THE EARLY YEARS (June 1955)

I was born in Kingston-upon-Thames hospital quite a long time ago, on 6th June in 1955 in fact.  This took place when I was very young so I don't remember too much about it, nor did I have an awful lot of say in it.  My mother's husband was not my father, and in 1955 this was quite a serious scandal.  My mother and her husband split up, as did my mother and my father.  My poor old mum couldn’t cope with bringing me up on her own so she put me into the care of the local child welfare office.

I had lived happily in a nursery at Woking until I was two when I was fostered by some people who lived in Belvedere GardensWest Molesey in Surrey.  He was ex-RAF, and at this time a fairly successful business-man selling the latest Crittal windows to the building trade.  She was very respectable and had two children of her own, Timothy and Wendy, but yearned for another.  Unable to have another in the natural course of events they fostered me and a couple of years later adopted a young girl, Patricia. in

Horace Charles (foster father).......

My relationship with my 'father' was always strained. He always seemed to resent me but wanted to keep his wife happy.  I am not sure why they adopted Patricia a year or two after fostering me, maybe he needed another 'play-thing' for his wife.  I not sure if he ever knew what fatherly love was, or even thought about the role of the father towards me or his own children; maybe his lack of positive feelings for me was just because I was an 'outsider'.  Our relationship was based on his wife's need, so I was tolerated, and over just 9 years our relationship deteriorated to the point where I held a knife to his throat and threatened to kill him if he ever touched me again.

My 'daddy' was a very proud man, and very proud of his car.  It was a black baby Austin (Austin A30/35) as it was called in those days.  He would wash and polish it relentlessly.  He was not proud of the fact that it was a company car though.  Today nobody thinks twice about having a company car, in fact some people are affronted and offended if they DON'T have one!!  In the 1950's and 60's though, it was considered socially unacceptable to have a company car.  Or maybe only to snobs!!

As a child I suffered very badly with travel sickness.  I only had to look at a car and I would feel sick!!  I brought the subject up once, all over the back seat.  I got a good hiding for it, but that failed to cure me.

It did make afraid to say anything though whenever I did feel sick.  What always used to make the situation worse was that my 'brother and sisters' sitting with me in the back seat used to find it all hysterically funny and roll about the car laughing.

My father knew this amazing cure for my sickness.  It involved first slapping the left leg, then the right, then the left ear, then the right and then back to the legs again.  This "cure" used to continue until Dad thought I was feeling better again.  I really don't know where he learnt it, but it never worked.  He never seemed to realise that it didn’t work either - twenty miles later we would be back at the cure again and Mum would be cleaning the car and sure enough the kids would be laughing hysterically.

As this section is about my 'Dad' perhaps I should conclude it with these two notes. 

I only learnt one thing from my 'dad', the art of hate.  He stirred up in me all that is negative and horrible in human nature.  He taught me about snobbishness and hate for 'lower classes'.  He taught me about everything that was wrong with men, but more than anything he taught me how to hate, hate society and hate people.

My last note on this man is this:  I got in touch with the family in 1984 when I was preparing to get married to my first wife, Ginny.  I felt it was an episode I really needed the closure of.  It was as if I couldn’t fully love my wife to be if bitterness and hatred towards him was still in my heart.  I needed to forgive them all and especially him.  I put it off for ages, only because of 'him', however when I did get to Frome where they lived, I managed to trace the family who had all moved across town, and found that he had died just months earlier from heart failure.  Inside I rejoiced, but I kept quiet. 

As I spent the day with the family I asked them about his death and not one was bothered.  I got the impression they would all, including his wife, dance on his grave at regular intervals given the chance.  His wife was so grief stricken she ran off with a man friend just month's after.  I guess I find healing in that even today, that it wasn’t just me that he hated and abused, it was everyone.

 

Grace (foster mother).....

Grace was a wonderful woman really.  It is a real shame she was let down by her husband.  She was very caring.  Whether it was towards people, kids, animals, the planet, her parents - she cared.  It was her that was the driving force behind the local Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) group.  It was her that was a Quaker.  I think she probably had issues with needing to mother, hence her fostering me and adopting 'Tricia, but that doesn’t matter when you are as compassionate as she was.  She often tried to stick up for me, but she did what she was told by her husband.  She was a peace loving woman who was easily emotionally and intellectually beaten into submission by her husband.  In stature she was a little woman - probably just about 5 foot tall - in comparison her husband was a giant in stature standing at about 6 foot and well built.  In moral stature though - he was dwarfed by her inner beauty and gentleness.

 TO BE CONTINUED......