大象传媒

This story has been added to the 大象传媒 People's War site by CSV Storygatherer Coralie, on behalf of Ms M. The story has been added to the site with her permission and Ms M fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

Firstly, I cannot remember any names, nor school/farm. I only remember, aged just six, standing with many other children on the train platform, with what seemed then a 'huge' label with my name on. All seemed a 'great adventure', for having been born very poor, I had never been out of the buildings I lived in.

On the train, someone, who I presume now to have been an adult helper, said, as we steamed along, "Look, cows, that's where our milk comes from" pointing to them, to which I replied in my very Cockney voice, "Nah, we git ours from a milk boow" (bottle!)

Vividly do I remember walking, seemingly miles, along a hot country lane, which again I had never seen before, and a very loud sound, due to the stillness, buzzed in my head, which was of course bees and flies. Although I was very tired, for twas then early evening, I felt a stillness and tranquility I'd never known before, as my home life was one of parents fighting and arguing, and sexual abuse.

On arriving at 'The Farm', we were ushered into a very dark room, and to my horror, hanging from low beams were salted pigs' legs. When the helper left, I was taken to a room upstairs and left. The sun was still out, but I remember feeling a great loneliness and I began to cry, quietly, for I didn't want the farmer and his wife to hear me. I was just six and I missed 'me Ma'.

Conditions were appalling: no running water, nor hot. I had to wash at the bottom of the field, (no garden), in the stream where the cows drank and excreted further upstream. This is how I came, in time, to acquire scabies, lice and fleas. I was not allowed to write it in letters though. To such a degree was my neglect, that my teacher wrote to my mother, who came down the very next week to take me home.

However, before going home, I again remember going into the derelict cottage next door and finding a dead lamb. Being a nosey child, I turned it over (with a stick luckily), and found thousands of maggots busily squirming around! It made me wet the bed, and from that day on my bed was without sheets, and because I was so unhappy I wet it every night until there were also maggots on and in my mattress, which was soaking wet! Then to top it all, I had my face smacked for doing so.

One beautiful sunny day, I was sent, as was the norm, to pick up the milk. With a yoke across my shoulders and two buckets, one either side, I walked home, but never having seen a LARGE dragonfly before, I dropped the lot and ran. Boy, was I bashed then!

Well, my 'poor' mother, both emotionally and financially, had gone to the trouble of buying a hat to look presentable - not that 'them there' farm folk ever looked it - but she forgot it and much to her anger, and mine, we very often spoke of how the farmer's wife must have enjoyed wearing it!

On the train home all the soldiers were either squatting, or lying asleep, all along the corridors and toilets, they were so tired! Every now and again I would pull out a flea from my hair and show my Mum, who would be quite embarassed, obviously. When I grew up and had children of my own, I could understand the stigma of having fleas ('unclean' twas thought to be then).

On our arrival at our 'Home', my Mum laid out newspapers over the table to comb out 'THE FLEAS' (I was then aged seven and a half) only to find there were so many (I was infested) that she rushed me to the 'cleansing station', which in itself must have been a great humiliation to such a proudly clean person as 'me Mum'! I cried and cried as the nurse, or whoever, washed and washed my head, until it was sore, with the awful-smelling cleansing lotion. In the end, I had to have all my hair cut off and when I went to school, the girls used to pull my woolly hat off to see my bald head. Now one would call it 'bullying'. I started playing truant and my brothers used to put me in a van and take me back, but as soon as they left, I would run out of the gate!

As I was sexually abused even then, I was very aware of my body, which meant I was academically backward. My mother either knew, or wished to turn a 'blind eye' to my father's paedophilial ways. The way I coped with all my traumas meant, for a few pence, I became known as a child prostitute. (Because sex was introduced to me by my father, uncle, milkman and others whom one would 'NORMALLY' associate with being 'GUARDIANS', to me giving sex seemed to be 'just another act'!

WAR ENDED (in Europe anyway) ON MAY 8TH, 1945. I was aged 10. Although 'THE WAR' ended then, my whole life, and those of millions would be affected because our PERSONALITIES would never develop as they would had we had a 'trauma-free' development. Our personalities will always have been 'warped', or UNdeveloped, so one often wonders WHAT SORT OF PERSON one would have become under normal circumstances.

My greatest JOY , aged 11, having been taken into care and out of my environment, was to find that the things one thinks of as 'NORMAL' as a child, were ANYTHING BUT!

Now, aged 71, I have been married and divorced and have had two divine children. I have four grandchildren. They are ALL oblivious to the 'OTHER SIDE' of life.
I realise this has gone over the War years, but I feel everyone's 'SELVES' are affected by childhood experiences, obviously, and often wonder what sort of world it would be without wars and twisted personalities! Sadly, Man never has , as yet, nor ever will I fear, learn by our mistakes, for 'War' still reigns supreme in 2005.

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