Flying over bus stops

The car stops and im woken up, with a deep welsh voice saying were here, must be the middle of the night its cold , dark and smells of woods, i can hear dogs barking. My eyes get used to the dark and i can see this white shape, its a caravan, two dogs are chained to it and are barking but wagging their tails and jumping around. One is an old english sheepdog and one a jack russell, Where are we, i can hear water running so must be near the sea i think to myself. So out of the car we get and the door is opened to the caravan, this is exciting, ive never stayed in a caravan before. Its smells of food and dog, im told to go and sit down at the table with the other boy whos name is Andrew. The woman is my dads wife and Andrew is her son. I am asked if i would like a cup of hot chocolate and something to eat , i say yes still not sure what to make of all this , this man is my dad ive never really seen and for the first time since ive left kent im a bit nerveous really as im having difficulty understanding what anybodys says and they are talking all in gibberish, i found out later its welsh. So where is this place i cant hear anything else from the caravan apart from the sound of water and the dogs rumaging around under the caravan, im a little scared to be honest, there are no lights anywhere outside of the windows and when you have lived in a tower block you can see for miles around. So we all sit round the table for something to eat and while i try to work out what they are saying im sipping on my very boiling hot chocolate. Then im told its time for bed at which point everyone gets up the table comes away and a few blankets and a pillow are put on the seat i was sitting on. Andrew has the same on his seat and my dad and his wife go to the back of the caravan and pull a curtain across. I follow andrews lead and lay my blankets down and wonder is this really my bed, only ever slept on the sofa before when you have watched telly after school, but where do i wee and wash i cant see a toilet just a small kitchen like sink, i havent brushed my teeth either nor did anyone else. The lights go ut with no word of good night and all i can hear still is the water the dogs underneath me and my dad and his wifes voice talking welsh from behind the curtain. This is scary but im so tired i fall asleep with no trouble at all. Wondering again before i do where am i.
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So it happened one day all i remember is a knock at the door and voices talking, couldnt understand what the man was saying sounded so strange. I was called into the kitchen, that was scary in itself enough, my mothers cooking was awful , always broths and stews filled with barley. Years later when i met my brother again he told me how when they were moving from the flat to a house they moved the fridge and found what looked like a wasps nest of barley stuck to the grills behind it, our secret place to dispence of that fowl tasting ingredient, as with my mother if you didnt eat it the first time it would be there every meal time until you did. At least i left them something to remember me by. Into the kitchen i went and this huge man was there jet black hair and moustace, wearing tracksuit bottoms and a jumper, Chris mum said this is your father and you are going on holiday with him. The man walked towards me and said what i think was hello, i had never really heard a welsh accent before. By the side of him was a woman, a roundish shaped lady she didnt say much at all but i understood hello and another boy a bit bigger than me. Well not much time to pack then if i am am going on holiday, but surprise surprise my bags were ready, not understanding really what was going on and thinking where are my brother and sister are they not coming after all it was there dad too. So not even saying goodbye to my step dad, brother and sister i was walked out of the door with my dad this woman and the boy a duffle bag on my back into the back of a ford anglia and was sat down next to the other boy. I do remember my mum saying have an nice holiday and that was it door closed, car started and off down the road we went. I cannot recall looking behind at my mum or even thinking about where i was going and who are these people, i suppose it was what i was used too by now and just waited to see where we were going. The journey seemed like an eternity, if you have driven as an adult from kent to the middle of North wales you will understand, if you havent then make sure you take your ipod full of music its a long trip. But to a child it seemed like days and not knowing or being able to see because of the dark made it worse i suppose. So im on holiday, when i wake up the beach will be there , sandcastles and ice cream i cant wait im excited but tired , i,ll sleep and wait till the car stops hopefully it will be light and i can play straight away, yes the thought was there but the best was yet to come.

I sit here today reflecting on what i have written and then what to write next, the questions who am i , who have i become, would i have been a different person under different circumstances. So before i continue my tale i,ll reflect on the early years a little.

Lets see memorys,

Sad ones first, pain, abuse , not being loved, loneliness, confused, scared and scared. Funny but these are feelings that you really cant put down to a particular point in time or place as they stay with you from whenever it happened and carrys in your subconsious as a part of your being and who you are. But if i try the happy ones not so many but a point and time, faces and names stay with me. Meeting Jeffrey, Jane and Freddy from the tv show rainbow in a fete in south london and still having the photo, a dog called benji who chewed on my shoes every morning till there was nothing left. Holding hands at bedtime from the top bunk to the bottom bunk with the daughter of the couple from london feeling safe. So at this time even after what had happened so far on the outside i seemed a normal little boy, curly hair beaming smile and peircing green eyes i was told, but still clingy to people who showed me affection and why not i deserved it. School was ok i made friends and still remeber names but i didnt like p.e time as i had to put shorts on and the scars where still evident then and occasionally the fingers would point as children do and the word yuk would appear from someones mouth and the smiling and gradually growing confident little boy would retire back to his quiet shell. Children are unfair but they have an excuse its all about growing up and learning. I had met good people and bad people and at this moment of time i was with good people and thought that was the way it was going to stay, but as most of my small life had been so far there always seemed to be a suitcase nearby ready to be packed.

Fancy a game of cricket my brother said one night when we where in our bedroom, pillow cricket with a sponge ball. I should have said no, after all he was always getting me into trouble, One such time comes to mind, stealing milk and bread from the doorstop of the flats and then going into the clothes line area at the top of the tower and stuffing ourselves senseless with bread mik and yogurt. Untill the day somebody caught us and we ran and of course he was faster than me and left me behind and i was cornered by this angry faced man on the stairwell, so i headed for the nearest opening i could find and jumped out of it, trouble was it was the first floor window and i broke my leg, serves me right but as usual my brother got away with it he always did. But back to the cricket so i said yes and off we go him with the pillow on onebed , me on the other with the sponge ball took a while for me to catch the ball as there was no way i was running off the bed or the screaming from downstairs to shut up would come and nobody wanted that. So my turn i,ll keep him waiting as long as he did to me, hes never going to catch it. So pillow at the ready watching for the ball, yes i hit it. and it dosent bounce off the curtains it goes thru them and the sound of smashing glass rings round the room. Stunned silence for a second, what happened, then the footsteps came a running upstairs , we didnt move, couldnt move the fear was upon us. The door burst open and she came in screaming, what words it dosent matter, my ears had defeaned to what was said any more, you just waited for the hurt instead. In her hand was a cricket ball, a real ball, a hard ball, he has done it again duped me but this time it backfired on him. The heads were knocked togeather and the hair was pulled with the bodys following down the stairs and out the backdoor into the small space called if you will the garden over looking the green in the centre of the tower blocks. There we sat till morning and the next night and everynight for the next two weeks , so you could say it was my first experience of camping out , but these days i like to take a sleeping bag.

Well another care home for a while then the wise old people at social services decided it was time to give my mother her her umptenth time to show her parental skills. My memories of that last stay with her were again not the best. I remember what you could call my step father, a huge man always tanned and weightlifting when he was home huge hands but a soft nature. He worked in the parks dept for the council so lucky guy was out of the house at least. My older brother was visualy like me just a bit bigger and my year younger sister reminded me of crystal tipps of the telly with her curly ringlet hair. The tower block was a maze of steps and corridors and the usual lovely smell of urine in them. So routine was like any ordinary child school home and play if we were allowed but with the mental and physical abuse when you got home. My brother and i shared the same room and every morning were locked in till mother came home from her early shift from work. Which i suppose wouldnt be allowed these days, which lead to another reason for a beating, i want to go to the loo, which was easy if you wanted to wee, you just went out the window, but what if you wanted the other well, did you go in your pants at 7 years old and get a beating or did you try to have some kind of respect for yourself and try to think of a way to minimise the forth comming abuse you knew was going to come. So the only place was the waste bin in the corner of the room, job done now just sit and wait on the bed for the sound of the front door and then hope beyond hope that it wasnt that bad and she had been made happy by something. But alas no fear of that . She would walk in and smell it and then once again it would start, may have as well just shit myself as i did anyway. Years later when i met her, the answer to the locked bedroom door was i couldnt reach the knob, mmm funny that my 8 year old brothewr couldnt either and a key was always turned from the other side. But again my burns were caused by me turning on the taps on the bath, god i was a clever baby and must have had arms like garth. But the penence for going to the toilet in the bedroom was having to wear a nappy on holiday and yes i remember the looks of the kids my age and the finger pointing a fanatastic punisment to help with your self esteem and best of all a family photo was taken with me wearing it. I wonder if that was ever put on the mantle peice in preperation for a future girlfriend to ask when was that taken.

That was to become my new home, 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 goverments of the 60,s well done youre 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 wasnt 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 centred on me because i looked like my dad , sorry about that mother you made me with him. genes pass down didnt 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 aparently 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 wouldnt be far away from my mother. So off to meet a new bunch of forgotten children in a new home and another mini adventure without the smacks screaming and fear started for a while.

A telephone call came one day 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 suppossed 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 most rememorable a big bag of sweets in her hand with which she blatently came with to grab my attention im sure. What was said between the adults i dont 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 promosies 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 in South london and all i can recall is a couple standing on the front door of thier house crying as i was driven away in my mothers car with another man driving, who was infact my fathers best friend my mother had an affair with. Me i was on back seat waving back at the crying couple thru the rear window seatbelts wernt law then. Did i care i supposse 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

I had a new home , I was placed in childrens 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 remeber that specificaly but i was being cared for and thats what matters. I was taken for regular visits out of the care home with the couple to stay at their home but that came to and 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 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 chilsehurst 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 after, if only the same could be said for social services today. I learned years later in my early twentys that even this care home which supported and cared for its children had a dark side, but it only takes one person to ruin the reputation dosent it. I had been sexually assaulted by a young female care worker whilst in the bathroom, i personally dont recall the incident but my girlfriend at the time was told by my then foster father as he was the male from the couple who i had become a favorite of in the home. This couple were to become part of my life also on and off for years because out of the blue they came from South London and took me into their home on a temporary basis. They had a Baby daughter and a dog by then so i guess it was my first experience of family. For the first time i recall fun , hugs and going out with someone holding your hand and the smiles on peoples faces. I recall the photos that were taken with these people even now , dressed up as a cowboy, sitting in the garden with a rubber band powered plane. So things then remained stable and happy for me for a little while , but as with most plans , all are subject to change.

People often recall their first memory, they recall a song a tv show a mad grandad 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 amshamed to this day to say because of my mother. I was put into a bath of scholding 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 i turned the taps on and that not having hormone treatments as such available at the time and suffering from depression was the reason she acted like she did, but no apologie was presant with the explanation. My questions were did she not see and here 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 dont 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 able to be i was taken into care in a childrens home in Kent. I did see my mother again and a catolouge of abuse followed and this was the marking i belive of me the person i am now , walls up fully defenced 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. Surley 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 memorys are good ones and you can remember things as a baby if they have that much impact on you.

Now how to start, is the end the beginning or the beginning the end there’s a question i have asked myself many times. It is a story, one persons story, my storyand as honest as i can remember it. It may go back and forth in time a little because as i write the more i remember. I have left out names but a few on purpose, why because the names are not important, its the journey of remembrance and discovery for me that is the important thing.

I was born march the 24th 1968 and even then there was confussion because my natural mother refused to accept it was the 24th but insited it was the 25th. So the seed of my fragmented being started there, so i will call it the beginning after all. I was born to a married couple whos names i wont refrence as i have left these people behind me now. They were both from a sleepy little village called Corris in the middle of North Wales, once famous for it slate mine now known for a craft centre built on the ruins of the old slate mine. My mother was a young mother she had my year older brother who i have been told was by a different father at the age of 15, not unusual in those parts. They then moved to Beckenham in Kent , why i dont know and to be honest not to a few years later do i have any recolection of it. My father became a grave digger as his mental skills arnt the best and and my mother worked as a cleaner for the council. Im lead to belive thru what i know that my mother then had an affair not long after my year younger sister was born the affair was with my fathers best friend in Beckenham. I have no recolection of my father untill a few years later as he went back to his sleepy village after i guess the affair happened and left his woes and children behind him and not a thought in his head of his children again, but he did appear again a few years later and unfortunately i was involved. I cannot rember much really until what i will call my change of life happened and from then on i could remember most things.