by Caryn Walker
Whereas other people have warm childhood memories about things like friends and Christmas and birthdays, I don’t. Everything is coloured by the people I called my parents. My childhood has so little to make me smile; it doesn’t even have much in the way of difference from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. I wonder if, without those files, I would even have any structure to my memories. I get small flashes, but very little that brings back a full story. So I recall the pretend house from when I started school that I mentioned at the start of the book. But then the sadness comes in as I remember I was overjoyed just to be playing, at everyone smiling around me, and how unusual that was. I remember Ian and I used to walk to and from school alone between the ages of five and eight, but all I can wonder is, did no one walk with him before? Was he all alone?
When I was seven and moved to another primary school, on my very first day I went to the wrong toilets, a big brick outhouse at the end of the schoolyard. The teacher seemed cross with me, as though I had done it on purpose. I know that back then I already felt ‘not good enough’. I was just not as good as the other children. I was ‘dilatory’. The only time I was happy then was when I found a blue Snoopy watch at school – his arms were the watch hands! – and I was allowed to keep it as no one said it was theirs. I loved it and treasured it for years.
At middle school, I did like music, but my time was made terrible through being bullied by the ‘popular’ kids, who called me scruffy. I felt like an outsider and that I was a bad person inside. The abuse was daily by that time, but I never said anything to anyone. I thought everyone did it, I really did.
There are a few good memories about high school, and I did make some friends there – I even liked the ‘nit nurse’! Jenny and I would walk to this school together when she was staying at home; we would steal bread from our kitchen to eat on the way as Jenny was usually hungry from having no tea.
I did OK, I suppose, given what I was enduring at home. I enjoyed English, Biology and Home Economics, but P.E. was quite difficult for me as I was so body conscious and often didn’t have nice underwear or the correct clothes to wear. I was embarrassed, so I would make up excuses to get out of PE, and could never go swimming as I didn’t have a costume. I couldn’t say that, so I made up a problem each time and got into trouble a lot. I could never go on school outings or trips as my parents wouldn’t pay the small surcharge that parents on low incomes had to pay; another reason for me to get into trouble, as I lied a few times and said I’d lost the money.
I was known at school as ‘quiet little Karen’ and left with eight CSE passes, but what really sticks with me as I reflect on all those years was that there were no knights in shining armour: no teachers to rescue me, nobody to notice the quiet little girl with the sad eyes. Nobody noticed anything, with me or with Jenny. They were all oblivious. Even when I became a mother, no one picked up on anything.
There is no doubt that I had issues with my parenting – I hated to leave Karl with anyone because I just couldn’t believe he would be safe. I didn’t want anyone to bathe him or change his nappy and I knew, while he was still quite young, that I would only ever be able to have one child because I worried so much about having any more, especially little girls. I was scared about what my own reaction would be if they were ever around men. Would I panic? Would I see things that weren’t there? Would I see things if they were there? Knowing that, even now, I have suspicious thoughts when I see men with children and something seems ‘off’, I don’t think I could ever have coped with more than one child; I would have been too scared that I was taking my eye off the ball with one while I paid attention to the other.
I can’t help these things. They haunt me, and that’s why I often think of myself as a victim, not a survivor. And then there’s you, Jenny: you have to be a victim because you were never given the chance to survive, were you?
I try to live by the motto, ‘Always have a backup plan’ because I believe that is the key to a successful life that flows through the ups and downs. You never know what is round the corner – in fact, not knowing what’s next is the only thing you can rely on! Everyone in my life knows me for saying, ‘Keep smiling’, because I really do feel that you have to – you have to keep pushing through. I’ve been given so many gifts with this phrase on over the years – cups, wall plaques and such – and I will try to stick to the feeling that a smile makes everything better until my last breath.
Is my heart broken? Yes, yes it is, but I like to think of a broken heart very much as a cut or piece of broken skin … at first it bleeds so much and hurts with such intensity that you can’t bear it. You cover it with plasters to try to stop the bleeding and pain, much like the bargaining, denial and anger we feel after losing a loved one. Eventually, the cut knits together and the pain eases, but it’s still there, every day. Some day, some time afterwards, you might realise it doesn’t hurt at all; but if you press your finger on the scar (or go to your memories) it hurts again. The scar (the loss) never really goes away as we have a permanent reminder – on our skin or in our heart – but we learn to live with it.
I try to tell the younger people in my life to go out there, take chances, fail, pick themselves up again, go and look at the world, move around, see everything; nothing is set in stone and there is always another way (the ‘backup plan’). The saddest thing in life, in my opinion, is to stay in one place. The time may never seem just right, but you have to go for it – sometimes you have to take a leap from that mountain and trust in your own wings.
I’ve undertaken CBT training and life coach qualifications, which means I’ve picked up a lot of wisdom and had a lot of light-bulb moments, and a few of these are worth passing on, I hope. Sometimes, when talking to people who are very down on themselves due to getting older, I remind them that they’re never going to be this young again, and this always makes people smile. When I have been with a person who feels their life is done (at fifty or sixty years old!), I sometimes feel I have my work cut out, but it can still be done.
I have had family members and friends complain that they’re ‘past it’, or their joints hurt, or that they have done their bit, they’re too old, they’ve had their life. I always say to them, ‘Put yourself twenty years from now and look back at the person you are today – what are you saying to today’s you? Are you saying “Wow, I was just a lad or lass then, and I still had the world at my feet? I still had my health. I wish I had done those things I wanted to do.”?’ This is very powerful and people tend to realise the truth of that maybe for the first time.
I like to tell people – in life, if you get a NO, see it as an acronym for Next One! I ask people if they have a goal in life, and they tend to list them. I then ask them which ones they are actively taking steps towards achieving. They usually answer ‘None’, to which I reply ‘So you have dreams, nice ideas for your life, not goals; goals are something you are actively moving towards.’
Another thing I like to tell people is that there are no failures in their life, only lessons, only steps. I use the light-bulb example – Thomas Edison was asked how it felt to have failed 1,000 times while inventing the light bulb. He said, ‘I didn’t fail a thousand times, the light bulb took a thousand attempts to perfect.’ It’s true! We can only progress through making mistakes and learning from them. I always like to remember the saying, ‘Whether you believe you can or you believe you can’t, you are probably right.’ And I’ve believed I can do this for a while now – I really have.
Writing all of this down, writing it all to you, has brought it into such clear relief – I thought I had learned to live with it and handle it, but I know that I struggle at times. The feelings of worthlessness, low self-esteem and self-hatred last a lifetime, but do you know what, Jenny? I think I’m finally there, I think I’m finally ready to step out into the light and say, I made it. You didn’t break me. I’m still here, I’m still standing and I am shouting loud enough for both of us. Sisters, for ever, despite what they t
ried to do.
EPILOGUE
After the conviction, I was faced with yet another wave of official records, this time in the form of newspaper reports, which again laid out the details of my life in such a basic, brutal manner:
He pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting his victim between the ages of 11 years old and 16 years old and was found guilty of rape and indecently assaulting his victim between the ages of 8 years old and 16 years old. The sexual offences began in 1979, and the rape convictions reflect a course of conduct from when the victim was 8 years old to 16 years old.
The judge said: ‘This case concerns regular, repeated, systematic sexual abuse … You are disgusted with yourself … and so you should be.’
Judge John Phipps told him that he had ‘ruined’ his victim’s childhood and his abuse had affected her entire life as he jailed him for 16 years. […] Judge Phipps told Yeo, who showed no emotion, that he had ‘secured the child’s silence, initially by telling her it was normal behaviour and later by subtle pressure’.
Some published reports totalled twenty-three counts but it was definitely twenty-four. Maybe someone got their sums wrong, or printed a typo. Either way, I cannot change what’s printed by others but I do know the number off by heart. Twenty-four, twenty-four, twenty-four – it’s burned into my memory.
But I wondered, was Norman actually disgusted by what he did? Certainly not enough to tell the truth or admit the full scale of it when forced to go to court. After all, he denied raping me, he claimed the abuse ‘only’ began after I turned eleven – as if that made it acceptable – and his denials meant that I had to relive it all.
The newspaper articles show an old man with a gaping mouth, a look of confusion and a lacerated face. The reason for the cuts on his face was actually that he had fallen while he was drunk, but it did give him a look of vulnerability, as if this poor old soul had been beaten by fellow prisoners when they discovered his crime. I hated those pictures. I hated to see him. I hated to read his name.
I couldn’t stop reading it, though. Jenny – I couldn’t stop looking at what had been printed. Yes, there was some sort of reckoning there, but he had got away with so much. You had been painted out of the picture, and the version everyone knew was actually pretty sanitised, even though they all said it was horrific.
There’s a saying I love: ‘You didn’t get this far to only get this far’ – and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I was proud of what I had done, what we had done, but the floodgates were well and truly open this time. I couldn’t stop the memories, the flashbacks, the constant film reel in my head showing the same horror story over and over again. I woke up one morning and found a piece of A4 paper in my bed, at the side of me, and I couldn’t even remember writing the things that were on it. The sheet was folded in half, like a book, and, on it were twenty-six points that must have come to me when I was falling in and out of sleep, in and out of awareness but always, always, always, with all of this bubbling away, filling my subconscious, remarks from the files, all the horrible detail of my sister’s life.
Jenny was found tied to a cot at 2.30pm in the afternoon at the age of two – hadn’t been fed since lunchtime the day before.
Jenny spent lunch and tea at home, having one boiled egg, but got huge dinner from social worker later on.
Terrified of bathtubs/bathrooms/complained of being hit and locked in the bathroom.
At the age of two or three, her head was flushed down the toilet.
She asked the social worker if she would be her mummy.
She was covered head to toe in bruises and there were photos.
She was taken to A&E on suspicion of a fractured skull.
She was first taken away at eighteen months, all of us were at some point, Jenny battered when she was.
Dad admitted she was never wanted and Mum said at one point that she ‘looked like her dad’.
They never visited or wrote to or telephoned the children’s home.
Social workers wrote so much about them – Mrs Yeo in one of her moods; Mrs Yeo verbally abusive to all children; Mr and Mrs Yeo show no emotion or feelings to these children; children lived in substandard manner, never had an outing or holiday or even a day trip; Mrs Yeo manipulates people and the system, only wants Jenny back for her pride and to get us off her back; Mr Yeo took Jenny to live with his mother, for her safety, and admitted his wife was violent, doesn’t want her and does beat her.
Karen and brother – bruises on head.
Karen and brother – taken to doctors with cut mouths but refused to open door to social workers.
Karen showing signs like Jenny – was verbally abused when social workers arrived at door, she kept her eyes constantly on her mum at age three until she fell asleep on couch.
Mr and Mrs Yeo never ask about Jenny on home visits.
Mr and Mrs Yeo in a destructive relationship, constant physical abuse, she tells of his insatiable sex drive.
Visit to house at 11.30am – only children up.
Mr Yeo only looks for a job in the afternoons as he fishes in the morning.
Mr and Mrs Yeo asked over and over to visit Jenny – same old excuses, no money, no babysitters, excuses!!
Mrs Yeo said, why should I bother to visit her when you won’t let her come home until she’s eighteen?
Social worker wanted to take Ian on a day trip – parents only had to contribute £5; under duress they gave £2.
Social workers took children on a day trip, all very excitable as first day out ever.
Jenny gained weight as soon as she went into care home.
Mrs Yeo in one of her moods today – very aggressive.
Mrs Yeo happy today – makes a nice change, all in a good mood.
Mrs Yeo says Jenny was a difficult child from conception!
I was stunned to see the information that my mind had decided was the most important. I wanted to make something of it, to remember each and every point, and I did try. I repeated them all; I tried to make a mind tattoo of all the things that had been done, before finally realising … it didn’t matter.
The past was just that – the past.
I love you with all my heart, Jenny. I do still cry, of course I do, because I miss you and I grieve for the life you never had. But, finally, I am proud of us. You gave me the strength to do this and that’s huge. I feel that I am finally in a place where I don’t hate the blood that runs through my veins – I cherish it because I share some of it with you.
When the verdict came in, I took a flask of tea to your graveside and told you what had happened. You’d always loved a cup of tea, and it was one of the tiny things I could do to feel close to you. ‘He’s going to jail, Jenny,’ I whispered, even though there was no one nearby. ‘Norman is going to jail – he’s finally having to face up to what he’s done. I couldn’t have done it without you,’ I told her. ‘I feel as if you were there every step of the way.’
And then, I just started weeping as if it would never end. All of the emotion, all of the pain, came out there at her graveside, and I began to shake. I knew it was something else too, though; I felt that, somehow, part of our journey together was ending. I held my mug of tea up to Jenny’s grave, whispered ‘Goodbye’ and walked away, the tears still stinging my eyes and chilling my cheeks.
I knew I had to move on. I couldn’t let this colour the rest of my life or he would have won. Now, writing this, I feel my destiny has been fulfilled. I am here to tell your story and that’s what matters to me. Donna has gone on to make a life for herself with her daughter. She’s a good girl with a good heart, like her mum. As I, hopefully, live my life for both of us, coaching and counselling others, being a mother, wife and grandmother, I will do it for you too. I will live twice as hard, love twice as hard and never, ever forget you, my darling big sister.
And please, for anyone who is reading this and has been touched by our story, may I just ask you to remember one thing?
Her name was Jenny xx
A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are so many people to thank – Elroy, my partner, for always standing by me, loving me when I am not very lovable and listening to me for hours on end. For being the broad shoulders I have needed so many times, and for always being truthful with me even when I didn’t really want the truth.
Karl, my son – for teaching me what it is to love.
My best friend, Gail – without you, I would not be the woman I am today. You give me unconditional love and strength, and always have my back.
Kerry, my friend – you get me like no other, you hold me up or make me laugh, whichever I need.
Nicky – my honorary sister. We have been through a lot and you have always been by my side, with love and support.
Vicky from the abuse survivors’ support group – you are an angel. You got me through the toughest year of my life and you hold a special place in my heart.
Linda Watson-Brown, my ghostwriter – you have supported me and showed me that I am worthy, and you never gave up on me, waiting until the time was right for us to do this.
Ciara and everyone at John Blake Publishing – for giving me this chance to share my story, to give my sister and me a voice and hopefully to help other abuse survivors to find their own voice.
Winston, my gorgeous, big, soft, adorable dog, who has brought such happiness into my life and who has made me realise just how much animals can bring to our world when we give them the unconditional love they offer us. I won’t forget all those other poor creatures who were brought into our childhood and then discarded just as quickly, but Winston has mended my heart just a little.