the old man off me. I was so relieved when I was rescued that I started giggling uncontrollably, a mixture of relief and embarrassment.
When the police came for him, the old man looked a shadow of the brutal figure that had just attacked me. What they saw was a sad and pathetic flat-capped figure who cried in front of the crowd of onlookers that had gathered to see what was going on. Among the crowd was a group of young men, all calling out to the police, ‘Let the poor bugger go.’ Maybe it was because of the fact that I didn’t look harmed by the attack that they took pity on the man and made me feel like it was I who had done something wrong, not him!
When the police took me home to our house, all the neighbours came out to their gates or peered out from behind their curtains as I was led by the arm to our front door. Alf came to the front door with a look of thunder in his eyes. As if I had been caught shoplifting, he seethed, ‘What’s she been up to now?’ He didn’t like the police being at his door, whatever the reason. Even when he was told what had happened to me, he still didn’t appear to be concerned about the attack or what effect it would have on me. Mum was the one who sat me down and asked if I was all right.
The old man was charged and the police told Alf that the man had previous form for this sort of thing, that he had attacked several schoolgirls throughout his life and was well known to the police. This put a stop to Alf thinking I was just making a fuss, and not just making it all up to get some attention. Nevertheless, I felt he still thought that, somehow, I had asked for it.
What happened in Gloucester Park that day changed my life and although I was hardened on the outside my dreams and nightmares told the real story of how vulnerable I really felt. I resigned myself to the fact that I would die at an early age, after a sexual assault or even, possibly, rape, which would be followed by murder. From then on, rather than try to save myself and watch out for the dangers in life, I went on a mission of self-destruction, as if I knew I couldn’t escape my destiny.
For a while after the park attack, I went through a depression caused by what had happened to me. At the time, I didn’t understand what was wrong with me. I just felt sad all the time and became quiet. Most of my friends were trying to make themselves look older and attractive, but I went back to wearing my hair in plaits and wearing longer skirts.
At the age of thirteen, I was less physically developed than most of my crowd, and decided that perhaps this was for the best as it would stop men looking at me or touching me, as the old man had. I was left with deep-seated mental scars and whenever an old man, particularly if he was wearing a flat cap, came towards me I would cross the road to avoid him.
My mum noticed these changes within me. One day she sat me down and asked me how I was. For once, as I choked back the tears, I told her how I felt the old man had fancied me because I was pretty and was dressed in a short dress. And as the tears came in torrents, I gushed, ‘He must have thought I was a prostitute, Mum!’
I went on to tell Mum that I had the feeling that this sort of sexual attack had happened to me before but couldn’t remember it properly; it was like déjà vu. She looked at me and started to cry too, then she told me something that shocked me: ‘It did happen to you before, but you were only six years old. I didn’t think you would remember it.’
My mother went on to tell me how she and Alf had left me with an elderly family friend while they went Christmas shopping. I recalled that the elderly man was a nice old gent, always cuddling me and giving me presents; it was around the time when my real dad had stopped seeing me. Mum told me how she and Alf had walked in to find the old man touching me up, and how Alf got really angry and dragged me out of the old man’s house, leaving him crying.
My mum also told me that she was angry with Alf for not doing something about it and because of what he had said – ‘The old man can’t be held responsible for what he has done, he’s not right in the head.’ Mum didn’t realise it, but what she was really telling me was that Alf thought if the old man wasn’t responsible for the sexual assault then it must have been my fault. From then on, I knew I was bad and no matter what happened to me – because I was a bad girl, a dirty girl – I deserved what I got.
This made things even harder for me at home because I felt Alf hated the sight of me. To him I was a spoilt brat who needed to be disciplined, and was – regularly. Once, he hit my head so violently into a wall that it perforated my eardrum. And if he hated me, then I hated him. I promised myself that when I left school I would leave home and get a live-in job at a hotel or as a children’s nanny – anything to get away from the people who made me feel bad about myself.
My brother Phillip grew to hate me more as I got older, because as a child I was a troublemaker who disrupted family life. As a teenager, I was what Phillip considered to be a slut. He hated the fact that when I was fifteen years old, he would overhear his friends down the pub refer to me as ‘Jailbait of the year’. I was an embarrassment to him.
My stepbrother Ray, meanwhile, had hated my mum for taking the place of his real mum who had died in her thirties. So he took it out on me too.
Then there was that nice old man who had showed me affection at the age of six … but who, at the same time, was sexually abusing me. They had all let me down; they were supposed to care for me, love me and protect me. Not one had stayed; they had all left me.
Some of them hurt me physically and mentally and some hurt me by their keenly felt absence. I grew used to being let down by those around me, but it didn’t hurt quite so much as the hurt I felt from the absence of my real father during those childhood days.
I WAS POPULAR amongst my classmates, getting on well with both the girls and boys. I was a middle-of-the-road student, but I knew I would never manage to get through my exams – I lacked concentration and confidence. In class, I would never raise my hand to answer a question just in case I got it wrong, although a lot of the time I knew the correct answer. I always appeared happy and confident, but inside I was terribly shy. My bravado and bluff were my way of coping with it.
At fifteen years of age, I was pretty. My eyes were my best feature, like my dad’s. They were a greeny grey in colour with thick black curly eyelashes. My second best feature was my hair, which was long, dark and shiny. I was only 5ft 2in tall and of slender build; although I had developed boobs, they weren’t very big, but I was in proportion. My worst feature, I thought, were my thighs; I always thought they looked fat, though no one else thought they did. I was a late developer and envied the girls who already had boobs, pubic hair and periods. My periods came along when I was fifteen and a half years old.
My sister Sue and I were unfortunate in that we were both knock-kneed. We cost our mum a fortune in shoes, as we always wore the heels down fast. We were sent to a clinic to be trained how to walk properly – backs straight and chests out. I was already walking this way before my boobs developed, but when they did eventually arrive I looked like I was deliberately trying to stick my chest out, and this got me plenty of leg-pulling from the boys, and sarcastic remarks from the girls.
Alf was well aware of my new assets and seemed to come down even harder on me, nagging me about what I wore, where I went, with whom I went out and what time I got in. We seemed to spend all of our time arguing. Looking back, I can see why.
As I blossomed into a young woman, I attracted young men who were several years older than myself. I didn’t know how to deal with the attention they lavished on me. I could feel their eyes on
