Caravan of love……….

A f*@king caravan, who wants to live like this, is one of the first memories I have of the great big adventure I was being taken on? We had driven for what seemed like ages and had arrived at the caravan site, now I don’t want you getting any ideas that this was by the sea or in a park of trees and fields, no this was off a dirt track behind proper houses, where people didn’t want us, a travellers site! Our “home” was a caravan that could sleep six but shouldn’t, just near the entrance to the site and was fenced off somehow. Our “plot” was adjacent to other plots where strange people lived and tomorrow I was going to meet them! My first morning was exciting, you see one big part of the move that hadn’t quite dawned on me until morning was that living here meant no school, NO SCHOOL, I didn’t have to worry about lunch times again or the kids that called me names, I was free this was going to be great, how idyllic it all seemed then, and how awful it was going to turn out. Running water is a blessing and shouldn’t be taken for granted, a flushing toilet is luxury its self, I had just left those behind. “He” was known to the people on the site so we were allowed to be there, mother assured us this was for the best and we should thank our lucky stars “he” had brought us here. Well I don’t I didn’t and quite frankly what the fuck she was thinking is a mystery, but I was there now so I’ll find out where I fit in. I don’t think it is gonna take a genius to figure it out, I didn’t , you see I had weakness written all over me and the “bigger boys” on the site could sense the fear in me, so I had gone from the frying pan into HELL, a fire would have been a blessing!

Moonlighting……….

My mother had lovers, this was something I didn’t enjoy, mainly because they wanted to “make me a man” they always seemed to see my love for my mother as a weakness never a sons love always weak, I guess I was a bit of a weakling, my weight wasn’t an issue when I was 9 years old. There were issues though, these men who had my mother’s affection always knew what was best for me, “ he needs to toughen up”, “he cries too much” and guess what they always had the cure all, teach him to fight, stop him from sitting on your lap, my mother listened and coerced me into trying out their remedies. I hated them all every last one of them but the one who I hated the most was “him”, “he” always knew how to wound, to take my mother’s glance from me and this he relished in. He even got his brother to join in when he visited so I had no one I could turn to for relief; I hadn’t thought of food as a friend yet but only a few years to go before I used that crutch.

In her wisdom my mother listened to “him” and one night when I was about 9 my sisters and I were woken up to go on an adventure, I mean in the dead of night we were piled into a van with all our belongings and told that we were moving to a very special place, where we could live free and safe!

We had done what is known in the trade as a ‘moonlight flit’!

Me and Mrs Jones……….

My father was having an affair, with a woman who lived not far from us in Ockendon Essex. I hated her and to some extent still do, she has always been there at the worst times in my life, and she has never been remorseful for her part in the pain of my life and was to a great extent complicit with it. My mother was struggling to make ends meet, if my father was giving her any money to help I am not aware of it, we certainly didn’t live well on what my mother earned. Somehow my father convinced or bullied, he was quite the bully so I am sure it was with bullying that he forced my mother into giving us to him, to live with him and “her”. I have very strong and fairly mixed memories of this but I intend to recount my version, so I will.

I recall having a bag of my clothes with me and 2 of my sisters and we arrived at “her” house, it was small and smelled different to my own and I didn’t want to be there, but I remember it being an adventure, from my perspective it was, we packed up and were going to live in a strange place with different rules and different things and I wanted to go but felt pulled away from my mother, but I went, I even think I was excited about the change.

My father was different he didn’t shout he seemed softer there was no violence and “her” children seemed to like him!

I don’t recall how long we stayed there but I know one of my sisters didn’t want to be there and made it known, she cried all the time and repeated I want my mum, I want to go home. My other 2 sisters and I were not pleased to be there but were I think happy to be anywhere that wasn’t at the house with my mother, I don’t know why? All I do know is as soon as we were there we were back at home with mother, this however didn’t last long!

ChChChCh Changes…….

When I was about 7 or 8 my parents separated, my mother my sisters and I remained in the house I remember most from those early years, it was in South Ockendon, Essex. My father had moved in with his mistress, a fact I learned of late in my eighth year. The house was on a council estate, so everyone knew each other’s business and close neighbours rallied round when times were tough. My mother was a nurse at a psychiatric hospital and I remember her smelling of urine and bleach, she found some solace in the fact that the universe had given her a talent for singing, which she used to alleviate some of her pain, by singing at the local “social club”, council estates in the seventies had these at their heart, where the good the bad and the ugly whiled away their wages and lives each weekend.

By now my memories are of wanting to be free, because I was the odd kid at school, were starting to take shape, we had free school meals, because of my parents breakup, and the other kids knew and made us feel dirty and poor because of it, this is where I think my relationship with food started its unhealthy demise, I didn’t like to line up for my food because I had to have a special ticket that said “I come from a broken home, and we are poor can you give me some food please”, the ticket had to be given to the dinner lady before I could get my lunch, so I opted to wait until last so no one could observe this, which meant having cold food that I would eat as fast as possible or worse I would skip lunch all together just to forgo the humiliation of it all, this meant that I was starving by home time and eat as much as I could when I got there. Living here with my mother was OK, a lot of the motherly duties were heaped on my oldest sisters shoulders, the rest of us disliked her for bring the “boss of us”, something she didn’t want or ask for but was made to do, she didn’t do a great job, why should she, she was 12 years old. I played out a lot; near to where we lived was a youth club, a large hut in a concreted area where the kids hung out during school holidays and most weekends. I was an awkward kid didn’t fit in, not because I didn’t want to I just felt different from the others, the boys played football or rounders or anything with a ball and the need to run about, I didn’t, because in the hut was an upright piano, a few of the keys were missing and some of the others stuck down when you played them so you had to lift them back up so you could play them again, which to any buddy Bach just won’t do. I think all of us kids, my sisters and I, I mean, get our love of music from our mother, her being a singer and all. I sat at that piano, not wanting to join in with the “sports” as this usually meant me getting my head bashed in by the other kids, for hours and hours, I taught myself to play by ear, picking out the tunes of the day on it key by key, note by note.

When the day was over it was back to our house to listen to more music and wait for the return of my mother, she was out working or in the evening singing at the social. She usually brought back people with her on a Saturday night and the party would go on. Here is where I think my first feelings of not liking my body started, men and women who were drunk would dance and strip and be overtly sexual and we (my sisters and I) would see all of this. I thought I don’t want to be doing this when I’m older so I would stay upstairs out of the way, hiding myself from the display down there.

It’s still rock and roll to me……

Early on, I think I was a happy kid, you know experiencing life through the eyes of a child, falling down picking myself up, being picked up by those around me, normal stuff, well as normal as normal feels when it’s happening to you!

The first few years of my life were Ok, living with my parents and sisters was what I was doing and to be honest enjoying it, then the bad days came, I guess as early as 5 or 6 years old, I realised my parents didn’t really like each other, the reasons I didn’t discover until later, but at about 5 I knew that violence was the way my father ruled his kingdom and I truly believe it was at this age I learned that fear is a way of being.

I want to say I am not looking for pity or comfort, I am stating that for my journey towards liking me and ultimately loving me, I really did need to understand where the f*@k I came from and letting you know is a way of sharing with you the tools I’ve used to lose the weight I needed to and finding the love I wanted.

So having realised fear is a way of being, I began being fearful. Being full of fear is all consuming, you wait for the gaps when you can relax, but they don’t come too often, so you wake each day tense waiting for “it” to start and as regular as clockwork it does start.

My father was always disappointed, with everything, his life, his marriage, and his children and definitely with himself. So to stop his pain he metered it out to those around him, he couldn’t decide how to express it best, and shouting when he was annoyed was the first clue to the violence that he would resort to if the shouting didn’t stop his pain. As kids we learned to listen out for the shouting, this taught us that pretty soon there would be a beating, for who, we couldn’t be sure, but for one of us a certainty.

My mother “ate” her pain, I have so very few memories of her but one that I am sure of is that for the time I had with her she was sad! Sad is such a perfect word to describe her, unfortunately, as I cannot recount hearing her laugh or seeing her smile or even knowing what she found joy in, my older sisters have memories of her that are different, I know, but they had more time with her then my younger sister and I did and therefore they have memories that I don’t.

Where did I begin……

So my parents met not sure where, when and how, but they did and began their life as is often the case, from the wedding to the maternity unit with hardly a pause, and in the 50’s this was how it was done, do I think they were in love, I guess then yes, by the end of their marriage certainly not.

I have 2 sisters older than me and one younger, the age gap between us all is not that great, so I think my parents just got pregnant as they were living their lives, planned or not they were having kids!

I love my sisters and know they love me, but throughout our lives the tools and mania our parents gave us, have certainly hindered our ability to just love each other, we have fought for it and ultimately hurt each other whilst trying to love each other.

Someone once said “you don’t fight for peace, you peace for peace”, so learning that love is joyful and peaceful has been a hard lesson my sisters and I have “fought” for.