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CUTTING OF A ROUGH DIAMOND BY DANIEL CARLTON:

The Autobiography of a boy who almost missed being born.

Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 5 says...

I knew you before I formed you in your Mother's womb.

FOREWARD:

My Autobiography is of events that form a collection of enthralling stories which major around my Spanish upbringing in London; at the hands of a Father who was an austere Navy man and a harsh disciplinarian, he was a man who had been rejected by his parents as a very small child and raised in a Doctor Barnado's home and Fostered in Ipswich by a loving family until he was summoned to go to Navy Training School, only to be shipwrecked twice in mid Atlantic during the Second World war, an event that changed his direction and forms the basis of my autobiography.

Fascinating though my Father's story is, it nevertheless is just a small part of my story and serves only to paint a backdrop to my own personal testimony. In my own words that follow, I attempt to sensitively blend that painfully unwanted aspect of his life, which was forged by my own Father in a dark-room of fear, with another individual's wonderful story, someone who had touched my young tender life so very deeply, that of my beloved Mother (see photos below) Whose sweet fragrance will remain until the day I stand before my Maker and loving Saviour, who gloriously saved me when I was still in the furnace of affliction. My true story is followed by a wonderful Christian Appendix of additional stories and a unique archive of photographs (see below) of all the people and places that I mention. More importantly is a special chapter devoted exclusively to my family, which is a wonderful place which gives me an opportunity to share personal messages to all my children and my lovely wife Anita, whose loving support and constant friendship made it possible for me to have written my life story down.

My Christian testimony needed to be expressed and shared and so I wrote my Mum’s song, which is my life story in song, a testimony that I have had the joy of sharing and singing to tens of thousands of people everywhere. And here I write how all those events are woven together, with bitter-sweet memories of growing up under such terrifying and sometimes unbearable conditions.

Some chapters have been included, with detailed references to the traumatic experiences that followed my three year incarceration in St Edward’s School back in 1967, where I was sentenced to three years by a Juvenile Magistrate’s court for Care and Protection, and ever seeking to make light of the dire and difficult circumstances that surrounded my life, jokingly say of that Magistrate’s verdict “It was for my care and everybody else’s protection”. Without a sense of humour I would never have managed to bear the heavy burden of the cards that were dealt for my life and it is that self same sense of humour that continues (I hope) to be a source of inspiration and strength to those who truly know me; whether they are over-burdened with life’s difficulties, suffering heartbreak and grief, or those who are yet to find out what the road ahead has in store for them.

St Edward’s School in Melchet Court (see photo below) was at that time one of the last Military Training Approved Schools in the United Kingdom. It has been my desire for many years to write down some of my experiences, so that this generation may have a record of how boys were treated and managed psychologically and physically in Young Offenders Penal Institutions, where harsh military discipline, an exacting repetitive routine and hard manual work were strictly implemented over a long period of time.

Moreover I passionately wished especially to help the many dedicated Youth Workers, Counsellors and Teachers who work in places like St Edward’s School; whose lives exist to serve the needs of boys with behavioural difficulties. That these devoted individuals may be granted a rare insight into what one particular teenage boy felt like in a frightening, secure, Military Training Approved School for young offenders; that they may never again repeat the mistakes of the past, but will continue to improve their programmes, to better appreciate the deep personal needs of teenage boys, who, for whatever reason, find themselves unable to cope with society, their parents and their peers. For young Offenders too, whose family background like mine, was dysfunctional and full of grief, combined with serious abuse of all kinds. I hope with all my heart that this true life testimony will be an eye opening revelation and a blessing also to those who will take the time to read through my story.

DEDICATION:

I wish to dedicate this true and painful Autobiography to my dear friend Squaddie (see photos below) better known to many around the world as Squadron Leader David Dattner. He was my House Master and a Father figure to me personally and to so many boys at St Edwards School back in the 60’s. A dear loyal friend also to many hundreds of needy boys who suffered the misfortune to be in care, both here in the United Kingdom and in his own beloved land of Israel, for without his wisdom, compassion and love, this story would probably never have been put on record for others to read.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

My gratitude and heartfelt thanks also go to my Christian Brother and Sister David Haines and Elizabeth Bruce. David was a Head Master for many years and is a highly gifted scholar and Elizabeth is the Author of ‘The first gleam of dawn’, a wonderful daily Bible reading through the year. Both of these wonderful friends sacrificially gave up their valuable time to proofread my Autobiography; Their wisdom and guidance has enhanced my work more than I could have imagined and I pray that wherever this story will reach throughout the world, that these two dear friends will be honoured for their Christian love, in committing themselves to helping me put my Autobiography on record for the generations that follow.

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CHAPTER ONE:

My story begins almost sixty years ago. I was born in St Mary’s Hospital Paddington, London on 11th August 1952 and was the youngest of five Brothers. We lived in North Kensington, London W11, which at that time was mostly a slum area, far removed from the million pound properties that exist there today. My front garden was the famous Portobello market, where I spent many happy Saturday afternoons ramaging though the left overs with the stray dogs that frequently joined me, eating the damaged fruit that had fallen from the stalls. I would wait until after everyone had packed up and gone, often leaving their stalls to be pulled into the long narrow mews by their clean up team. There in that muddle of boxes and paper stuffed under the stalls I would find all kinds of exciting treasures that a small boy could take home and play with for hours. My back garden was Holland Park and Notting Hill Gate, where I loved to explore the big gardens with high walls and collect conkers and if I was lucky scrump a few apples but best of all was Kensington Gardens, which was my favourite garden, where I would go and spend hours exploring the lovely history museum, finding out all kinds of facts, from the Great Fire of London to the great Architects of past centuries as well as the wonderful suits of armour from the great British conquerors of old. Those days that followed close after the Second World War left neighborhoods’ devastated, with many buildings bombed-out and fenced off with corrugated tin sheets to stop the kids playing inside but which of course was in fact our natural playground. Many different nationalities were beginning to come into London at that time including Africans, Jamaicans and the like and street wars would erupt at night when the pubs would throw out the drunken men and many times bottles would be thrown at windows that had their gas-mantles alight and their shutters open, breaking the Windows and terrifying the residents. I had a small cot next to my Mother and Father’s double bed; four other beds were positioned all around in the same room, which is where my brothers slept. Weekends would be especially terrifying for me as a small child and on a Saturday nights we would often hear loud angry drunks hurling verbal abuse at one another, which we knew all too well, could so easily turn into a horrific fight just down in the street below our bedroom window. The shutters on our windows would thankfully hide the small flickering gas mantle that hardly lit up the bedroom but without them, that small glow would have been enough for a crazy drunk to see a target to throw his empty beer bottle at.

My cot would give a familiar comforting squeak as I gently rocked my head and shoulders back and forth and I would become mesmerised by the rhythmic noise of my cot, gradually forgetting the violent sounds outside and finally falling asleep. I continued that gentle comforting rocking of my head and shoulders, (known today by Psychiatric Doctors as "Rhythmic Movement Disorder) for many years to come; unaware that I had become psychologically damaged by things a small child should never have had to experience. 

My Mother was Maria Benitez Fernandez who originated from the sleepy border town of La Linea de la Concepción down in southern Spain. A town that had been given the unenviable name of “El culo de ninguna parte” translated “The backside of nowhere” within walking distance of Gibraltar, which was a bustling Military base and yet in La Linea there was nowhere to go, due to a closed Army patrolled frontier (border) separating Gibraltar and mainland Spain, set in place because of the war hostilities between the English and the Spanish, who were the German’s allies. My Mum had been evacuated to London in 1942, having married my Father, who was by then a Royal Navy Officer in Gibraltar, though previously he had been a Merchant Seaman, serving on a coal ship called the Alva. I will tell her story shortly but other events must take priority, which help to develop my story more clearly.

In order to paint a backdrop to my life story, including almost two years that I spent at St Edward’s Young Offender's Military Training School, I would first like to share another brave and relevant true testimony in order to give readers a backdrop, to provide them with a glimpse of who it was that had instilled into me the steely determination and stubborn courage that that has remained with me to this day. I am speaking about my own father Harry Denis Carlton. I think you will find his story incredibly fascinating and I can assure you that it is very relevant to my own testimony, because you will get a glimpse deep into my soul and capture an image of the reason why I became the person I am. It all started long ago with my Father’s struggle to survive, a struggle that would so shape and mould my young life too.

My Father’s nightmare began in August 1941; he and his best friend Ray Sutcliffe, both Merchant Sailors were due to join their ship the 'Alva' in Glasgow to take its cargo down to Portugal. They had been late to get to the docks that fateful day. As they drew nearer to the place where the 'Alva' was docked, it became apparent that it had been moved somewhere else and was no longer anywhere to be found in the harbour. Someone shouted out “hey you two?, your Captain was looking for you and you’re in big trouble now mates” My Father and his friend walked off confused and wondered what to do, after a walk around the quayside, they decided to walk into town. Ray Sutcliffe suggested they go to the Post Office, as he had to draw out some money but my Father left him to go inside while he had a cigarette out on the pavement; just then the Captain of the 'Alva; suddenly appeared and shouted at My Father “what are you doing here Carlton?, come with me straight away and no excuses” unaware of the situation inside the Post Office. Ray Sutcliffe continued waiting in the queue to draw his money, completely oblivious to the events that were unfolding outside. Not wanting to get his best friend into trouble my Father kept quiet and didn’t tell his Captain that his mate was still inside the Post Office; he was swiftly bundled into the back of the Captain’s car and taken to the next section of the harbour, where the 'Alva' had gone to pick up a consignment of coal. No sooner had the two men’s feet left the gang-plank that the anchor was raised and off they went. Another ten minutes and the ship would have sailed off without them. Had my Father not stopped for a cigarette and instead gone with his friend into the Post Office, then the life changing adventure that follows would never have happened and I would not be here today to tell you the story. Many years later Ray Sutcliffe and my Father were reunited and remained friends for the rest of their lives. My brothers and I called Ray Sutcliffe Chunky, an affectionate name that stuck while we were growing up and though he was just our Dad's friend, Chunky was an uncle to us five boys and a dear friend to our Mum, seeing her suffering first-hand and the tears she shed for her family back in Spain. I understand that Chunky outlived my Father, living to almost ninety years of age but I always imagined what would have happened, had he caught that ship in Glasgow with my Father that day!

My father’s ship had joined the famous OG71 Convoy heading down to Gibraltar, together with twenty one other Merchant and Royal Navy ships, including the famous SS Aquila. It was strictly forbidden for Merchant cargo ships to sail in dangerous waters alone during the second war, as apart from the obvious threat of being easy pickings for German U Boats, the big Insurance Companies like Lloyds of London would refuse to cover such Merchant ships, their crews and valuable cargo unless the Royal Navy would escort them to their various delivery ports. The convoy moved down mid-Atlantic avoiding the coast to eliminate the risk of being detected by German intelligence. My father being a Merchant Seaman was on his way to deliver the ship-load of coal to Lisbon from his base in Glasgow and would wait for a returning Royal Navy escort convoy to take them back home. He had been engaged to marry a Glaswegian lassie on his return but the events that followed dramatically changed his plans. The convoy, which was a few hundred miles west of the rough cold waters of the Bay of Biscay were unknowingly being shadowed by nine German U-Boats, which then began to sink one ship after another, the torpedoes sometimes literally ripping the smaller vessels in two.

The 'Alva'  that my Father was sailing on was sunk in the middle of the night on 19th August 1941 by a German U Boat U-559, whose Commander was Hans Heidtmann (See photo below) My Father was woken up by a loud bang and together with a few other men jumped overboard. The shipwrecked men spent the next five hours clinging onto some oil barrels that had been made into a working pontoon, holding on for their lives, together with a few other lucky survivors and were gratefully relieved at last to see their rescuers arriving just before sunrise. So my Father and a few other bedraggled crewmen were picked up out of the water by a Royal Navy Tug the ‘SS Empire Oak’. Other survivors were picked up by the ‘Clonlara’ which sailed on with the Convoy, only to be sunk on 22nd August together with the Empire Oak a few days later both ships sunk by the German U Boat U - 564 and whose Commander was Reinhard Suhren (See photo below)

The second time my Father was shipwrecked was while aboard the ‘Empire Oak’ just two day later, my Father was again woken up in the dead of night, this time by a Portuguese Sailor and again found himself in the swirling freezing waters of the Atlantic Ocean, together with the few fortunate men who had survived the horrific torpedo attack, which tore the ship almost in half. My Father was again in the water with a few other struggling survivors, fighting for all they were worth to hang onto each other, having to witness horrifically dismembered men they had just met a while before, including some of my Father's own friends from the stricken Alva, lose the struggle for life in the heavy seas and were drowned, silently disappearing beneath the oily waves. My Father had decided to chance his luck and swim away from the few last remaining survivors towards the convoy in the hope of attracting the attention of someone onboard and had swum many hundreds of yards away from the group that had huddled together around some floating ship's debris and as luck would have it the group was eventually sighted by the passing Convoy but my Father, unseen by the rescue ship was almost left behind, as he swam furiously in the heavy waves back to the pickup point. And so by a sheer stroke of luck my Father was gratefully among those few survivors that had held onto each other, in their desperate attempt to stay alive.  It was the Royal Navy Corvette ‘HMS Campanula’ (see special note below) that picked them up after that terrifying ordeal in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Special Note: Because of historical Navy (Admiralty) records with regards to the OG71 Convoy, I have sought to strictly keep to their rendition of the events that followed the sinking of the ‘HSS Empire Oak’. My Father's recollection of what happened was however somewhat different to the Admiralty's version. My Father's own testimony of the events of that night, is that when the Empire Oak sank, he was not picked up by the ‘HMS Campanula’ but by ‘HMS Zinnia’ a Royal Navy Flower class Corvette, which was crammed packed with survivors and according to my Father's own testimony, onboard the ‘Zinnia’ there were a few of the girls that had survived the sinking of the HMS Aquila. My Father was old but his memory was perfect and I cannot help wondering if he had been among a very small group of survivors that had been missed by HMS Campanula and thus picked up by the Zinnia. If this is the case, then the outcome may have been vastly different, as the Captain of the Zinnia had to likewise offload many of the survivors of the Empire Oak and other ships that had been hit by torpedoes to another ship, because HMS Zinnia was just a small vessel. It was decided therefore that survivors would be randomly chosen to leave the Zinnia and climb aboard ‘HMS Boreas’ and my Father was one of the lucky ones to be selected to leave. The official Navy records indicate that it was HMS Velox which had played a significant role in taking the transferred Survivors from off the overcrowded Campanula. However my Father was more than certain that it was HMS Boreas which transported him and a whole lot of other Sailors down to Gibraltar and not the Velox. HMS Boreas then steamed off (as my Father recollects to try and sink some of the German U boats, before turning to the safety of Gibraltarian waters. Had my Father remained onboard HMS Zinnia, he would have been blown to kingdom come, seeing that no sooner had the transferred survivors from off the Zinnia moved away onboard HMS Boreas, that the Zinnia was hit by a volley of torpedoes and literal blew up and any men in the water struggling to survive were torn to pieces by the horrific explosion. 

End of special note. 

I will continue now to tell my Father's story, as the Admiralty records show but just bear in mind that my Father's rendition of the events of that fateful night may have been equally correct in his case.

Because there were so many bedraggled oil-covered survivors aboard HMS Campanula and no-one could tell whether they were Royal Navy or Merchant seamen, the Captain decided to split the men up. The men were separated, some stayed on the HMS Campanula and the others, including my Father, were taken onboard HMS Boreas and others still onto HMS Velox (it may be that this initial transfer of men was made from HMS Velox onto the Boreas and not directly from the Campanula) In those three days more than ten British Royal Navy and Merchant ships were sunk by the German U-Boat command and hundreds of men including twenty two Wrens were drowned at sea. A memorial was made in 1965 to remember the loss of those twenty two young women who perished on the ‘SS Aquila’ all of them were Wrens, whose destination was Gibraltar, sent by the Admiralty to become the first team of Royal Navy female Wireless Operators. They all died on that fateful night of 19th August 1941 and a RNLI lifeboat was built many years later and named Aquila Wren, a fitting tribute to commemorate the deaths of so many young women sadly taken in the service of their King and country.

HMS Boreas spent the following three days (Much to my Father’s horror) searching for German submarines, occasionally launching its depth charges into the sea, in the hope of sinking one of the deadly U-Boats that had sunk so many of the ships in their Convoy and with some success too. My father was eventually taken to Gibraltar with all the other grateful survivors and given seventeen and sixpence, a set of clothes and directed to the Victoria hotel.  As he had no way of returning to Scotland to marry his fiancée, my Father decided to sign up for Royal Navy duties, serving aboard one of two RFA (Royal Fleet Auxiliary) Brown Ranger fuel tankers, supplying much needed highly volatile fuel to the Royal Navy Destroyers on their way down to Malta. One of those two fuel tankers was later blown up by a German U-Boat Captain, who had sneaked his Sub into the Strait of Gibraltar unnoticed and with devastating consequences. My father said that it was only a matter of time before one of those two tankers full of highly inflammable fuel would be hit by the German U-Boats; he just hoped it wouldn’t be the one he was serving on. Thankfully for him and for me too that it wasn't. 

CHAPTER TWO:

My family in Spain were extremely poor following the 1936 -1939 Spanish Civil War and then the Second World War also, which left many families struggling to survive and which drove hundreds of thousands of people across the country almost to the point of starvation. Thankfully my Mum and her sister Antonia were given permits to cross over into Gibraltar and given work cleaning and cooking in a big house. The two sisters would return home to my Nana and my Uncles in La Linea each night, having each smuggled essentials like bread, cheese, flour and sugar inside their coats, sometimes managing to get some tea or coffee also, risking losing their border permits, were they to have been discovered.

My Mum wanted so very much to join all her friends that were marrying the Sailors, Airmen and Army boys that were based in Gibraltar, who were being evacuated to London, waving frantically to their families and friends as they went off in the big escorted passenger liners back to the UK. My Mum told my Grandmother that she wanted to go to London too but my Grandmother said that it would be impossible, as she had no money and couldn’t speak a word of English. Mum had been engaged to a young Spanish man (See photo below), who she courted for seven years in La Linea and was about to be married but Franco sent all the young men of the town to the war front in Algeciras, which was a crucial port about twenty miles away. Tragically Mum’s boyfriend faltered and was unfaithful to his beautiful fiancée, which broke her heart and it was this that made my Mum more determined than ever to go to London.

My Mother was a beautiful, tall, elegant young woman (see photos below) and would have had no problem whatsoever being admired by the Sailors and Airmen, as well as the Army boys, all out drinking in the evening in Gibraltar, and while she was out shopping one day she met my Father. This was the opportunity she had waited for, to fulfill her dream to be with all her friends in England and so she married him, not being able to speak a word of English. I was told many years later by my dear Auntie Antonia, with tears in her eyes, that there was no possibility that her sister Maria could have loved this handsome Sailor and the same could be said of my Father, whose heart had been broken only months before at losing his Scottish Fiancée, stranded in Gibraltar with no way to get back home. They married in the Anglican Cathedral (See photo below) much to my Grandfather’s displeasure, seeing that all my Mum’s family were Roman Catholics and my Father a Protestant. Mum got her wish and was soon evacuated joyfully to London just as she planned. She found her friends alright but sadly she never returned to her beloved land and never saw her family in Spain ever again.

When my Mum arrived in Britain she was put to domestic work in a mansion somewhere near the port of Southampton and many years later she told us stories of the hardship she suffered as a foreigner working for the British Aristocracy. She was given a bed underneath the stairs of the house and was hardly given enough to eat and except for the kindness of a next door neighbour she would have become seriously under-nourished. Eventually the same caring neighbour took pity on her and somehow managed to contact the Spanish Convent in Holland Park, Kensington and waving frantically with joy and gratitude to the kind neighbour who had helped her, my Mum was ushered into a car belonging to the Sisters of Mercy, who had arrived to collect her, to take her back with them to London. For a long time (possibly as long as eighteen months) my Mum remained in London, waiting for my Father to return from his Royal Navy service in Gibraltar and finally he returned, with my Mum standing at the dockside to welcome him, the problem was she couldn't recognise which Sailor she had married, as they all looked alike in their uniforms but at least at last they were reunited and soon had made home together. The five sons that followed brought great joy my Mother and we all absolutely adored her too, although troubled times lay ahead for us all in one way or another. There would have been a baby sister too but my Mum had fallen down the stairs at home and lay crying on the floor at the bottom of the steep staircase until one of my Brother arrived back home from school. I was just about four years old when my sister died and I sat close to her on the floor as she cried in Spanish, calling out “eyee - eyee - eyee” again and again, it was impossible for me to understand what my poor Mummy was going through and it was many years later that I discovered that she had been carrying a baby girl, someone that would have made her life so complete after having four boys.

My childhood memories include going to work in my school holidays with my Father to Dagenham docks, where he would repair the fork-lifts and I would roam around the dockside all day playing in amongst the big Lorries. My Father was a perfectionist and a genius far ahead of his time, able to mend absolutely anything from televisions to watches. He was a wonderful photographer too and I was very often found in his dark-room watching him develop prints, enlarging them with an enlarger he had made himself from a giant bellows camera but despite what looked like a normal family to anyone looking in from the outside, it was very much a family that lived in fear, as my Father liked his drink and I guess having been a Sailor, he could drink more than most men. We had some good times however, whenever we were lucky enough to be taken in Dad's 1948 Humber Super Snipe to the seaside or out in the country, I even remember the number plate of that old black car JK9974. Every Sunday morning throughout the summer months my Brother Peter and I would be given a piece of rag and some polish and we would go out and polish the chrome bumpers and shine up the big headlights and radiator grill.

I remember spending many happy times picnicking in Hyde park with my brothers and Mum fussing over me, with plates and sandwiches everywhere laid out on a big coloured blanket. My Mum would always joyfully build pictures in my mind about her beautiful land. She told me and my Brothers so many wonderful stories of the Pueblo (small town) where she was born and raised and about her family who she missed so very much, so far away (it seemed) in her beloved Spain. Once a year we would receive a large parcel in the post full of Spanish foods, sweets and cakes sent by my Grandmother back in La Linea. For me especially, being her youngest child, it was so very meaningful and fascinating to hear about the mountains and the colourful Fiestas, the bull fights and the Flamenco dancing, which Mum would imitate for fun, much to our amusement. We loved her so very much, she was a larger than life character and full of fun, talkative, funny, emotional, and passionate but at a moment’s notice, she would be our Nurse, Counselor and confidante. To me though, she was the best Mummy in the world, the one who I depended on for almost everything. 

In 1958 I was just seven years old and two of my friends and I were walking around the streets where we lived and we were picked up by a man who offered to give us some money if we helped him. He took us to his house and sexually abused us. I was, I understand most likely the first child in the United Kingdom to stand in the dock of the Old Bailey, to describe what this man did to us. He was given eight years in prison for what he did, but the scars remained for a long time afterwards. My own Brother David reminded me almost every day what had happened, causing me to relive the horror of that nightmare for years. The emotional and mental healing took many more years, but finally I was delivered from the inner anguish that resulted from the terrible sexual abuse that I had experienced and I now can speak about it freely here, without the memory of that awful experience hurting me ever again. However my rhythmic rocking continued and strange as it may appear, it brought me a great deal of comfort, as I lay there with my head and shoulders swaying back and forth, maybe to a favourite piece of music. Headaches and immediate concerns would just melt away and peace would fill my heart, until I fell asleep free from any worries that I may have had. It is no surprise I guess that I had very little reason therefore to stop rocking and so continued this strange sleep disorder as the years went by, feeling comforted and secure, although at times everything around me seemed anything but secure and I reasoned that I would need my crazy habit for a long time to come.

The happy days-out sometimes turned sour, the day cut short by a sudden eruption of fury from our Dad, with us all being ushered quickly back into the car and driven back home, just because of a remark or a sneer from one of us boys, because perhaps we had been told to do some task that we thought unfair and that one of our other brothers ought to be doing. Our Father had a very short fuse and zero tolerance when it came to what he called “impertinence”, which occasionally would start simply by me being teased by one of my brothers (Usually David) and seeking to defend my corner when reprimanded for screaming at my brother, who would swear that he had done nothing to wind me up. Our Father would watch, if we were so much as to distort our face in rebellious disapproval while being told off, which would be all that was required to kindle his wrath. However, despite the many sad and difficult times we encountered at home, it was always good to go out somewhere in the car, sometimes just out into the countryside with the smell the sweet Buddleia,  which grew in great bushes everywhere and as soon as the car doors opened we would all run like wild Bucks through the long grass. Hopefully if we were lucky we would go to the seaside, where my brothers would attempt to bury me in the soft white Southend sand! The problem was we always returned back to the mine-field of home, where the very next remark or wise-crack would cause our Dad to explode and so our fragile emotional well-being would be destabilized once again.

Christmas was probably the best time for us, as it meant that Mum could cook tons of food and decorate the home, she loved Christmas so much and enjoyed watching her children opening presents, even it was a compendium of twenty five games shared between her five rebellious sons, who were diametrically opposed to one another, especially when it came to sharing! Even our Father changed at Christmas-time and became like a Dad should be, placid and homely, taking hundreds of photographs of us all. Chunky was always a part of our Christmas and he would bring presents for us all. Our home for a short time seemed to be filled with magical Christmas joy but alas Christmas only came once a year; how we wished it would last forever!

I guess for me, being the youngest child everything appeared normal, as I had been raised into a family from hell without even realising it. Of course being so young I couldn’t fully comprehend what my brothers really felt like, knowing so much more than I did of the horrors of the real situation at home but I was later to not only find out for myself, but would be a target too of my Father’s drunken anger and so the picture was beginning to become so much more complete as I grew and understood so much more.

Our Father’s gambling addiction was as regular as clockwork, whether it was the football coupons or the dog racing, it always brought about a dangerous dynamic of nervousness for us at home, as we understood all too clearly that one loud word from any of us could stir his wrath and what otherwise would be a fairly calm and peaceful Saturday afternoon would turn into a raging frenzy of madness, as my Father sought with fists flying to belt the mouth that disturbed his concentration. Much later his love for slot machines and the lottery would swallow up many thousands of wasted pounds. My brothers often told me stories of his womanising and the little Scottish woman who baby-sat for our Mum and who lived on the top floor of our house off Portobello Road, it was only a coincidence that he had been engaged to a Scottish woman many years before......or was it a coincidence? We will never know!

All four of my brothers were at varying degrees good to me, although I was probably closest to my brother John, who always had time for me and I often think of him whenever I reminisce on those days. I have very few real friends in this world, who I know would do anything for me and vice-versa and John was truly one of them. I hope he reads my Autobiography, as in many ways it was his journey too and although time and hurts have distanced us both, I wish him to know that I still love him very much.

My brother Peter was just a couple of years older than me and although I loved and admired him, I never really felt that he had much time for me when I was young, he was too busy out on his scooter with his friends, but we became really close much later on though, especially after he had emigrated to Spain so many years later. My brother David was the family clown and now with the benefit of hindsight I actually think he suffered from some form of Personality Disorder or something similar, as he never really held down a job and spent most of his time with our Mum in the kitchen, his temperament would go up and down and his personality would change from day to day but he was fun and kept everyone laughing.

One day my brother Peter had refused to get up for school and finally my Father came into our bedroom and pulled the bolt on the door locking us in. Peter stood on his bed shaking in terror as his own Dad lashed out at him hitting him across the head again and again, while our Mum was screaming at him to open the door. I was sat on the edge of my bed watching in horror, when suddenly the door virtually flew off its hinges and David came flying into the room, grabbed my Father and punched him in the face knocking him onto the floor, which was a very strange thing for him to do, as David was the church-mouse of the family. Usually David managed to escape our Dad's fury, hiding away from the violence but this day was a great day that made our Mum so proud. Our brother was a hero and of course Peter went off to school and everything returned to normal but I don't think any of us ever forgot what David did that day and we would always smile whenever we brought it to mind. 

My Father warned David that if he didn't get a job he would be kicked out and we all knew that he would keep his word. David would have been just eighteen years old by then and one day after David had failed again to get a job my Father took his stuff and threw him and his belongings out the front door and onto the doorstep outside. David had mental health issues and obviously had nowhere to go, seeing he had no friends and so he stood outside our front door for almost six months and when my Father went off to bed at night our Mum would grab David, bring him into the house and give him a plate of hot food and settle him on the sofa until the morning, she would swiftly return him to the doorstep before my Father got up for work. It was a pitiful sight to see David standing there with his bags all around him, always cheerful and welcoming. It was as though he wanted to shame his Father for the evil he had done to him, by demonstrating that nothing could rob him of his inner happiness and I believe he succeeded to a certain degree but I would watch this happening day by day helpless to do anything to assist my own brother, knowing that one day it might be me! These were heart-breaking times for our Mum, as it was impossible for her to understand that any parent could do such a wicked thing to their own son, especially seeing that he had an obvious mental illness. It is no wonder that David and my Mum were so very close.

Denis was the oldest and I looked up to him, he was my hero because he was tough and nothing bothered him but he suffered terribly, because of my Father’s fury. He had a fight with our Dad on one occasion after arriving home late from an evening out with his girlfriend and had to defend himself against a savage attack from his own Father. Denis lunged at him with a kitchen knife badly cutting his hand, and so Denis was sent away to a young offender’s institution. (St Benedict’s) I always admired him for his strength of character as a young boy growing up in a tough London environment, although regretfully I never really had what I would call a one to one relationship with him and though I respect him immensely, to this day I still have not really connected with Denis, or made friends with him in the same way I had with John, David and Peter. However at that time back in Portobello road all those years before, Denis would bring his girlfriend home I had so adored this wonderful young lady called Margaret, who Den married. She was a like a wonderful sister to us all and my Mum treated her as though she were her own daughter. They remain married to this day and had two wonderful children.

When I first began attending Bevington road infants school I wasn’t able to speak English at all and my brother Peter had to translate for me, and each day my Mum would walk with her hand in mine to school, along the famous Portobello Road. I was especially blessed by an experience I guess all of my brothers enjoyed also when they were small children. It was while we walked to school in the hub-bub of the market. My Mum would slow down and she would stop at an old rusty iron door overgrown with ivy that was set into the long wall along Portobello Road. She would look left and right before entering and then quickly usher me inside, as though we were forbidden to enter. Inside was an old Convent with a beautiful garden full of flowers and trees. My Mum, still holding my hand would lead me across to a secluded area that was so awe inspiring. It was an alcove cut deep into a curved wall that housed a statue of the Lord Jesus, with His Mother Mary kneeling at His feet. My Mum would begin muttering something under her breath and I would just bow my little head in reverence, as I knew I should.

That experience as a five and six year old boy made a lasting impression on me, so much so that many years later after my Mum had passed on, I dedicated my life to Christ and became a Missionary Evangelist in the country where she was born and raised in. I think my Mum would have been very proud to know that, and I will never forget her smile and the tenderness she poured upon my life.

CHAPTER THREE:

So much happened over the next seven years and I frequently saw my Father come home from the pub half drunk, which would often lead to one of us boys being violently belted and Mum trying to get in between us, only to get a good beating herself. My brothers and I all hated our Dad for this and wished with all our hearts that it had been him that had died that day, when Mum was found in the kitchen of our home, having had a massive heart attack. She had been suffering from high blood pressure and had on occasions been in hospital but none of us were prepared for the events that unfolded that day.

We had moved to Morden, Surrey in 1962 and for the next two years I watched my Mum blossom, she loved her garden and all the flowers. Being Spanish we were obviously Roman Catholics and Mum and I would hold hands and wander out early on Sunday mornings to go to Church. She would take her Rosary beads and her prayer book and could follow the service after a fashion in Latin but mostly she just loved the atmosphere and solitude that the Catholic Church offered, she had so much faith in God. It was beautiful to be in my home at Easter. Good Friday morning my Mum would cover up all the pictures of Jesus with a pure white cloth; all the next day my Auntie Anna and my Mum would sit and almost whisper to each other, dressed in black shawls; no one was allowed to laugh or be happy, it was solemn time of mourning in my home and we all knew why. Then on Easter Sunday morning, my Mum would come down the stairs in a beautiful flowery frock, with a flower in her hair and remove all the white cloths and we would dance and sing, it was so wonderful to see her so happy. I was at school the day my Mum died and I had arrived home to see my Father’s car parked outside, which meant that something was wrong. I shouted through the letterbox as usual “Mama, abra la puerta” which translated means “Mummy, open the door” but instead of my Mum coming to the door to welcome me with her usual happy smile, it was my Father, who quickly lead me upstairs, climbing over my Brother David as we went, who was sitting in a heap on the bottom of the stairs. David had held our dear Mum in his arms as she lay dying on the kitchen floor and was just sitting there staring in bewilderment at the heart-rending thing that had taken place. My Father leaned down to look into my face and just said “your Mother has gone away and is never coming back”; I guess it wasn’t too difficult to work out what had happened; her blood pressure had been getting worse for quite some time apparently and she died of a heart attack and although David was there by her side when she died, there was nothing he could do to save her.

That tragic experience permanently mentally damaged my brother David more than he had been before and he too died at the age of sixty three. It was as if he had been frozen in time, as he never recovered from the sadness of losing his Mum on that tragic day. There were too many confused emotions within me to explain here how I felt, suffice to say that I was in a state of utter shock and felt an emptiness deep in my soul that has remained until this day, as my Mum was not only my very best friend but my life and I loved her with all my heart, as did all my Brothers. My Mum died on 15th September 1965, I was just twelve years old and naturally I became a very angry young man with a strong disregard for authority, probably stemming from my Father’s strict authoritarian manner. It was a dark and disturbing experience for me after I lost my Mum, she was the one person in my life that had helped me to make sense of my changing emotions and apart from missing my dear Mummy so very very much, I had to endure another unwanted change in my life; having to come home from school each day to be greeted by my Father in place of my Mum and instead of Paella and Sopa de pescado for dinner, we were given instant mash potatoes and dried up fish fingers. The Spanish songs my Mum always sang, that rang through my home had gone forever and the beautiful language that we spoke to each other could be heard no more. I began to have panic attacks and found it hard to swallow but no one counseled me or comforted me that I can remember and in all honesty, I don’t think at that time I would have taken a blind bit notice of them anyway. 

I would like to give honour to one wonderful man who showed great kindness to me and did many generous and loving things to help me, especially after my Mum died. His name was Richard Parr (see photo below) he was my Geography Teacher at Canterbury road school in Morden. Often when we had sports days he would walk around the field speaking to me and I remember his sincere kindness with great affection. He loved rugby and whenever we played I would fight for my life to get the ball and Richard always admired my energetic determination to win.  I love rugby to this day because of my friend Richard Parr. One day it was announced that we were to have a field trip to Box-Hill and it was going to cost us half a crown each. I spoke to my Father that evening about this trip and he said he wouldn't give me any money to go, so as the time grew closer I consoled myself with the fact that I wasn’t going to be on the school trip with all my friends and so eventually all the coach seats were taken, making me both angry but glad, as the coach was now full, I reasoned, that it wasn't even possible for me to go anyway.

Richard Parr knew that I would have loved to have gone on that field trip and to my surprise he stood up in front of all the class and said “is there anyone here who doesn't really want to go on this field trip today"? no one responded as I fully expected but he pleaded earnestly once more to that classroom full of boys, offering to let any reluctant volunteer swan off for the rest of the day, until eventually one boy slowly put up his hand. Richard looked at me and winked, as if to say " you're on your way boy" Afterwards I told him that even though I have a place on the coach I could not possibly go, because I have no money and my dear friend and Teacher smiled at me, as though to say "that is not going to stop us" and he took a ten bob note out of his pocket laid it in my small hand and closed my fingers over it. We had a wonderful day and although it was cut short because of an accident, it nevertheless remained in my memory as one of the best days of my life and I will always remember Richard for his love and kindness. That was all it took to make a sad broken-hearted boy happy, would to God that there were more people around as kind as Richard Parr.

As a Roman Catholic in a Church of England school, I was not allowed to enter the morning assembly but had to sit outside with a couple of other kids listening to some of the great hymns being sung by seven hundred pupils and staff. My favourite hymn was Onward Christian Soldiers and if I ever got the chance I would sneak in with all the other boys and sit in amongst them, trying to look as inconspicuous as I could. The tall thin lady playing the piano would stand up and announce the next hymn in a posh piercing voice, which would be something like "All celestial Angels sing" or something equally as boring and sitting in the middle of the crowd of boys I would see my friend Richard Parr standing to one side. We had cooked up a plan together; that whenever I could sneak into the assembly hall, I would attempt to gain Richard's attention somehow and would nod my head at him and he would nod his head back in acknowledgement, which was the signal to arrange for us to sing my favourite hymn. Following the pre-arranged secret signals, Richard would go over to the piano at the very front of the assembly hall, with all the Teachers standing facing us and whisper in the pianist's ear and she would suddenly stand up again and announce in her high pitched pompous manner "there has been a change to this morning's hymn children, please stand and open your hymn-books to page 687, we will sing Onward Christian Soldiers". And with a beaming smile I would sing with all my heart, grateful for my dear friend Richard, whose kind cooperation had changed the pianist's choice of hymn and made my day. It worked every time.

In 1966 my Uncle Joe and my Auntie Antonia came over for a holiday from Gibraltar with both my Cousins John and Joe Hernandez (See photo below - Joe Hernandez incidentally later became the head Manager of Victoria Stadium in Gibraltar) they were great kids and under better circumstances I might have been more fun to be with, but due to all the things that had happened to me I felt hard and bitter. However, having my Spanish dear Auntie Antonia, (who had married my Gibraltarian Uncle) at home was so wonderful. She cooked all the meals my Mum used to cook and the house smelled of herbs and garlic again, she could not have realised that her and my dear Uncle Joe coming to stay with their twin boys would make such a difference to my life and I had always regretted being the way I was with those two lads, who anyone could see had received a balanced and loving upbringing from their wonderful parents, whereas I was just lost and without a Mother's love and tenderness. Within a short space of time they had all gone back home to Gibraltar again and my Father’s personality and temperament reverted back to what it was before; so it was back to the instant mash and anything out of a tin, or that could be cooked quickly under the grill.

Eventually I was able to go to my Brother Denis’ home for dinner after school and their lovely little Daughter Angela would sit on my lap and we would watch Crossroads together, while her Mummy made dinner for us all.  At least Denis’ wife Margie was a good cook! Nevertheless I remember that time when my Auntie and Uncle came to stay with such joy, because it was like having my Mum back at home again with me for just a short but wonderful period of time. It would be a further twenty years before I saw my beloved Auntie Antonia again, except for a brief but precious moment at a celebration party in London, by then I had all but lost my ability to speak Spanish; I was to discover however that with a bit of help it would soon return. Totally unbeknown to me and to my utter surprise, there was locked deep within my heart, in that same secret place that held my beloved Mummy’s memories, something else hidden away deep inside me and with the help of my dear Auntie I was soon to find out what it was.

I need to digress for a moment to keep the flow of this story. My marriage had broken up in 1985 (I will explain more about this later) and I had met a wonderful lady called Anita and we decided to go on holiday to visit my beloved Auntie Antonia’s in Gibraltar. It was one of those occasions that you remember for the rest of your life. We were in the Caleta hotel in Gibraltar and my Cousin Joe arrived and knocked on the door and invited Anita and I to have lunch with his Mum. My heart raced and I remember trying to explain to Joe that I had forgotten all that my Mum had taught me and so would regretfully be unable to speak to my Auntie in Spanish but Joe paid no attention to my concerns and off we went together to meet my beloved Auntie Antonia in her little apartment, where we were going to have a feast. I had been sitting in the kitchen and my two Cousins John and Joe and their lovely Daughters Joel, Monica and Kate were chatting in English behind me and my Auntie kept beckoning me to speak to her in Spanish, as she herself, like my Mum had never learned to speak English but nothing would come out of my mouth and I felt sure that my Mum’s language had gone from me forever but my Auntie kept speaking to me and urging me to respond to her and to speak some Spanish to her. Both my Cousins and their lovely Daughters decided to leave for a while, so that my Auntie and I could get to know one another and she took me by the hand and said "Venga mi alma, ablar conmigo hijo" (Translated means - come my soul and speak to me son) suddenly as if a door opened deep within me I began to speak and gradually that secret place began to open little by little until I was chatting to her in her own language. We laughed and cried and I was able to tell her (howbeit stammeringly) everything about myself, it was the most blessed time for me ever. Nevertheless many things happened long before that, which I am reluctant to recollect, because of the pain and inner turmoil they brought to me but for the sake of painting the whole picture, I am compelled to continue my story.

I need to return back now to 1966. The weeks and months that followed my Mum’s death grew darker and more uncertain and one day I came home to find my brother Peter being attacked by my Father. Peter was a Mod (As in Mods and Rockers) and had apparently stolen a scooter. When I came into the house I saw Peter sprawled out across the kitchen floor with my Father kneeling on his chest with his hand grasping Peter's screwed up scarf in his left hand, which was tightly wrapped around my brother's neck, almost strangling him and my Father was punching him in the face with the other fist. Peter's head was being pounded down onto the kitchen floor and I had only a few seconds to react. I took a milk bottle that was standing on the side in the kitchen worktop and crashed it over my Father's head, which gave Peter sufficient time to escape, while our Dad lay momentarily dazed on the floor.

Peter managed to run out of the front door but I was trapped in the lounge and my Father came after me with a fork in his hand and struck out at me pushing the fork right into the side of my face. I managed to get away and ran outside and with hindsight was very thankful that my Father didn't have a knife in his hand, as I am certain that in his fury he would have used it to stab me. Another time I had been cornered in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs after an argument regarding something or other and my Father literally started beating me up and I screamed "you wait until I am eighteen, I will come back and kill you, I promise I will kill you" I pulled away from his grasp and flew up the stairs and into my bedroom and slammed the door shut. I lay there trembling on my bed for about half an hour, wishing I hadn't reacted as I had and to my utter horror I heard footsteps coming up the stairs "was he coming to beat me again" I wondered, but then there was a quiet knock on the door and my Father came in with a tray in his hands, on the tray was a cup of tea and some biscuits and I reckoned that I had somehow broken into his sense of conscience and compassion and for the first time ever, at least as far back as I can remember he was truly sorry for what he had done, although he never actually said so, though I was to learn very quickly that actions speak louder than words and in this instance my Father's actions said everything.

I so wanted to keep my promise to come back and kill him but somehow that strange experience of my own Dad coming into my room with his  head bowed down in humility and holding out that tray melted my heart and I saw then something I had never seen before; a broken defeated man, who none of us really understood, nor did we want to. How I wish I had seen my Dad act more like that towards his family and experiencing that amazing tenderness he vulnerably displayed that day to me made me realise that he too was as disturbed and damaged as we were! Gratefully my story doesn't end in sadness and despair but in hope and hearts united in love, but much more was to happen over the next few years before that was to be made possible.

My father worked night-shifts after my Mum died and he would lock the larder when he went off to work, leaving me to wander around half the night with no one to look after me (not that he knew!); so I began raiding local stores looking for something to eat and one night I got caught looking for food in a warehouse store that me and two other older boys had broken into. We heard the Police sirens racing towards the warehouse depot inside the Railway Station that we were raiding and ran out into the road. We gathered that the Station Master must have called the Police and we were running as fast as our legs would carry us throwing things we had stolen over the garden hedges as we went. One of the boy's called Paddy was way ahead of us down the road and the other lad Alan and I couldn't catch him up. It wasn’t long before me and my friend were caught up by a Police car and bundled headlong into the back of a Police car. The Police car drove on with the other cars and stopped Paddy hundreds of yards further down the road and it was quite amusing to hear him deny that he even knew us, let alone had been doing a robbery at the Railway station....."Who me Officer"? He said, as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth and if it wasn't for the fact that we were suddenly struck by the seriousness of our stupidity, it would have been hilarious.

 Alan and I were taken handcuffed between two Officers to Wimbledon Police station immediately, while Paddy was later taken to Borstal I understand. Paddy was eighteen years old and would often encourage me and my friend Alan to break the law in one way or another. I really would prefer to leave off telling this next story, as it brings back so much sadness to me but again for the sake of building the whole picture I must. We will pick up the main story again a little later.

A few months before the events above Paddy had paid for me to travel down to Soho in London and generously bought me ice cream and sweets etc and I had no reason on earth to suspect that the hours that lay ahead of me would be life threatening. So I enjoyed walking around Soho with what I really thought was a good friend. By now I was probably just thirteen years old and pretty naive I guess, as although I had seen more than most young boys, I was nevertheless only accustomed to hanging out with friends my own age, at least up until my Mum died. It was already getting dark and we were walking towards some subway public toilets situated in the centre of a big major road, when a short skinny man about five foot tall came towards us (I think I was slightly taller than him) wearing a blue denim jacket and immediately began speaking to my friend. Paddy was short and stocky and both he and the stranger were about the same height.  I had been lagging behind and finally when I caught up with Paddy he was already walking alongside this total stranger, who turned out to be a Scotsman named John.

I hadn't really felt any alarm bells ring until this John guy ushered us down the stairs of the men's toilets and pulled out a flat bottle of what I understood to be whisky. Suddenly I began to tremble and Paddy said to me "here Dan, drink some of this" but I refused to take any, trying to pull Paddy's arm to draw him away from this very worrying situation that I found myself in. All three of us then walked up the other side of the subway back up to another road on the other side of the main road and there in front of us was a parked car with a big man sitting in the driver's seat. We were quickly bundled into the back seat and off we went quickly through the darkened streets of London.

By now I was pretty sure what was happening and I remember grabbing Paddy's arm and telling him that these were a couple of perverts and we should get out of their car but he had drank quite a lot of the whisky and was insistent that they were friends who were taking us to a party and that I shouldn't worry so much. After about half an hour of driving about, the car suddenly came to a halt in a dark lonely road where what looked like an old factory stood in total darkness. We climbed out of the car and seeking to hide my utter horror at literally being abducted but relieved to be out of the car at least, I said to one of the men "so where's the party then"? I was hoping that Paddy would come to his senses but he seemed unconcerned and carefree. The man didn't look back to answer me but just walked on and said "it's up here" and so we all walked into the alleyway, while I was thinking only of making my escape, with or without Paddy. Alongside the factory was a narrow alleyway that had become even narrower by a protruding building that almost halved the width of the alleyway. I was behind the big guy and Paddy was walking behind with the Scotsman. As we walked on in total silence fear ran down the back of my neck and all my senses told me that I was in grave danger. I then realised that me and this big chap were now alone on the other side of the protruded building and I assumed that Paddy and the Scotsman had stopped on the other side and as I stood there all the hair on the back of my neck stood up, as terror filled my heart at what was about to happen to me. Before another thought entered my head the big man reached down and cupped his hand over my groin and as instinctively as a wild cat would strike at an unsuspecting rat, I crashed my fist square into the man's face and ran for my life down the alleyway screaming to to my friend "Paddy run, they are fu##ing queers, run Paddy" but I didn't see him after that, as I was running and running and finally out of breath I ran into a block of flats. For some reason I was rational enough to think that I would need to know the name of the road and thankfully I was able to log it in my memory long enough to tell the Police over the phone. I waited and waited inside the foyer of the flats, shaking in my boots at the thought that the two men might come and find me there but finally to my utter relief a Police car came. I ran out to it and after an emotional outburst that made no sense at all, the Officers took me up the alleyway alongside the old factory, where I had been taken to be sexually abused but both the men and Paddy had gone, so I was taken back to the Police station to give a statement of all that had taken place that night.

My Father was called by the Police and I was temporarily put in a small room to wait for him to come and take me home but he didn't arrive. It transpired in the morning that the officer in charge of me told me that my Father wouldn't believe I had been abducted by two homosexual perverts (It is not my intention to offend Gay folk who I am certain would be horrified too at my ordeal with these two men) and thought it would be a fitting punishment for me to spend the night in the Police station for telling lies. Little did my Father or anyone in that Police station realize that I was actually telling the truth and they had been unwilling to help me, or to see the sheer terror that was going on in my heart and head, as I wondered all night in utter fear, if my friend had made it to safety or not, "was he dead"? I thought, and what would have happened had I stayed in that alleyway with that big sweaty smelly pervert. I thought of every scenario and shuddered at the prospect that I had been only seconds away from being forcibly raped and possibly even killed for resisting the man's sexual attack, for why else I reasoned would two grown men take a young boy down a lonely dark alleyway at night and I just cried myself sick all night, hoping that my Father would come and take me home, not realising that he had no intention of even getting out of his bed to help me! Had my Mum been alive however, I know that she would have come to get me from that Police station herself and wiped my tears away, of that I was certain, because unlike my Father she had a great heart of love, where his (it seemed) was solid stone. I felt forsaken by my own Father and I believed in my heart that there was nothing I could do to win his affection, having so many times failed his expectations and missed the mark of his high standards. It is so sad that because of our inner hurts both my Dad and I failed to understand one another. I thought that he felt that I was a waste of space and that in his eyes I would never amount to anything and he probably thought  I hated him by the way I behaved at times but God only knows that under different circumstances, things could have been so much happier for both of us. I wish I was able to go back and re-live those years (without the sorrows obviously) and somehow bring delight to my Dad and show him that I did love him deep down in my heart.

A few days later I saw Paddy walking across the green close to my home and I ran towards him, relieved that he was safe. I asked him if he was alright and he smiled and said “yeah, never felt better" but then I realised that Paddy was wearing a familiar looking blue denim jacket and when I asked him where he got it from, he said it was given to him by John the Scotsman. At first it just didn't register and I guess I just wasn't prepared to even consider the possibility that somehow Paddy and John had become friends. My Father had robbed me of the reality of that terrifying incident, by refusing to believe that anything had happened to me and that I was a liar and it served me right for telling lies and having to spend a night in a Police station was what I deserved, "maybe you will learn your lesson from this" he said and so I lost all sense of reality and didn't ask Paddy any more questions. I was just thankful that he was alive and safe.

About a month later me and my best friend Alan Tomkins and Paddy went for a train trip into the city and happened to get off close to Soho and although all my senses should have been on high alert I was surprisingly calm, being that Alan was with us, he and I made a good team. As we walked through the streets we arrived at a parade of shops with restaurants and wine bars. Outside one of them was gathered a large group of people; I hadn't taken a lot of notice really, when suddenly out from among the crown a  familiar looking man lunged forward and welcomed Paddy with a strong Scottish accent "Paddy" the man shouted "come and have a drink with me Paddy" he said. I immediately recognised him, it was John the Scotsman and without thinking I literally threw myself at him punching him in the face over and over, until I was eventually pulled away by a passer-by. My blood was boiling and had I not been restrained I would certainly have killed the pervert, who brought terror into my life just a month before.
The Scotsman took Paddy by the arm and the two of them walked off into the wine bar together, leaving Alan and me outside bewildered and confused, realising at last that our friend Paddy was himself a homosexual and had willingly subjected himself to be abused and was even now willing to go off drinking with the man who had befriended him and had given him his denim jacket and who knows what else besides! No words were exchanged between Alan and I on the train journey home, as we were literally speechless. The only consolation was the pain in my knuckles, reminding me of the pleasure I had of smashing them into that pervert's face. Alan and I still caught a glimpse of Paddy around the place following that mind-blowing experience in Soho and even occasionally raided a store together but we never liked him, nor felt that we were his friends. That was the day particularly when we saw Paddy carried off by the Police, after all three of us were caught breaking into a Railway Station warehouse store. I was looking for food, while the other two searched for expensive items wrapped up in all those parcels. I can remember thinking it was a bit like Christmas morning for me but I had never had so many presents to open. Being there in that warehouse so consumed with excitement, just seemed to block out the possible consequences of our actions, as we heard the sound of Police sirens racing towards the station and although we were able to run out into the street and race down the road, we were never going to outrun the Police and so we were all soon caught and bundled into the back of a Police car (actually thrown in if I remember it right) and driven to Wimbledon Police station for questioning.  We never saw Paddy again after that, nor did we ever want to. 

My story now resumes. 

CHAPTER FOUR:

It was June 1966 when Alan, Paddy and I committed that stupid opportunistic crime. I was thirteen years old and my best friend Alan Tomkins was sixteen years old. Paddy had, as I said been taken off by the Police to an adult Remand unit somewhere, while Alan and I would spent the next thirty days in a cell under Wimbledon Police station waiting to go to court, to find out what was going to happen to us. The days were filled with utter boredom and we would just sit on our beds with our hands over our heads hardly speaking to one another but by night that small cell became a very different environment. I was scared of the dark, having been traumatised by my own brother when we lived in Portobello road. Back then in London we had no electricity and when our Mum would send my brother Peter and I off to bed, we both knew that the climb up to the bedroom on the first floor from the basement below would be another scary journey that we would prefer not to take, as Peter and I held hands together to walk up the steep stairs into the darkness. I was probably only about three years old and Peter just two years older. We both hated going up to bed so much and sometimes when we almost made it the top of the stairs, out would jump our brother David like a ghost with his arms sprawling everywhere and screeching at the top of his voice, which would literally scare the life out of us both. That  experience left us both seriously damaged and we would often reminisce years later of the horror that we both endured at just going off to bed at night, and so here I was in a cell so many years later, as afraid as I had been as a small child, knowing that as soon as the lights went out everything would go pitch black and I would cry into my pillow, too scared to look away and although my best friend Alan was there in that cell with me, he was not able to offer me any comfort and so I instinctively rocked my head on my pillow to try to blot out the reality of my grim surroundings, hoping that the morning would come quickly, but like all real life horror stories, it never did and I guess eventually I must have fallen asleep but would keep waking up through the night, wondering where on earth I was.

Thirty days doesn't seem a very long time but to a boy of thirteen who had so recently lost his Mummy it was like a lifetime! The long boring days drolled on and on and the nights seemed like an eternity, as I lay there in that tiny cell without any windows, terrified to open my eyes because of the unimaginable darkness and hardly able to take any comfort from rocking myself to sleep on the hard narrow bed, as I had been so used to doing at home since I was just a tiny child. All I could do was to wait for the morning to come and for the light to come back on, relieved at last to hear voices from the Police in the corridors outside our cell again. That horrendous nightmare almost brought me to breaking point and was probably worse than anything I was to later experience, although in varying measures the nightmare continued unabated for the next thirty months and would haunt me for many many years to come.

Finally (and thankfully) we were both taken in a Police van to Pentlands Remand home for young offenders in Mitcham, which was a lock-up with bars on the windows and where Alan and I were going to spend the next six months of our lives. Twenty boys shared one long dormitory and I remember clearly the very first night. My whole body wanted to rock to draw comfort but I knew that if I did, I would be jumped on by at least ten boys and so I remained still all through the night for the first time in my life and thought that I would go mad if I were to have to do that for one more night. However I had to suppress my Rhythmic Movement  for the next thirty months, which unbeknown to anyone was a living hell for me and without my Mum, it was all the more impossible for me to manage.

We were woken up at the crack of dawn each day and marched off down to a field nearby to play football in the snow. I still to this day cannot understand why Footballers want to run around in the freezing cold with a football. Our daily tasks consisted of bumping polished woodblock floors and doing cleaning duties. Most of the boys were eighteen years old and compared to them I was only half the size. 

Alan and I both managed to escape from the Remand Centre one cold November morning, having been promoted to kitchen boys, with adrenaline streaming through our veins we tip-toed across the yard and out through the slightly open gates that lead to the kitchen courtyard and we ran and ran until finally we ended up on Mitcham Common, where we leaped in the air "freedom at last" we shouted, thinking we had made the perfect escape but as we arrived at the main road on the other side of the Common, there stood Farmer a burly great Screw with eyebrows like Denis Healey but this man was no wimpy Politician, on the contrary, this Gorilla was feared by us all and if he said something nasty was going to happen to you if you didn't jump at his command, you could be certain it would!

Farmer stood on the edge of the Common and blew his whistle and shouted at the top of his voice "Stop!..Carlton..Tomkins, come here"? Well that was definitely the last thing on our minds, as we knew if we had gone to him we would have been mincemeat for sure. Instead we ran deeper into the Common with Farmer hot on our heels and as if by intuition we both jumped together head first into a great big prickle bush and lay there in total silence without hardly breathing, while Farmer continued blowing his whistle nearby and bellowing out our names. Finally after about an hour we both felt sure that our pursuer had gone and attempted to climb back out of the prickle bush and boy, it was a much bigger problem getting out of that bush than it had been to get in. Alan and I were literally covered in sharp thorns but eventually we managed to clamber out onto the path, leading back down to the main road and contrive a plan of action as to what to do next.

The adventure that followed was to take us first to Alan's house in Morden and then to Brighton and Hastings, travelling on various trains and jumping the fence at the end of the platforms to get away without paying for a ticket. In Brighton we wandered around for hours in the freezing cold and desperate to find something to eat we joined a queue of people outside a new apartment block. They had obviously arrived to view the show apartments, which looked like they had just been built. Alan and I were ushered into the main foyer of the building with all the other people.  The Agents must have thought that we were with our parents but as soon as the people wandered off into the distance, Alan and I began to search for something to eat.  Finally we found a big chest freezer and inside were boxes and boxes of Cornetto ice creams, so making certain that no one could see us, we grabbed a box and ran out of the main doors. We sat on the beach and opened the box of Cornettos, obviously the ice cream was stone hard and with it being winter-time, we were absolutely frozen through, but grateful somehow that we had something at last to eat and after eating as many Cornettos as we could, we buried the box of ice creams under the big stones on the beach. When we returned much later on we couldn't find where we had hidden it. I think we were glad really, as it was just too cold and we were so tired. We had no coats and except for some flimsy clothes that Alan had managed to grab from his house, we had very little protection from the severe winter weather, we must have been a sight to behold, in our skimpy summer trousers and shirts. We wandering the streets for four days without proper food, hungry, freezing cold and sleeping wherever we could, sometimes in workmen's roadside canvas shelters and even in garden sheds. The road-side canvas workman’s canvas shed was particularly memorable, although it shielded us from the freezing coastal wind, it almost caused me to lose my leg, as inside was a short table with two plank benches, one each side of the table. I woke up in the morning almost frozen solid and as I tried to get up I realized that my leg was stuck under the table. What had happened was, the blood circulation in my leg had been cut off by the sharp edge of the plank I was sitting on and it took absolutely ages for us to get the circulation going again, I actually though I would lose my leg, as it was totally dead from my hip down to my toes. I staggered around for the rest of the day and Alan and I came to the conclusion that we would have to get some food at all costs, even if it meant mugging someone to get some money. The plan was for me to use a lump of wood to club someone and take their money but neither of us had ever hurt a fly in our lives and it was stupid desperate thing to contrive. I waited for someone to come along and I jumped out to attack them with this piece of wood and suddenly the person turned and looked at me with eyes that would melt the snow and I just ran for it, ashamed that I could have even thought of doing something so despicable. I hated myself for years for that but always wondered who those lovely eyes belonged to, because had it not been for that gaze of tender love that caught me so off guard, I might have done something I would have regretted for the rest of my life.   

Finally after another similar adventure in Hastings, a place I will always remember as the coldest place in the universe! we decided to travel by train to Tonbridge Wells but we hadn't taken any notice of the destination board on the platform and ended on a non-stop train to Charing Cross, where the Police were called to arrest us, as obviously we had no tickets and being so weak we hardly had any desire to run, so we just let the station Master hold us there until the Coppers arrived.

The Police took us to a small cell inside Bow Street Police Station and asked us both for our names and addresses but time after time we gave them false names and different addresses. Why we didn't just tell them the truth I really don't know, I guess we thought that it might be better to keep the Coppers guessing where we came from and maybe we might get some food and stay there in the warm at least for a few hours more but after bluffing them three or four times with false information, the cell door opened and four burly Police Officers came into our cell, slammed the steel door shut, grabbed us both and beat us all over the cell for wasting their time. I was the first to surrender and I screamed "Pentlands, we come from Pentlands Remand home" then Alan joined in to confirm that we had indeed run away from the lock-up and so we were returned promptly to Pentlands in Mitcham to a hero’s welcome, although we certainly didn’t feel much like heroes!. I remember so clearly feeling extremely grateful to be back at the Remand home, in the warm with a hot meal. The six lashes we each received were well worth it, just to be back safe and sleeping in a warm bed, instead of in workman’s sheds, or on park benches.

The next four months were similar to the first two and we knuckled under and behaved ourselves. Finally Alan and I were taken to Wimbledon Juvenile court just before we parted; we were each handcuffed between two Police officers. The Magistrate asked my Father to stand up and said “Mr Carlton? You can take your son home today, if not, I will sentence him to three years in a Military Training prison for young offenders”. My Father stood up and said “Send him down Sir” and sat back down again! I won’t tell you what I said to him as I was taken out of the court and back to the cell, still handcuffed between the two Police officers. My recollections of my Father back then was of a man who appeared austere and cold but with the benefit of forty five years to reflect on those memories, it cannot be said that my Dad never cared about his five sons, as we never wanted for anything to eat and always had a roof over our heads and in Spain where my dear Mother had come from, that means more than anything but to a small boy like me it meant nothing.

For me to have a Daddy like my friends had would have been so wonderful. Someone who not only cared about my material needs but someone so special, who would take the time to understand me and would be always there to wipe away my tears but I cannot say I had a Daddy like my friends had, although I am certain he tried his best to love us and it was probably due to a mutual mistrust, that neither of us took the trouble to search our hearts to discover what each of us meant to one another. Such a shame so many years were lost in conflict and sorrow.

It was January 1967. Alan was given a three year sentence by the Magistrate and sent to Garston House, an intermediate Approved school in Redhill, Surrey, and I was sent to St Edwards School. My Probation officer came to the remand centre to collect me, and me and my best friend Alan said our goodbyes. I never saw Alan Tomkins again after that, because he was run over by a car and killed soon after he was released. I only ever made one other friend as dear to me as Alan was in the following forty three years, and that was a boy I met in St Edwards School, who like me had lost his Mum at a time when he needed her most.

The day I arrived at St Edwards School will remain in my memory forever. It was a cold grey day, my Probation officer Mr Davies, who drove me down there, was a good friend of the family and I felt safe with him. As we entered the main hall I began to tremble, as the boys were all having their lunch in the dining room. It was suggested that my Probation officer escort me along the long corridor to the dining room, so that I could get some lunch too. As I stood outside the dining room I could hear knives and forks clunking and the general noise one would expect to hear from nearly a hundred boys eating their lunch. The cold wave of fear that seized me made me want to run but I was frozen to the spot where I was standing. Suddenly a man came out of the dining room and placed his hand on my head and he said, in a warm comforting voice “Come on son, it’ll be alright, you can come with me now” and it was as if an iceberg had melted within me, as I turned to look at this stranger that had come to relieve my Probation officer of his duty. I had never seen eyes like that man had, they were strong but full of warmth and compassion, like a loving Father I never had. That man was Squadron Leader David Dattner and that day marked the beginning of a great and wonderful friendship, for which I am eternally grateful. I was soon to find out however that other Staff members were nothing like as understanding, or as tolerant as Dave Dattner, or Squaddie as he was affectionately known by many of those broken young lives that craved his attention.

After lunch I was kitted out with my clothes and boots etc after a scary lonely shower in a cold sterile corporate ablution block and taken down to the Concert hall, where we could smoke. I had some cigarettes that had been given to me and I sat smoking alone in a corner surrounded by boys, most of them seemed to be in small groups. It was customary for two boys to be teamed together, to be, what they called “Whackers” This unusual process was to encourage friendship and support; as yet I had no Whacker I sat alone, afraid and nervous. Some of the boys stared curiously at me, as if to check out whether I was a tough guy, or just a walk-over, they would not find that out for quite some time however.

I was given the number thirteen, and everything I wore had that number on it. We were very often called by our number and not by our names, so we got used to just being a number. Every day followed a strict routine; we would congregate in the concert hall in various queues. There were Builders, Painters, Carpenters, and Gardeners, as well as three different classes for new boys. My earliest memory of Approved school life was that of queuing up in the Concert hall. All the school were called together to stand at attention before Bomber (Mr Brennan) the Head Master.  I stood there at attention in my line just having only arrived at the school two days before. Bomber walked in and out between the rows of boys with a big cane in his hand, and said “I want ten boys out the front….NOW” It was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. I can still remember thinking “is this some kind of ritual that the boys have to go through and should I go out too?”, although I was soon to find out what this solemn assembly was all about.

Bomber screamed again “Move quickly out to the front, you know who you are” and one boy after another gradually sleeked out from the ranks, to join others standing in front of the whole school. Bomber had lost his patience and turned in fury to a stubborn boy, who was hoping that no one had noticed him. Bomber turned and crashed his cane down across this boy’s head (It could have been the lad’s shoulders but from where I was standing it looked like it was his head) and shouted “Get out there with the others you filthy scum” and eventually all ten boys were standing with their heads bowed in shame facing all the school, exposed before their friends and enemies (mostly enemies) for their part in perverted homosexual bullying, which had run rampant for quite some time I understand. It was said that before that day, the boys would sleep with a lump of wood under their blankets, to stop these perverts getting into their beds and sexually abusing them. In all the twenty one months that followed, I never heard one word about sexual harassment from any of the boys, nor was I ever afraid after that to go to sleep at night. However I did feel so very sorry for those boys that were there in that school before me, who suffered terrible sexual abuse from these bullies and I knew probably more than most, the horrors of what it meant to be sexually assaulted. That day was a victorious day in the history of St Edwards School.

After a couple of weeks a new boy called Peter Waddams came to the school, he was from Bethnal Green in London and was one of sixteen children. We were introduced to each other and encouraged to become whackers, which we did, and so we shared everything from sweets, tobacco and whatever treats we were given from our families, which incidentally wasn’t very much from my part, but at least I had a friend at last.

CHAPTER FIVE:

Our day began at 6:30am with morning cleaning and when that got checked off, we could go to breakfast and then onto our various jobs. After a couple of months in a classroom Peter and I were sent to the Building section to begin work under Mr Smith, who we jokingly called Brickhead. This gave us a chance to learn things we otherwise may never have had an opportunity to learn. We both learned to lay bricks and generally undertake various building projects, including building a house for Les Doyle, who was then the Vice Head Master of the school. This knowledge later held me in good stead, as I did my Apprenticeship as a Carpenter and Joiner and later became the Director of a successful Carpentry and Building business in Kent.

The forced compulsory Assault Course Training was designed to either make or break the lads and to begin with was utterly impossible to get round, it was on the school grounds and surrounded by a small lake. The Army would frequently come over and train there, as it was probably as hard as it gets. Gradually the utter madness of being screamed at to scramble over ten foot nets and walls became slightly easier, as I got stronger and more confident. It actually turned out to be quite enjoyable after a while and pushed me to compete with others, giving me a sense of competition that made me feel that I had achieved something important, especially when the other guy was still only half way through and I had triumphantly completed the course….Fantastic feeling!!!

Every month the boys’ parents and family would visit and I would watch out of the window, as the excited lads would put on their best clothes to go out to greet their Mums and Dads and Brothers and Sisters – but watch out of the windows was all I could do, because nobody came to visit me, except on two occasions. One of those times was when my Father turned up at an Open day and I was ushered out to see him sitting in his car. He explained that he was on his way to visit a friend in Southampton and could only stay for five minutes, we hardly spoke and just as soon as he had arrived, he was off again and drove away leaving me standing on the drive in bewilderment, wondering why he had even bothered.

The second time my Father brought his wife Doreen; she was the embodiment of everything a young lad could possibly hate in a Stepmother; she was unkind, intolerant, arrogant and lacked the essential ingredients that were required to give a child like me the Motherly love and tenderness I so desperately needed. We went off anyway to Romsey and my Stepmother bent my ear all the way, reminding me of how lucky I was to have a visit from her, and telling me what a brat I had become, on and on and on she went, until I was so grateful at last to see them both disappear down the drive. That was the only time they came to visit me. Imagine my sadness when months later I received a postcard from my Father; he and this wretched woman he had married, who dared to call herself a Mother, were holidaying in Gibraltar and inside the envelope was a photo of my dear beloved Auntie Antonia, (who had married a Gibraltarian many years back) my Mummy’s own Sister, who was standing in between my Father and Doreen. It was a violation of my Mum’s memory, having seen my dear Mum so many times as a child, with her face covered in blood, as she wrestled on the floor with our violent drunken Father, trying to save one of her beloved boys from being punched into oblivion for some minor misdemeanor.  Mum usually came out worse than us and often the Police would be called, but because my Mum couldn’t speak any English, my Father would send the Policeman away, telling him that his wife was hysterical and had fallen over and hit her face. So nothing was ever done and Mum’s grief went unnoticed by our neighbours, but there were five boys who knew the truth, who adored their Mum more than anything in the world, especially me….who had been her baby boy!

One day it was announced that there was going to be a Sculpturing class and Peter and I joined up. Our first efforts were pretty feeble but I finally got to grips with it and made two quite nice sculptures from a large block of Iroko. Mr Hardwood the Carpentry Master saw one of the pieces and offered to buy it from me, by way of swapping something for it. I settled for a little kidney table and a raffia stool, which I guess one of the boys in the Carpentry shop had made. The other sculpture remains with me to this day, but it too has a story (see photo below) As my Father had not long been married and as it was almost Summer home-leave, it was suggested that as I had no money to buy them a wedding present, that I should give this rather beautiful, highly polish sculpture to my Stepmother as a wedding present and the kidney table and raffia stool to my Father.

It probably wouldn’t have meant much to most people to give away a piece of wood, but that particular piece of wood took me months to carve and was the best thing I had ever made in my life. Finally I succumbed to the pressure and consented to let my Father and his wife have the presents and when I went home that summer I presented my gifts to them and fibbed by telling them both that I had made the kidney table and raffia stool myself. Initially I think they were both polite and somewhat amused but genuinely grateful I thought. Bert Hardwood’s kidney table was placed in a corner of the lounge with a pot plant on it and the raffia stool used with a cushion on it as a pouffe, so that my Father could put his feet up. The sculpture I had lovingly made with my own hands was stood on the mantelpiece and no more was said about them, it seemed (seemed being the operative word) the bright idea to give my Father and my Stepmother these wedding presents turned out to be a great success….not!

Peter Waddam’s Mum come all the way from London to visit her dearest son one day and had taken us both out to Southampton for the day, it was so lovely to feel accepted by this wonderful lady, like I was part of Peter’s family. But sadness struck once again, when it was announced that Peter’s Mum had died. It was a very poignant time for us both, as it brought back the memories of my losing my own dear mummy, and now I needed to comfort my friend, who knew very well that I understood how he felt. Words cannot describe the deep feelings of sadness within and not knowing quite what to do, I just followed Peter everywhere he went, hoping somehow to be a comfort to him, but in reality it appeared that the more I smothered him, the more I antagonized him, but still I wanted him to know that I cared very deeply for him and understood precisely how he was feeling. Inevitably we were unconsciously being driven even closer together, because of our grief and loss, which made life just a bit more bearable for us both I guess, though to me at times it felt like I was making things harder for him. I found out over forty years later, however, that my dearest friend Peter had depended on me at that time far more than I had ever realised, and that my shadowing his every move following the death of his dear Mum, had brought some comfort to him in the darkest moments of his life and I am blessed to have been there for him, maybe God had a hand in our friendship, bringing two His sons together to comfort one another. 

I have added the sad story above especially to encourage anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation as I had been with my friend Peter after his Mum died and to know that sometimes it isn't words that will make any difference but the sure and certain knowledge that you are close by your friend who’s hurting. That's what makes really matters, even if you feel helpless, rest assured that they need you in their confusion, sadness and grief, more than you will ever know. And just as I was a support to my dear friend in his time of need, he too was there for me in the darkest moments of my life and I am thankful to God for giving me such a wonderful friend. That strong bond of friendship that we had back then remains just as strong today. 

CHAPTER SIX:

Life at St Edwards in the 60’s was a strange paradox for me, for although there were times of great sorrow, fear and darkness, because of bullies and inner torment, there were also moments of awe and wonder, as I gazed out of the window to see the beautiful countryside all around, such breathtaking beauty that inspired hope of better things to come. There were days of hard discipline that tested my endurance and many times I would just have just given up, but then again there were days that brought the sunshine and warmth of happiness flooding back, as special people touched my life; People like my Housemaster Dave Dattner and Matron Rose Brennan, these beautiful people somehow enabled me to transcend the reality of my sad circumstances, and gave me a glimpse of the bright blazing sun hidden high above the stormy clouds of my life. I guess the most undeniably prominent experience for me while I was  at St Edwards School was of time standing still; the days seemed like years and no amount of busyness could alter the conscious sense of slow tedious seconds ticking by. The odd thing was, that when I was finally released and sent back to the place my Father and Stepmother called home, that the eye-opening realisation dawned on me, of how secure and safe I had felt at my School…my home, moment by moment. 

A forbidden code of honour existed among the boys at St Edwards where bullying was concerned and no one was expected to grass up (or tell a Master) another boy if you were being intimidated or bullied by them. Many times the bullies at the top of the dining table would short change the new or weaker boys and give them less than half portions of food, sometimes even spitting on the food before passing it down the line but no one ever grassed the bully to anyone, even if it went on day after day and it often did.  I learned to be shrewd and to time my movements to avoid most of the bully's and trouble makers and sometimes I managed to avoid them and other times I didn't. However there was always one person who thought it was their God given duty to make your life as miserable as they could, taking pleasure from making others unhappy and reveling in the applause they received from their Marionettes, as the bullies were nearly always controlled by someone else, who hid their despicable deeds and always appeared as though they themselves had done nothing wrong but actually they were the real bullies, who used their weak minded minions to do their dirty work for them. 

My thorn in the flesh was lad from Devon or somewhere, and for the sake of anonymity I shall call him Colin Ridley. This boy  (Or should I say Puppet, whose strings someone else pulled) discovered that I would get deeply hurt if someone ridiculed my Spanish roots and culture and so, what began as a seeming friendship quickly developed into a disturbing nightmare, as Ridley started calling me names. At first I wasn't too bothered by him but gradually the abusive language became much worse and he delighted in saddening my soul by especially calling me greaseball, a name that insulted my Mum's memory.  Under ordinary circumstances those names would have meant nothing to me, except that his insidious deliberate intention was to highlight the fact that I was only half English. I could easily have suffered being called this degrading name, much like many of the boys who had mixed parents were called half-cast etc and had learned to just turn a deaf ear to the fools. To Ridley I was just another despised half-cast and his Marionette, a lad called Davis would jeer and snigger into his hand when his silly Puppet Ridley would make his hurtful remarks. The sadness in my heart was made all the worse because I had no Mum to turn to who would wipe my tears away, to hug me and tell me that they are not worth getting all upset over but not having my Mum to comfort me made the insults all the more bitter and demoralising.  Day by day I tolerated this inner emotional abuse from Ridley, who always seemed more brazen when he was surrounded by his friends. The torment went on and on for nearly a year and even when we were lining up for breakfast, lunch and dinner he would be there, to sleek up behind me with his insults. In fact it didn't matter where we were, except at work, where he was on the garden section and I thankfully worked in the building section with Pete, which gave me a little bit of respite. But no matter where I was in the school, that miserable worm could be found whispering "greaseball greaseball greaseball" at me and because of that code of honour among us boys, I remained silent refusing to grass the guy up.  One day I was making my bed and folding the sheets and blankets, which had to be perfectly done before we could obtain a check-off from one of the Masters. I had struggled to make my bed that morning, as I had a very heavy head cold and finally managed to complete the task, when Ridley, who incidentally was in my dormitory also came over to my bed and pulled all the blankets and sheets onto the floor and sneering in my face, said “there you go greaseball, what are you going to do about that then?" I remember as though it was just yesterday how I felt inside. 

I think my dear friend Peter had just lost his beloved Mum and was at that time on leave for her funeral and I missed him so much and sensed the deep sorrowful agony of his hurt and the great loss that we both shared, which brought me to boiling point, as I faced this mocking bully before me. I walked Ridley over to the wall near the dormitory door  and in true Sugar Ray Leonard versus Thomas Hearnes style, I pounded that worthless worm in the face so many times with both fists, that he wasn't even able to catch his breath but just glared into my eyes in shock horror at what was happening to him and finally slipped down the wall and onto the floor. The usual school tradition following a fight among boys was strictly adhered to as everyone expected. Boys caught fighting would be escorted down to the Gymnasium and would have to don a pair of boxing gloves and fight it out to the satisfaction of either the Head or his assistant. In this case it was Les Doyle who refereed our contest but by that time my temper had subsided and I felt unusually calm. In fact I was feeling somewhat disgusted at myself that this wimp of a boy standing before me should have caused me so much bother for such a long time, when I could have easily taken out at any time. So we stood there Ridley and I facing one another ready to fight again and dutifully swung punches at one another and so kept the tradition of the school. I triumphantly won my Waterloo that day and guess what? That was the last time I ever heard Ridley say those hurtful, demoralising words to me. I could stand before my Mum at last, with a new spring in my step and hope in my heart, knowing I had come through to a new place of victory and vowed that I would never let anyone ever treat me like that again. My most hated enemy had been vanquished and I was free at last.

Just to finish this story off. While I was pounding Ridley's head against that dormitory wall, the toughest boy in the school called Chapman (a great guy I later discovered) stood behind me watching my unexpected explosive attack on this bullying coward and when I was finally pulled away in order to save Ridley being killed, Chapman stared at me with the smile of acknowledgement, like two warriors facing each other that had fought great battles and won. Later when we were all gathered together in the concert hall, Chapman came over to me and as I looked up he held out a packet of cigarettes and said “Here Dan, take one mate” and I knew I had arrived at a new place, where I was given respect, even from the toughest lads in the school. 

Forty five years later and with the benefit of hindsight I can imagine Mr Ridley speaking to his Grandchildren, who maybe had one of them sent home for pushing someone around and their Grandfather would sit them down and say "Listen to me son, never push a person further than you yourself are willing to be pushed, because I did that once when I was a lad and had to learn a valuable  lesson, which I have never forgot".......Well at least I hope that is what Colin Ridley would say to them.

My method of dealing with Ridley may seem a bit harsh to some but sometimes that is the only languages people like that understand. I had tried and tried to avoid him, unwilling to grass him up but finally he took me beyond my own boundaries and as they say it was the hair that broke the camel’s back……one hair too many in Ridley’s case! Another incident that lead to a similar fight unfolded on a lovely sunny afternoon. It was open day and many of us were flying some aero-models on the back lawns of the great mansion. One of the tallest, ugliest and most despised boys in the school, who we will call Baincroft for the benefit of this story, came over to me and asked me for my last few sweets. Considering that I had no one to send me anything I naturally became very protective and refused to give them to him. Baincroft grabbed me and attempted to take my sweets by force and as he bent down to grab me I pounded his head with both fists and he just fell back like Gulliver, as in the story Gulliver’s Travels. Suddenly a booming voice shouted out my name “Carlton come here boy”. It was Bomber! He had been in a Governor’s meeting and saw what had happened. I was given leave to go up to Bomber’s office and I tremblingly opened his office door and went in.

The great man (Bomber) was sitting at his desk reading something and as I stood before him at attention he raised his eyes and said “Well done son, I have waited a long time to see that beggar get a good thrashing” and that was that. I turned and walked out with a big cheesy grin spread all over my face. Bomber was an ex-RAF Officer and although I remember distinctly that he was very fair with the boys, he was also a tough Military man and a very strict authoritarian. I heard horror stories about how he caned the boys, and even heard him myself on occasions, running across his office floor, as ninety five of us boys stood waiting below in the dining room corridor for our dinner, suddenly with a mighty whoosh, we would hear Bomber lay the cane down on that poor delinquent’s bum in his office above our heads. We would all cringe simultaneously and even pull faces as if in agony and hold our bottoms in empathy with our unfortunate comrade, who would give out a loud yelp at the pain he had to endure. Nevertheless Mr Brennan also had the capacity (when required) to show a Fatherly inner softness and despite the common knowledge that Bomber never took prisoners, the boys knew in their hearts that although he was a hard disciplinarian, he also had a soft centre and his knowing nod and frowned smile would be enough approval to give you a glow inside for the rest of the day.

CHAPTER SEVEN:

Sunday mornings will ever remain in my memory. It would begin with the usual morning cleaning but this day things were to be done thoroughly and Susu the Domestic Master (a wonderful caring Spanish gentleman) would wear a white glove to check for any dust. Woe betide anyone who missed one speck of dust on the wall panels and benches, or a smear on the woodblock floor, which we had to polish vigorously with a heavy steel block connected onto a long pole with layers of felt attached to the base. These we called Bumpers, and we would spend many hours driving these bumpers up and down the wood-block corridors whistling as we went. After breakfast we would line up at the suit room and put on our black (school issue) Sunday suits and line up to go into the chapel for Mass. This was a time of great distress for me especially, as I had severe emotional difficulties resulting from losing my Mum, which prevented me from swallowing naturally and I would panic, feeling so claustrophobic in that little chapel, crammed in among so many boys and would begin to sweat and look for a way to escape like a trapped animal, such was my distress to the degree that I would literally run out of the chapel terrified that I would stop breathing. Yet I cannot remember ever being counseled or comforted, except once, when Mr Brennan’s (Bomber) wife Rose took me up to sickbay and I felt such love from her, that when she died I was secretly heartbroken, because she was such a beautiful caring person and I will never forget her.

After chapel we would line up for breakfast and then we had to replace our Sunday suits for our ATC uniforms, which at that time were woven from a fleeced woolly material that itched our arms, legs and neck. The pack that was then strapped onto our backs also had an unwanted purpose, it would be filled to the top with sand, and if the guy who was shoveling the sand into your pack from a great pile of sand outside the Bricklaying yard didn’t like you, then he would select a section of very wet sand and with a smirk on his face shovel it into your rucksack which pulled your shoulders backwards, so that you almost lost your balance. The whole idea of this military exercise was for us to route-march twenty five miles to Salisbury, and back to the school again. Dave Dattner and Les Doyle shouted at the top of their voices “left right, left right” and not one boy dared march out of step all the way there and back and then of course all the way back up the long drive from the main road just outside the village of Sherfield English, to the school parade ground where we had started from. Sheer relief and gratitude would fill our hearts at the prospect of having a much needed rest and yet somehow through the pain of the blisters on our feet, we felt a strange exhilaration at having done something so noble and had for a short time experienced what it was like to be almost free again.  These marches continued for over a year and after many hundreds of miles (in fact about 1200 miles) of marching we were told that fourteen boys would be specially selected to represent the school in Holland to commemorate the Nijmegen March, where the boys selected for this great honour would have to march twenty five miles a day for four days.

Naturally I had reservations as to whether I would be selected, seeing there were so many boys at the start, but as the weeks and months passed, more and more boys fell away, those bullies especially that would kick me in the back of the legs all the way to Salisbury and back had thankfully dropped out . So finally only about twenty boys were left and my Whacker Peter Waddams and I were there among them. A severe test came when we were taken to Odiham do participate in what was called the little Nijmegen and would be seen as our practice run. We had to march thirty three miles a day for three days and Peter and I passed with flying colours and were selected to become part of the elite team that would represent the school on the Nijmegen march in Holland, a first for a Young Offenders penal institution.

However nothing was certain in that place and conditions could change decisions made only days before. We were all on parade shortly after Odiham, as we often would be, no matter what the weather and up to ninety of us would be standing at attention in the school grounds sometimes for up to three hours or more and on this sad and memorable occasion, as we stood in our ranks in front of the school entrance, with all the Masters standing in front of us, (sometimes in uniform) and one boy behind us said something out loud and one of the Staff misheard and thought it had been Peter that had violated the strict silence of the parade and for that he was instantly stripped of his privilege to join me and twelve other boys in Holland, something I regret so very much, as Peter and I had persevered despite the hardship of the marches, enduring the rain, cold and heat to get to that honoured place and had become like brothers. I went to Holland without my best friend and marched one hundred miles in four days. When we came back we were celebrities…well at least for one day anyway!

The following months were filled with sports activities and running events but it was as ATC Cadets that we achieved our greatest accolades. Peter and I had become Corporals and had our own squad (see photo below) It was while we were at RAF Bassingbourn in 1968, that we surprised ourselves by winning the camp trophy for the best squad, it was an inscribed brass bomb-shell , which even to this day sits in the school dining room cabinet. Both of us were awarded individual certificates and a photo was taken of Peter and me with our squad, proudly showing off our stripes. 

CHAPTER EIGHT:

The next two chapters relate to the relationships the boys either endured or enjoyed with Masters and staff at St Edwards School. For those who wish to skip my experiences at St Edwards School, you may pick up my Autobiography from chapter ten, through to the end.

The staff of St Edwards Approved school all varied in their ability to manage the boys, some could and some just couldn’t. There was Nosher Norris who took fencing, he had a massive handlebar moustache and wore a tweed jacket and reminded me of a Cavalier. He was always good fun and pretty easy to get on with. Then there was Mr Donavan, who was our Teacher when Peter and I were in the classroom for a while; he was a fair bloke, I liked him a lot but we all knew our boundaries when he was around, as he could blow a fuse and take a boy apart at a second’s notice, I was one of them, so I have firsthand experience of Mr Donovan’s temper! However I won’t leave that last statement without adding that Mr Donavan was also a dedicated professional person, who dealt sensitively with every boy as each case demanded and not in the usual corporate fashion, as was the custom of some of the staff. I owe him a big thank you, because I know he, together with my Brickwork Master Mr Smith, were both later on instrumental in giving me the opportunity to become the Maintenance Engineer’s Assistant, a job that most boys would die for.

Mr Laurence was the Maintenance Engineer for the whole school and so I would be given tasks to do, sometimes replacing tiles on the roof, or plastering a damaged section of wall. Sometimes fixing broken doors etc, it was a wonderful privilege to spend that time, probably nine months or so with another great guy who was an ex-Boxer and had a wonderful temperament. I will always remember Mr Laurance with fondness for teaching me so many skills, which many years later came in handy; as was the case when I became the Maintenance Engineer for British Telecom in Kent, tending to two thousand Auxiliary buildings. I was also a hardwood Joiner and Locksmith for Godsmiths the Jewellers all over the south of England, something my friend and Teacher would have been proud to have contributed towards.

Mr Jones was known affectionately by every boy in school as ‘Shine-on’. He lived in a small bungalow opposite the Gatehouse at the end of the drive. Shine-on would patrol the dormitories at night, bringing comfort to those boys crying into their pillows, far away from their loved ones. I don’t think there was even one pillow in all of those dorms (although no one would admit it) that remained dry for very long and Shine-on was there with a sweet, or a kind word. He was greatly loved and respected by everyone. Later on Shine-on got involved in the boy’s Outward-Bound activities, such as climbing the Brecon Beacons, route marching, or going to camps. His ear harboured many of the boy’s secrets, most of them would confide in him about their personal problems, knowing the matter would go no further and that his advice and counsel would help to soothe their troubles. He was a great man and a close friend of Dave Dattner's naturally.

Dave Dattner was my House Master and a wonderful devout Jewish man with more love and compassion in his little finger than most of the Masters combined. He was a truly remarkable man and would tell us story after story of all the adventures of his life. He had been a prisoner on Devil's island, a Japanese prisoner of war camp and had been castrated, starved and left to eat rats. David was a famous Squadron Leader in the Royal Air Force and had contributed greatly to the war effort and later with the RAF Mountain Rescue teams. A book was written in his honour. In his later years he became one of the most loved Councillors in the SOS Children's Village in Arad, which was in his beloved land of Israel. We all admired him immensely and will never forget our friend, who made life at St Edwards School not only endurable but more importantly enjoyable!  תודה לך חבר שלי. במאי אלוהי השמים יברך אותך ולתת לך חיי נצח.

Mr Hoskin was another Teacher, who demanded utter respect at all times. I remember an incident when he beat up a boy in front of us, just for skylarking about but again another fair bloke with a lot of time for boys that wanted to get on and make something of their lives.

Bernie Black was again another Teacher who pretty much kept to himself most of the time but enjoyed being part of the boy’s lives, as far as activities and ATC events were concerned. He took us to Nijmegen in place of David Dattner, as Dave had been in a car accident and had broken his pelvis and though Bernie Black tried to be chummy with the lads, he was always looked upon as one of Bombers little lackeys. Mr Hardwood was fair but pretty strict; he was the Carpentry Master. I know that later he became much gentler and certainly more tolerant than when Peter and I were at the school. Mr Hardwood was fond of me, as I had delighted him by making some sculptures, one of which he bought from me and kept for himself. He was the Master who stopped Peter from going to Holland and for that, his popularity at the time shot through the floor as far as we were concerned. Although in all fairness, with so many years now passed under the bridge, I consider Mr Hardman a kind and thoughtful person, as I remember back nearly forty four years; He was dedicated to his work and the kind of person you would certainly say “what you see is what you get”. That was Mr Hardman and I do so wish he had been my Teacher, as in later years I underwent a radical metamorphosis, from Drain Layer to Master Carpenter and Joiner. I think he would have been very proud to see my Guild of Master Craftsman logos on my Building Company vans. 

Mr Bennen was another House Master but very much involved with the ATC side of things. Like Hoskins and Donovan he was sometimes very stern and could seem to come across as totally uncaring but that certainly was not true of this Master. He valued the boy’s dignity and discipline and gave himself to the task of bringing out the best in every boy he served. He would take maybe sixty or more boys to stand on parade outside in the grounds and we could stand at attention there, sometimes for two to three hours at a time and if a boy moved or muttered something, he would keep all of us standing there even longer, and woe betide that lad who caused the rest of the boys to lose valuable smoking time, or some other privilege.

My memory of Mr Bennen as a Master sticks in my mind to this very day, as someone who worked extremely hard at forming long term bridges of friendship with the boys by earning their respect and admiration. Shine-on and Squaddie on the other hand never needed to work so hard at doing that, because they by natural virtue just poured upon us those qualities in abundance, and with it added so effortlessly their seemingly unending love, care and compassion, that it was naturally reciprocated by us back to them in bucketfuls. 

Mr Bennen nevertheless added to my life so many valuable virtues, such as healthy discipline and self control, they were things that maybe at the time were thought of by a rabble of boys to be pretty worthless but in the end those disciplines and lessons of life just happened to be the very stuff that has made us into the focused and self motivated men, which many of us old St Edward’s boys have become. I don’t think I would have believed that would be the case for me back in 1968.

I mentioned Les Doyle. He was the Vice Headmaster and he showed a much friendlier side to the boys than Bomber and Bennen for instance, but nevertheless it was an unspoken fact that you never lit his blue touch-paper; as he would explode and whoever was foolish enough to be in his way, would seriously wish they were a million miles away. However Doyle was one of the nicest people I have ever met and I always liked to gain an opportunity to speak to him, as he would unconsciously make you feel very special. Peter and I were particularly favoured, as we built his house and he appreciated all the hard work we put in to get it finished. Que Dieu vous bénisse mon ami.

Susu was my friend. He spoke to me in Spanish and often came to find me when we were doing Sunday morning cleaning, or when I was on Domestics in the kitchen. Susu was a wonderful warm, caring man, who I wish had been a House Master when I was at the school. I was not surprised at all to hear such great testimonies of Susu’s exploits at the school after Peter and I left, and to hear how much everybody loved him. It was very sad to hear that he had died; he was a rare endearing gentleman, who made my stay at St Edwards less painful than it might otherwise have been. Gracias amigo x

Mrs Bates was a wonderful little lady who working in the Sewing room, her hubby was Arthur the Gardener, and they were both beautiful people, who would take time to listen to the boys and always had a warm friendly smile. We would have liked all the Staff to have been as caring as these two wonderful guys. There are many wonderful stories to come out yet about dear Arthur but that must be left for another time.

Kate and Miss McBride were the school Nurses and Bomber’s wife Rose was the school Matron, a wonderful warm, kind person, who we all adored. If ever there was a Mother figure in all the time I was at St Edwards it was this beautiful woman. There wasn't one boy in the whole school who didn’t feel deeply sorry and sad to hear that she had been killed in that terrible accident; no one could ever replace her. I remember Rose to this day and thank God for sending her into our lives to care for us. I couldn’t tell you what was going on in the minds of ninety boy’s as we lined up for dinner, with Nurse Katie standing in front of us all with her hands behind her back and her long legs spread wide apart, like a German POW camp Commandant. Kate was however always cheerful, her wonderful Irish smile could melt our fears instantly away, she was so very kind to us all. Kate probably had more involvement in the boy’s lives than most of the staff, as we would always find ourselves having to go up to surgery for something, mostly things like boils, flu viruses, injections, cuts etc. Miss McBride on the other hand was a quiet authoritarian Scottish Nurse, who out of the two ladies was the stricter one.

CHAPTER NINE:

I had contracted Ringworm on one occasion and was confined to Sick-bay for two weeks. Every day I had to have a boiling hot bath and Miss McBride would virtually force me naked into the hot water (For my own good she said) with me screaming in rebellion. Afterwards she would rub thick white cream all over me. Now had it been Nurse Kate applying that thick slippery ointment all over me?…. well that might have been different! And although she was a lovely person I’m sure, Miss McBride nevertheless faithfully carried out her Nursing duties with unforgiving ruthlessness, which was for a tender fourteen year old boy unimaginably painful, as well as highly embarrassing and totally humiliating all at the same time. Even to this day I hate getting into a hot bath!

Mr Legget and Mr Danton played a very small role in affecting our daily lives, apart from growing all the vegetables for the school and generally being pretty distant really. I am certain that their contribution to the school was a great benefit to the boys, but I cannot remember anything significant about either of them, except we called Mr Danton “The mad Professor”. It was probably the way he walked with his arms waving about and Mr Legget would have fun poked at him whenever he was out of earshot. These were two people who did us no harm at all, considering there were some who would have like to have done.

Mr Smith was Brickhead our beloved Bricklaying Master; together with his colleague Mr Rushton (a wonderful Yorkshire man by the way) they made a great team. Brickhead was a great man with a lovely sense of humour, pity anyone who crossed him but generally he was one of the boy’s favourite Masters, as he understood our deep needs and was himself a Dad with sons of his own. He taught us to lay bricks and to render walls etc. He had a temper but if you could run fast enough, then you could avoid being clipped across the ear. We enjoyed being around him and trusted him too. That took a lot from kids like me who discovered very early in life that you can trust no one. When his son was seriously ill we all stood by him and I know that he appreciated that very much. Mr Smith was a wonderful man, who I will never forget.

The Painters and Decorator’s Master was Mr Crowther and he was another great guy. He was respected and admired by all the boys. Peter and I sometimes worked in the paint shop and found both these highly professional men to be fun and easy to please, but always aware of the danger of being too forward, as the old adage goes “Familiarity breeds contempt” and that would always be a slippery slope that would lead to certain disaster. So in order to avoid being roughed up, we soon learned to know our boundaries and enjoyed their input into our lives.

Then there was Mr Probin, he too was a House Master and although I remember him especially, as he took over from Squaddie and would join the team of Masters that took us out on route marches etc, something tells me that he wasn’t someone we felt we could trust, because as I recall he sided with the mob of toughs that would occupy one of the corners of the Concert hall, so we for that reason Pete and I probably steered clear of him. However I think he did his job well and was generally liked, even though he wasn’t from an RAF background.

There was one other Master that I would prefer not to have to speak about, but it would be unforgivable of me to leave out this person, whose name was too disliked to be mentioned here, for without this sad additional personal testimony, it may be that those who read this story, would maybe think that life at St Edwards School back in the 60’s was a walk in the park; on the contrary, it was anything but!. This wretched person I refer to, though rare at that time in Penal Institutions like ours thank God, was allowed to serve in a school full of vulnerable, emotionally damaged boys, and whose savage behaviour towards them had largely gone unnoticed. He was an ugly gorilla, who brought fear and terror into the boy’s lives, he was too cruel and nasty to own the right to walk the corridors of our home, a home where we had very little choice but it was where we felt a degree of protection, if not from one another always, at least from the Masters, who though strict disciplinarians, would certainly never treat us as this man did.

He came to us from an especially brutal Borstal and brought with him his aggression and violent regime. Boys who were unlucky to have any dealings with him would stand against the wall and shake, as at the slightest provocation, he would lash out with such ferocity and anger, that his victim would be literally thrown and beaten as though he were a punch bag. Peter and I both witnessed this monster executing his specialised form of brutality upon a boy once. We learned to stay well away from him. I didn’t know anyone who didn’t hate him with every fibre of their being. I think he was eventually dismissed or transferred, which was a great relief to all of us. These kinds of people are mostly weeded out thankfully today by a Police screening process and vetted by Governors and Heads that scrutinise the character of every potential employee, having their discernment honed by years of experience, to detect such sinister individuals. But every now and again one of them slips through the net and goes undetected, managing to bring their reign of terror into terrified young lives. I thank God that today at St Edwards School the net is so tightly knit together, that there will never ever be another boy who will feel the fear we did all those years ago.

CHAPTER TEN:

It was late summer 1968 and I had been called to get my civilian clothes on (or what we called our best clothes). I was leaving St Edward's school at last and my heart was racing with trepidation and excitement all at the same time. I had been back to South Wimbledon on a few occasions for home-leave over the past two years, which was where my Father and Stepmother’s home was (I say their home, as it certainly never felt like mine) but to me it really wasn't home at all, not without my Mum being there, but it represented freedom and that I guess was worth feeling happy about. I waved to Peter and wished so much that he was coming out with me. Bomber’s Jag roared up the drive to the school entrance and I was off, travelling along the winding road towards Romsey, where I was to catch my train to London. My Father and Stepmother lived in a small two bedroom apartment on the seventh floor of a tower block. I arrived at their home, hoping to feel some warmth and hospitality but arrived instead to a pretty wet welcome, it was as though I had been adopted reluctantly by two strangers, who immediately spelled out their house rules and charged me straight away to get a job, because I needed to pay my way or find somewhere else to live. Thankfully I managed to get a job in a local Leather factory and it felt good to be out of their hair all day at least.

My Father demanded almost all of my wages in rent, which left me with virtually nothing  to get sandwiches in the factory canteen and as the days went by I felt strangely homesick and yearned to go back home to Melchet Court, but I knew in my heart that it was never going to happen, at least not voluntarily. I had become institutionalised that was certain and like an obedient dog on a lead I craved the routine of the school, which ordered my every step each moment of the day and I wished with all my heart that somehow I could return to the home I had lived in for such a long time, yet without having to be a prisoner, but there was no possible way of having one without the other. One day I caught the train to Bethnal Green to go and see if I could find my old Whacker. I arrived at an old terraced house in Teesdale street, knocked on the door and I stood there wondering if my friend would be there and to my surprise Peter came out and we just stood there looking at each other, as though we could read each other's mind, so happy at last to meet again after so many months of being apart. We went down to the local Wimpey bar in Bethnal Green and sat and chatted and laughed but sadly it was time to go and I left Peter at his door of his home, waving frantically at me as I went off down the road, not knowing if we would ever see each other again.

Forgive me if I digress here for a moment, bringing my story forward many years. I didn’t see Peter after that momentous reunion for more than forty years but whenever I came across an online residential directory I would type Pete’s surname, in the hope that something would come up but I never found anything. Until one day in 2009 (Forty years later) while searching around on Facebook I found a lady with the surname Waddams. I wrote and asked if she had any connection to Peter Waddams of 21 Tessdale Street, Bethnal Green (even though it wasn’t there anymore but had been knocked down and replaced with a block of flats) and to my utter delight, she told me that Peter is her brother, and that she would let him know that I had contacted her. Apparently after he had been released from St Edwards Peter has sought to find me and had telephoned my Father on occasions and has driven around the place where I lived in South Wimbledon in his car, having remembered my home address but to no avail, as I had already moved away.

 My joy knew no bounds the day Peter called me and we arranged to meet up, following my contact with his Sister on Facebook. The day Peter and his dear wife Yvonne came to my home in Faversham (where I now live) was a day that brought so much healing to us both and we chatted and chatted just like the old days. The years had hurt us, aged us and changed us, but our friendship was intact and it was as though we had never been separated at all. I hope that Peter will add some valuable experiences to this Blog, which will give our readers a greater insight into our life and times at Ste Edward’s School back in 1967. Both Peter and I and my wife Anita who I married almost twenty five years ago after my marriage to Valerie broke down, together with Pete’s wife Yvonne went to the St Edward’s School Open Day on 18th April 2011 and I leave you to imagine what a blessed time we had together.  

Now back to the story…….

One day while I was standing in the hallway of my Father’s apartment daydreaming and waiting for a bell to ring or someone to snap their fingers to give me a task to do, when my Stepmother suddenly opened her bedroom door and accused me of listening to her and my Father’s conversation. I was shaking my head in innocent surprise and tried to explain that I was just standing there doing nothing. The sad events that followed traumatised me more than I can describe. My Stepmother started hitting me around the head and then my Father jumped over her and began punching me in the face, they both dragged me down the corridor to the front door and hurled me out into the hallway where the lifts were and slammed the door shut; tears covered my face and I could feel pain from the bruises where they had both hit me.

As all this happened so quickly, understandably it took a while to regain my composure and thought that maybe if I go for a walk, they would eventually have to let me come back home again. I returned a couple of hours later and to my surprise I found a couple of black bin-liners full up with my clothes, which they had thrown out into the hallway. I knocked on the door and waited to see if they would let me come back home but they never answered and as I looked closer at the door, I could see Doreen’s eye looking through the peep-hole at me. She shouted “Harry, he’s back again” my Father said something to her but I never caught what he said; finally the penny dropped and I realised that I had been thrown out for good, but gratefully  I did manage eventually to find someone to put me up for a few months.  

Soon afterwards a lad who I knew asked me if I wanted to go camping with him, as his friend had let him down at the last minute and as I didn’t have much to do I decided to go with him. We got an AA book and a pin and we closed our eyes and flicked through the pages and when we finally stopped at a page, we just stabbed the page with the pin and that was where we went camping. We had stabbed a town in the AA book called Margate. I had never heard of the place before but we managed to catch trains and buses and finally we arrived in Canterbury, where we were to get another bus link to Margate. I cheekily teased a young girl  sitting on the bus, who was about my age; she was sitting at the front of the bus smoking. I said “you’re not allowed to smoke at the front of the bus but if you give me a fag I will be pleased to sit with you at the back of the bus; she played along and we had some fun as we travelled on our journey to Margate. She told me her name was Valerie and we all went for a drink together. She stayed at the campsite overnight with us and a friendship was forged that was to last for the fifteen years.

When I got back to my room in Mitcham Common, my Landlady asked if she could speak to me. She was a wonderful Welsh woman; I only knew her as Gum’s mum, I will never forget her friendly, caring smile.  She came to my room and said that I had to leave in two weeks as her Mother was coming to stay, so I spoke to Valerie that night on the telephone and I asked her if she would ask her Mum if I could go and live with her at their farmhouse in the country, which was just outside Canterbury and gratefully she agreed to let me move in with them. I knew that I had left some of my things at my Father’s apartment, so I cautiously went up the lift and knocked on the door. Doreen opened the door and asked me what I wanted. I told her that I was moving away and would like to get the rest of my stuff; she called my Father out and they both agreed to let me in to get my things. As I stood in the lounge (almost at attention) waiting for my Stepmother to bring my books and records etc, I noticed that the sculpture I had made (see photo below) when I was at St Edwards was no longer on the mantelpiece. I said to her “forgive me for asking Doreen but where is the sculpture I gave you for your wedding present, the one that you stood on the mantelpiece”? She answered in her usual gruff northern accent ”do you mean that piece of wood you brought home? oh I threw that in the broom cupboard, if you want it back you can have it” So with her permission I rummaged through the broom cupboard and found my sculpture, a bit worse for wear but still in one piece. My Father and my Stepmother just stood there in the doorway as I left and shrugged their shoulders at me, as if to say, “well we did all we could for you” and I left their home forever feeling a deep emptiness in the pit of my stomach as the lift plunged down to the ground floor, clutching my last remaining worldly goods in a couple of dustbin bags.

My story ends here for now.