He aint heavy he's my brother.....

This was just the short end of the abuse, you see children can be cruel to each other, at the best of times, but with a rule book to follow they will, so we, and I mean all of us used to try and get the upper hand, take some control over our lives, we would ask for a cup of tea and when it was brought back, complain, say did you put sugar in this I can't taste it, this was observed by my father and noted and if during the course of the night...., sorry did I not mention, this went on all night long, clicking fingers to get tea, until tomorrow, but then you had a different job to do tomorrow and suffer whatever indignation was to occur if you got that wrong, this is abuse, oh and before you ask, the wife, the mother of two of these children and the step mother of the other two, allowed this to happen, she never challenged, never said I'll do it, you carryon being a child and I'll stop this arsehole from abusing you, no she ordered her tea too.

Do what you do, when you did what you did to me.....

Abuse is, waiting on parents, in the evening my father would sit in his chair, and would click his fingers, you know like you do to your dog to gets its attention, this click meant who ever had their name on the list to make a drink had to stand up, immediately, I am not being dramatic or over exaggerating, if you didn't stand up or at least say it's me, then you were in real trouble. Anyway you had now entered into the contract of the rota, so you were now expected to make my father a cup of tea, just as he liked or more trouble was to come, this was not the end of this humiliation, because now those  children whose names were not on the list, could ask you to make a drink for them too, but this was the cruel bit, they couldn't help you, if they felt like it, they had to order it from you and remain seated, until you brought it back to their seat. Naturally my father’s drink had to be ready first and exactly how he liked it, mostly strong tea with a sweetener, a small pill like thing that was to help with his weight loss. If it was not strong enough, then you had a warning, go and make it right, this was never said with any form of kindness or teaching, "oh dear, it's too weak, never mind next time I'll show you how to make it just how I like it", no this was a warning that another mistake would not be tolerated, god forbid you got it wrong a second time, then you were hit, across the legs, or backside, a reminder how to make tea like he wants right!

Hurt.....

Things started going downhill immediately, there were the rules of the house, it was supposed to help the house run smoothly, like fuck was it, and it was a control freaks absolute way of divide and rule. You see, as the children we were to become, servants, I am not being flippant with my language here, a rota was drawn, up the 'children', had jobs to do, now let me stop you there, saying we all had chores to do when we were younger, that's not what I'm talking about. This was abuse, clear and simple and I am going to help you sort out the difference. Chores mean helping out, making everyone's life easier, manageable, and of course help build character, instil work ethics and develop team working, sharing and can of course really bring family cohesion.

In the Summer time....

So it was the really hot summer of 1976, I couldn't believe my luck, I was now living in Devon, and the beach was 1 mile from my house, agreed is was up a ridiculous hill, I mean as a then 11 year old, it seemed ages to walk up the hill, then to walk all the way down the other side, but oh my god, what a place to end up in. It was called Mansands beach and it was sandy and no one went there, because of the bloody hill. So when we did go, me my sister and the dogs, we had 2, then it was just magical, peaceful and so freeing if I knew that that time of such innocence would be shattered by what was to come, I truly think I would have decided to die then, hindsight is a thing that eats away at the soul though, if's and buts, are always of course too late. I'm know that I still wonder if I had known what I know now, what I would have done differently, the reality is ultimately, when my life started to go up shit creak without paddle, rudder, compass and any sign of hope, all the people that were in control, were abusers and that's what you end up living with, and through and spending your life trying to fathom, why me, what for and naturally, aren't you supposed to be caring for me, us, my little sister and I, I mean we had decided to move here for a better life, not this.

So this is it, my father was a true fucking nutcase, control freak, violent, foulmouthed, deviant, arsehole. Seriously, if I had known any of that then of course the wanker, drunk my mother and teamed up with, would have been my first choice, but as I said hindsight, truly is so way too late.

Problems Sorted

Hi Everyone,

Finally I have sorted all my tech problems and I am going to carry on with my blog, Thanks for being patient and of course thanks for reading.

Tony

Just to let you know!

Hi Everyone

I am just letting you all know that I have a major technical problem at the mo, my laptop died and I am trying to resolve it, until then my blog will not be updated, sorry about this, I will get it back up and running as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading, if you become a follower of my blog by clicking the link on the right hand side of the blog page, you will be notified when I post anything new.

Cheers
Tony xx

Our House.........

We arrived, I don’t know what time it was, still light anyway, and my duck needed to get out of its box. We had arrived at a semi detached house, with a pond in the front garden and steps with a railing up to the front door. It looked nice I thought OK, this is where I’m going to live so let’s get the duck out of its box and then I’ll check out my room. Well I’d forgotten ‘she’ was here, ‘she’ was my father’s new wife, and yes it was her from all those years ago, the woman he had the affair with. I was disappointed but I was here now so let’s just get on with it. I was led into the back garden and I opened the box for the duck, well it ran from the box and straight into the hedge and then through the hedge and off into the distance. Oh no, here we go, my father went straight into his rant and started shouting about the fact that he knew it was a bad idea having a duck and that it had nowhere to sleep and if we caught it, then how were we going to keep it in, shout, swear shout, swear. I didn’t think this was a good start and I was right ‘cause everything just got worse. We had to go over to the neighbour that my father didn’t get on well with and ask him if we could search his garden for the duck, he said he would help, we spent what seemed like ages looking for it, then we heard it quacking and homed in on that, then it just ran when I tried to get it and my father was shouting the duck was running I was getting scared of what he was going to do if he caught it, luckily I caught the duck and had it in my arms and was leaving the neighbours garden, when my father said put it back in its box until we know what to do with it. So back in the box it went and then into the garage to make sure it couldn’t escape again. Finally I went into the house, it was a nice 3 bed roomed place with a lounge and dining room and a kitchen extension. Hold on 3 bed rooms, where’s my room, hasn’t ‘she’ got 2 kids already. Yes ‘she’ did have 2 kids and this meant me and my sister would be sharing, me with my step brother and my sister with her step sister. Well that didn’t go down well with anyone; they obviously resented having us cuckoo’s in the nest, and I thought I was getting a room of my own, it turns out no one said I was getting a room of my own I just made that up in my head! So this wasn’t the big problem for now because granny was here too, so actually me, my sister and my step brother were going to be sharing while granny was visiting, for a week, oh god what a pile of sh*t. We were going to the beach tomorrow, so we had to be to bed early so we had food and went off to bed, well we couldn’t sleep and my new step brother, delighted in telling me that this was his room and I wasn’t allowed to touch anything and that he made the rules of the room and I needed to obey them, fucking great I thought I’m back at school, back at the travellers site and the ‘bigger boy’ is still in control of me. I’d given up thinking about the frying pan and the fire, I just thought, anywhere would be better than this, ANYWHERE!