Amelia's story (11 page)

The staff found her in the bathroom on th
e floor with blood everywhere.
Cin
dy was only thirteen
years old. I felt a chill run through me after hearing t
he sad details of Cindy’s past.
S
he was
unhappy and hated being alive, and
she spoke often of death. Her history involved sexual abuse by her
stepfather,
and beat
ings by her mother. To her, at thirteen years of age,
life was not worth living.
We heard later that evening that Cindy was stable and
on suicide watch for the next forty-eight
hours. Fol
lowing that incident, Cindy
never returned to Breeton House
. Instead, she was sent to a psy
c
h
iatric hospital for evaluation.
The following day there was a new female arrival
at Breeton House. Angela was eleven years old. She was
very pretty with beautiful
, raven hair and deep, blues eyes.
S
he would not look directly at anyone or
bare
ly lift her head up to speak. I discovered several day
s later she was pregnant.

“
Pregnant,”
I said
. “H
ow can this be possible?”
I asked.

The m
ember of staff watching over Angela
advised the rest of the children to give her lots of space as she was in a delicate way. This in itself was enough to raise the curiosity of all
thirty
children residing at Breeton House. Her father had systematically abused her for years
,
and I remember the chilling sho
ck I felt about her pregnancy.
I did not think children could get pregnant.

Almost as soon as
Angela
arrived
,
she was gone again
,
just like that. This sort of thing happened a lot, but I just could not stop thinki
ng about Angela for a long time.
T
he haunted look in her eyes; she was like a frightened child, too scared to move. All I kept thinking about was how could that happen. It horrified me and scared me. Sadly
,
stories like this were all too
commonplace
in children’s homes.
There was soon to be a case review
,
which was held every si
x months for each child in care.
M
y c
ase review was next on the list, and
I prayed so
hard most nights
for approval to be sent home
.
I
could not be
ar
to think what Jake was going through. These meetings were held to dete
rmine your future going forward.
T
hey
never asked me how I was doing and
how I was getting on,
or if I was being treated well at Breeton House. They just weren’t interested in what I had to say.

At the case review meeting
, there
would be my headmaster
from Mount Pleasant Girl’s School, my 2N form teacher, my Social Worker, Gary the head of Breeton House
,
and a member of staff. I dreaded
these
case reviews
,
as this was where everybody got to talk about you and you
r life,
except you. Did it not occur to these people that having a little input from the child they were discussing would make life so much easier for all
concerned
, as everyone would understand the child so much more, then maybe
,
just maybe
,
the child would
be better placed going forward.
This would have been far too logical
for them
and don’t forget that I was living in times where the child should be seen
and
not heard.
After my case review
,
I was called to the o
ffice.
Gary
asked me to take a seat and
he proceeded to tell me that it had been decided that I was to return home for a trial period only. This was a huge shock
,
and despite praying for this decision, I was not sure how I felt. I felt excited at the prospect of being with my brother
,
Jake
,
and my sisters
,
Jenny and Susie
, but a part of me felt dread. Y
es
,
I longed to be with my family
more than anything in the world.
H
owever
,
I had not missed the complexity of daily life with my mother.

All those emotions must have poured out through my face as Gary look
ed at me very confused
and said
,
“I thought you would be happy
, Amelia
.”

“I am
,
” was my response
,
not quite telling the truth. I then asked myself
,
“W
hy did I say that
? W
hy didn’t
I just share my fears with him?”
M
ore importantly
, why didn’t I ask him whether M
other wanted me home
? W
as
this
at her request
,
or was
it
the sole decision of the case review
panel
? This was very important as this would determine how life would be for me once I had been released into my mother
’s care for the umpteenth time.
I wanted to share with him the real reason for my wanting to go home so desperately
,
but I just couldn’t in fear that I would scupper this opportunity put before me.

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I was
back at home once again.
M
y Social Worker walked me up the path to the front door,
my heart skipping
a beat when the doorbell rang.
As
the door opened
,
Jake ran up to me with arms open w
ide and with a big smile on his face.
H
e was delighted at
seeing me, and M
other seemed quite pleased too
,
but I sensed
an atmosphere between us and I was
sure my pleasant greeting from her was for the benefit of my Social Worker. Mother asked the Social Worker to co
me in and made her a cup of tea. T
hey chatted for a little while
,
then my Social Worker left.
The days that followed included the occasional visit from our
stepfather, Robert. I even remember he
and his boyfriend taking us all on a week’s
holiday to Rhyl in North Wales, a good holiday too,
the only on
e I ever remember going on while
in my mother’s car
e. Mother did not come with us;
she enjoyed a week off
,
but little did we know she was lining up hubby number three already. I already
k
new she had a boyfriend
.
Jake
had told me previously, “M
other’s got
a new boyfriend.
I don’t like him very much because he’s a bit moody
!
” I told him not to worry
,
because
it probably would not last as mother had lots of boyfriends who came and went.
Kieran was a violent alcoholic. He was unemployed
, doing the odd bit of labo
u
ring on the side when he was sober. My mother was very smitten with
him and hung on his every word.
W
e children always took a back seat when she had
a man in her life. Kieran and M
other were a bad combination as they were both alcoholics and they both encouraged each other to drink. They would get so drunk
that
some days our mother would forget to unlock our bed
room
doors in the morning; I would be banging on the wall to get her attention and rouse her from a deep sleep. She would
then
stagger to my bedroom door
,
unlock it
,
and tell me to let t
he others out and go downstairs.
“
D
o not make a sound
,
”
s
he would say.
All four of us would sit in the front room watching the
“
Saturday
M
orning
P
icture
Show,”
f
ollowed by
,
“
Champion the
W
onder
h
orse
,”
a
nd then there would be a Saturday morning movie, usually a Norman Wisdom
one set in black and white. Everyone only had three channels b
ack then, BBC1, BBC2, and ATV;
not very many people had colo
u
r TVs on the estate
,
as this was reserved for the better off. Jake and I would make breakfast for us all and we would all
sit together with our bowls of Ready B
rek or cornflakes, still i
n our nightclothes watching TV.
We were very careful not to make a sound
,
and kept the TV on very low
,
so as not to disturb our mother and her new boyfriend.
They would surface around lunchtime
,
with bad headaches and bad moods. Mother would start
her day shouting at Jake and me
for making a mess in the kitchen and not putting the cereal boxes away, and then we would be told to get dressed and go outside to play and leave them in peace. Jake and I would take our
younger sisters out for a walk. W
e would take a pushchair eac
h and take them to the big dip;
this was a great place that all the kids used to go to play at weekends, and we loved it. The big dip was a large green with
a great big hole in the middle. S
teps had been made down the side of the dip by the council and at the bottom there were slides and swings, lots of trees and bushes,
and this
was a huge playing area for the local children. However
,
when we had Jenny and Susie with us
,
it proved a challenge to get them d
own to the bottom with the push
chairs
,
especially with Jenny
,
as we had to be so careful
and mindful of her disability;
her capabilities were not as ours were. Jenny loved being taken out for walks by
us, and
there w
ere
nearly always tears when we had to return home.
We spent as much time as possible outside of the house as being at home was akin to
being in a warzone.
Mother and Kieran were always fighting, only this time
M
other had a boyfriend who gav
e as good as he got.
T
hey would beat each other all around the house without a care in the world for us children
,
who would be coweri
ng in a corner,
observing
the violence before us
.
One particular occasion they had an almighty
fallout
f
ollowing a drinking sessio
n that Kieran had been on alone.
H
e had spent all his wages and had nothing left for food
.
O
ur mother was livid
and
she jumped on him and started punching
him in the head with her fists.
Kieran immediately responded
and we were all screaming in fear.
Kieran smashed a glass over our
mother’s
head
,
and she fell to th
e ground. H
e then ran out of the house. Mother called the police and told them she wanted Kieran formally charged. The police very quickly picked him up and kept in a cell over night. The following day, once he was released
, he made his way straight home.
M
other would not let him in
,
so he started banging on the doors
,
shouting and screaming to be let in.