Woodbine or Consulate menthol cigarettes. 

These newly found and thrilling Saturday nights out were short-lived for me. They ended the day my father snatched my innocence away.

 At home, my mother always had an aversion to me, she unconsciously resented me. Our interactions were sparse and always unpleasant. From an early age i had taken to wondering through the streets around our Council estate outside of school hours. I couldn't stay at home as both my mother and older sister were bullies. I would always end up dejected and alone.

Dad had always worked out of town. He would only come home at weekends, and there was never dialogue between us kiddies and him. Although I saw him intermittently throughout my childhood, i never remember speaking to him - I never knew him.

Then, at just fifteen, I was left alone with him for the first time. My grandparents had made a rare visit and the family, my two sistes and brother, went to town with me clearly excluded from an invite on this excursion. When I realised I had been excluded, I once again felt the usual sinking pain of dejection i had felt during other family events. .

 As this was my first time alone with Dad. I thought i would seize this opportunity to just chat with him, let him know I was as grown up as my sister. I could tell him what it was really like at home, that mother just never spoke to me apart from complaining. I could tell him I was really grown up now, and I that i was a good person.  

That didn't happen. My father had his own agenda. Instead he asked if I had ever been with a boy. “No Dad, I just know how to kiss!”   

In the sixties, growing up was still a sheltered experience . We did not have such exposure to sexual media and society was still prim and proper in comparison to the uncensored society in which we now live. In total naivety I showed my father - that I COULD kiss.

Then, to my dumbfounded astonishment he kissed me, I trusted him - he was my Dad. I had no idea that his intention was to rape me - very subtely he raped me. As he finished, I asked him if that which he had just done to me was "sex". I had no idea!

He confirmed that it was and that I should never talk about it because folk wouldn't understand. My heart truly sank to my knees. I said nothing.

From then, my life changed for the worse. I had a secret that could never be told. At just fifteen, I could never be a virgin to a boy I may fall in love with!

This secret separated me from my circle of friends, from my emerging social life, from everybody.   

My father didn't stop there - he collared me once a week. He would meet me in secret every Friday night and take me in his car to a place in the nearby countryside - pour alcohol freely for me and rape me.

This went on for two years, until i tried to end it with an overdose of pills I found in the medicine cabinet at work. I was seventeen then. I survived and life at home was hell.  Mother hated me more and more. When we were alone she would try to provoke me into fighting with her. Life was unbearable.

By the time I had reached eighteen I had spent three years working in factories and shops.. That was the easy part … but inside, I was not alive. I was alone - I felt isolated, dejected - dead; communication was not possible. Life was fake - my interactions were superficial.  

My mother's aversion to me had become unbearable and she continued to physically attack me, seemingly out of a perverted desire to make me fight back.

Factory wages were small and a quarter of my weekly income was for my keep. The rest paid for my cigarettes, sweets and replacement deniere nylons, which were always laddering.

It was impossible to save money, so I could not get away.

Eventually my mother spotted a job with accommodation in central London. I could break away at last.

I travelled to London for an interview, got the job and set off for this brand new world.

I soon met a suitor in London and got married but my lips were sealed. I could never tell my new husband what my father had done. The gap between us quickly grew and after five years I still felt haunted by my secret and wanted to leave.

i went to France and then lived in America but over the years ahead, my whole life was a matter of acting out my roles at work - and surviving - that was it - because of my all-consuming secret that I dare not release to anyone. .

Then, back in the UK - in my mid forties whilst shopping late late at night as I always had, I browsed through the book aisle at Tescos. There were several misery memoirs on sale. I had seen this genre before but never before had the courage to pick one up and buy it.

This night I did it! I was desperate for something - anything to ease my pain. I had always felt so alone. I chose “Daddy Please Dont” by Barbara Naughton.

Reading this book brought floods of tears to me, I couldnt believe how many parallels there were between this young victim’s agony and my own. Page after page. Reading this horrific account of incest and emotions and dread, and fear, changed my entire life. I later visited the book aisle again and again, scanning the shelves for yet more of these misery memoirs. I read eight in total. I had a new freedom I had never known before. Such therapy! I cried buckets. These books changed my whole life. Communication became easier - I grew up, I could make friends, I could help others instead of being trapped inside my own head.

Previously I had always wanted to write - but never could with this secret burden inside my head..

I had managed to wrote several childrens’ poems and had joined a Childrens ‘ Authors’ group on Facebook.  

Here, one lady wrote openly about her own abusive childhood. I communicated with her. She told me all about her shocking experiences, and I told her a bit about mine. She advised I write it all into a poem. I thought that was a useless and silly thing to do, although I had told her I would do this.  

The next night I sat down and wrote. This experience was amazing. The words and the rhyming just flowed out of me! I cried buckets. Within an hour I had written my story in rhyme. And as I read it I cried even more. This had the biggest therapeutic effect upon me. I was in total bliss - so grateful to this lady. I sent my poem to her. She wrote back “I knew it would be good”. I am so grateful to her … but I never found her again and her name had disappesred on the Facebook site. 

I am ever thankful though to the authors who had the courage to revisit their childhood abuse, and to write and publish their stories. I could never have written my poem and my life was changed for ever because of them.

I would recommend to any secret sufferer of childhood abuse to just read a couple of books in this genre and then pour it all out about their own abuse on paper - then read and edit it until it seems like it was written by someone else. There is tremendous healing power here. This changed my whole life. 

 And do try afterwards, writing your story in rhyme! This was a real mind healing fete!

My poem follows here:

ALONE I SAT

Alone I sat on our front porch, I didn’t want to knock the door

My dad was in as he worked nights, He’d be waiting that’s for sure.

I hoped someone else would come home soon

I dreaded playing to his tune.

Someone saw me crouching down and shouted, “Why ya there?”

“I do not want to wake my dad!” I said, “It just would not be fair.”

Oh dread – this woke my dad of course, out of the house he came!

“I’m awake, come in!” he said aloud and I was filled with dread and shame

.

Inside the house I had to go, with no-one else at home;

I knew he had been waiting to get me on my own.

I was only just fifteen … and scared … and no-one knew

That every time we were alone, what my dad made me do.

How teenage years are full of joys!

My friends at work were dating boys

Laughing, flirting, having fun ,

But not for me - I could have none.

For two years I was his prisoner, a secret dread-filled life ;

My early teenage years were fraught with fear and dread and strife.

Each day to me was just a show

 And no one else must ever know.

I couldn't run, or talk or hide,

This secret made me die inside.

Every time he had the chance my dad would collar me 

And I would have to be with him where no one else would see.

 I’d meet him every Friday night according to his whim

He told family I was off with men, when it was only ever “him”.

My siblings were instructed not to talk to me.

Dad said I was a liar and “mad” for boys, you see.  

They had to keep away from me as I was just a whore 

 Out with boys and lying! They would speak to me no more!

So I was on my own with this, no-one could set me free.

This secret life went on and on, and no-one spoke to me.

A boy or two would like my looks, come knocking at the door,

But dad would quickly chase them off, “What would you want her for?”

What should have been the norm for girls, whose innocence is sweet

Turned out to be a dark long path, those years were incomplete.

They were not lived, my dreams were smashed -

My teenage aspirations dashed.

Two years of this living hell! I could take no more!

I crept into the Office which I knew held pills galore;

I filled my pockets full and then I shifted to the loo, 

I swallowed them, first one, sipped water, then just two;

 Then I shoved a handful all at once into my throat, 

I swallowed and repeated this, just wanted out - no words, no note.

Just to get away from life - Away from hell and dread and strife.

I survived that night – it was an end to the abuse,

 It must have scared my dad because from then, he let me loose.

But no-one ever asked me why – and only I was sad.

I never got the chance to speak out about my dad.

A mind physician came with my mother to the Ward

And offered an appointment, with her there, I was assured.

I begged for an appointment without my mother there

But I was only seventeen, he said, HER eyes a frightening glare!

Mum clearly didn’t want me home because of this event,

No questions asked, no comfort, she must have known to some extent;

Communication like before, nothing said within our house

Life was bad and I was numb, an empty, lonely, desperate mouse.

 I took a job in London town, I had to get away;

A maze of strangers everywhere, a job, a place to stay

A new life but an emptiness, a loveless void within

I knew not how to mix and play or how to play and win.

Life was a dream, it wasn’t real, I didn’t know myself.

I only knew that I was free and that to me was wealth!

I acted out my roles at work, that helped me earn my way,

Serving in a bar at night and selling scarves and pins throughout the day,

In Oxford Street, a smart grand store 

– where hours were long and pay was poor.

But this life was a better way, no-one to bother me

As long as I put in my hours, my other time was FREE.

This I'd never known before, my dad had snatched my youth 

As soon as it had bloomed a bit, so painful was the truth.

I wanted babies and a husband, to live a normal life

To show folks how it should be done, become a mother and a wife.

A marriage came and went and then, the emptiness grew fast 

The wifey role was not for me, I couldn’t make it last.

My husband couldn’t understand my moods and changing ways

And the struggle with my secret should not be told those days.

 So I set off for Southern France, then tried the USA

Where, still, my life was lived in dreams, whilst working every day.

Finding work was easy, I blended in with staff

And played the English lady

And sometimes made them laugh.

I just behaved according to the demands of my job

But after work that emptiness engulfed me like a fog.

I was just a haunted ghost gliding through the scenes,

I had to keep pretending, I knew no other means.

I couldn’t face the past, I couldn’t let it go

I couldn’t share my shameful truth - nobody must know!

My short stay visa had expired, I really should have gone.

But where to go at 26 - to live, to carry on?

The Californians seemed to love me, I seldom was alone,

So I married once again - I did not need a better home.

By then I’d eached my thirties! How could I spend my days

Burying my haunting past to live here in a make-shift haze.

Life was superficial, I needed to return 

To my family back in England - to share feelings and to learn;

To talk, to exchange all the memories of our youth;

We all could come together, no secrets, just the truth.

Life would be much better - we’d share an open door

For our later years, the dreadful past won’t matter any more.

But leaving husband number two to reunite with kin

Would not work out, they only saw a sister full of sin.

These kin had all got married and had children of their own,

Their lives had been traditional, routine and ingrown.

They had become quite middle class aspiring to the norms

Of 1980’s families, the working class reforms.

They worked, they cooked, and didn’t like to see outside their box

I was twice divorced and single, they thought I had the pox.

I stayed five years but nothing changed, my kin rejected me

We couldn’t sit and talk about our childhood over tea.

We’d learnt in adolescence that I was just no good;

I didn’t broach the subject, never felt I could.

The damage that our parents caused would last throughout our lives

No barrier could be broken, how hostility survives!

It wasn't 'til I reached midlife that I found comfort in the tales,

Those memoirs by some other girls, whose stories hit the sales;

Tales of abuse in families, of secrets, hidden deep 

And how young lives were ruined by haunting truths within their sleep.

These stories helped me come to terms with all that I went through

So one day I will write a book to share my story too.

But digging deep for ugly truths will be the hardest part

To relive these, those awful times, I know where I must start.

Non-the-less I know so well, such writings bring relief

 And will bring comfort to another's heart, a lessening of their grief.