Amelia's story

by D. G. Torrens

  I asked Mother about Kieran, and she told me they were separated now and that she had not seen him for a few weeks. She was making another one of her fresh starts. The day passed by smoothly without a bad word said between us, partly due to the fact that my mother was preoccupied with Paul. I was not in the least bit happy at this turn of events. I just hoped they were being friendly what with it being Christmas day. I buried myself in a book for most of the afternoon.

  When it was time to go I said goodbye to my mother and climbed into the van. Paul stood for a while talking to my mother, then followed me into the van. On the way back he was very chatty, asking me questions about my mother. It was clear to me she had charmed him. Following that day, a brief affair developed between my mother and Paul, which was not good news, as he had been good to me since my arrival at Bryn Tyn and was not someone who deserved to be drawn into my mother’s world. As usual, their time together was not to be everlasting and when Mother did not get her way, it turned rather nasty and once again I was used as a weapon in her quest to get him into trouble.

  Following the end of their brief affair, which Paul had ended due to wanting to save his marriage, my mother decided she did not want him to be my key worker anymore. So she embarked on a cruel mission set to almost ruin his career. She made a complaint to the Head of Bryn Tyn Hall insisting that he be removed as my key worker due to inappropriate statements apparently made by Paul to my mother, insinuating that he had an interest in me other than that of a key worker.

  She could not just walk away and accept that it was all over; she had to make my life harder and more difficult in the process. Paul was due to go off on long-term leave anyway for a heart bypass in the near future, so they said that was why I was assigned a new key worker going forward. I was devastated because I really liked Paul and he had been my key worker for nearly two years.

  I was assigned a female key worker. Paul was off work a long time—nearly six months—

  and on his return he was very different with me. This brief affair between my mother and Paul did not make things any easier for me in care at all; the other members of staff were aware of this too, and they had all stuck by Paul. Thankfully, my mother’s claims were not taken seriously but nevertheless had affected my friendship with Paul. Why did her mistakes have to affect me so much? This was always the case. Why did she always use me as a battering ram for everything? This was something I had come to expect when things did not work out for her.

  I was quiet for a long while and spent a lot of time in my room writing poetry. I found solace in writing; I could put all my feelings down in a way that made sense to me. I loved writing so much, and this was my way of escaping. One thing I had promised myself was that I would never be like my mother. I would never turn out like her and decided then that when I was in charge of my own destiny I would make something of my life. I would not become a statistic. These thoughts started to lift me out of myself slowly, and I spent a lot of time reading and writing poems in my journal as a way to escape my miserable existence.

  Once again, I started working hard to earn something called “trust” an initiative set up by the staff for the best behaved and most helpful children. This would mean more pocket money and more privileges going forward. I desperately wanted to be moved to the Ainsley unit within Bryn Tyn. I would then have my own room and would no longer have to share a dormitory with lots of others. I would finally have the privacy I had begun to crave so much.

  Eventually I earned the “trust” award and was very delighted. This meant I was able to walk outside of the grounds unattended to the shop in Llay village once a week if I wanted to. I was also moved to the Ainsley unit and given my own room. Earning the “trust” also meant on Saturdays, when we were taken into Wrexham Town in the blue-and-white van to spend our pocket money, which we had earned from doing chores, I was able to wander around the shops with a friend without a member of staff for an hour or two.

  Mary and Sue thought this was fantastic. For a couple of hours a week we felt like any normal teenager shopping around town. We would buy things to make our rooms look pretty such as posters or plaques. We liked to buy makeup from the chemist or pop into the local café and have a cup of tea.

  I was thirteen going on fourteen, and I was very interested in all things girly, clothes, makeup, and I had developed a liking for shoes! I used to observe what all the other teenagers my age were wearing on a Saturday and longed to be able to dress like them and look like them. We had very few clothes in care that were kept in a small locker room, and they had to last a very long time. We were bought one pair of shoes per year and had a very small clothing allowance for the necessities. Thankfully, I had a few more than the others due to the hand-me-downs given to me by Yvonne, but there was nothing like picking your own clothes from a shop rail.

  Theft was rife in care, and if you had anything worth stealing it would be taken. None of us had too many belongings really. This was something we were all used to and all had in common. Once or twice a year a hairdresser was hired to come onto the premises and cut all our hair, and we were allowed to choose our own haircut. Mine was always a classic bob; I liked my bob, not to mention it was very easy to manage.

  Some of the wilder children would have punk hairstyles and use their pocket money to buy crazy coloured hair dye, like bright pink or orange! Many of the children smoked too and this was also allowed once you hit fourteen years of age. At this age, you were officially allowed to smoke, but you had to buy your own cigarettes out of the pocket money you earned from your chores each week.

  I had a regular job cleaning the large games hall every night after it was closed for the day at 8:00 p.m. I would have to sweep the floor, take out the rubbish, and make sure it was tidy, oh, and ensure the Space Invader machines were turned off! I did this from Monday to Friday and earned £5.00 per week; that was a huge amount of money to me and I could do an awful lot with it too.

  For a while things were calm. I was more settled and more accepting of my fate. One day seemingly merged into the next.

  Then before I knew it my fourteenth birthday was upon me, another year, another tick, just two more years to go then I was out of here. But to where? It remained a mystery. This was a thought I often had during the time I was a ward of the state. I knew I had to remain in their care until the age of sixteen. My mother was not allowed to have any of her children home before the ages of eighteen, when they were adults, and then it would be up to us what we wanted to be there. This was not an issue with me, as I knew I would never go home; I could not imagine a worse fate. I had dreams of going to night school, passing all my exams, and having a career. I never wanted to be poor again. I wanted to travel the world, and one particular place at the top of my list was the Valley of the Kings.

  I did not want my adult life to be steeped in poverty or misery. Securing my own home was at the top of my list. It became so important, as I wanted a place that I could call home, a place that was all mine and no one else’s. I wanted to make something of myself; I wanted to see the world outside of the grey walls I was living in. I wanted to fly on a huge plane and see the world from high up in the sky. I had so many dreams, and my heart would skip a beat just thinking about them. I just had two more years to go, and what would happen then was anyone’s guess.

  Yet again, my birthday slipped by unnoticed. I did not receive a card from my mother. My Social Worker had advised me that she was back with Kieran and her life was full of arguments, fights, and injunctions yet again. Christmas was a week away, and I was to spend the whole of Christmas at Bryn Tyn. This year I was not too bothered as I had made a lot of good friends who were also in the same boat. The Bryn Tyn staff did their best to make Christmas day a bit more special for the few of us who remained behind. The cook had produced a great feast for lunch, and we were all given a present. We spent the afternoon watching videos of our choice; all in all it could have been a lot worse.

  Life in Ainsley unit was easier and more indep
endent. We were given more of a free rein; even relationships between the teenagers were not discouraged, and there were a few. They used to take off down the field together for some private time and anything else they could get away with.

  I was not interested in a boyfriend at all, although I had become close to one particular boy, Robbie, who was older than me. Very tall and very good looking, he always watched out for me and sought me out wherever I was. We used to play fight all the time, but he never tried to take it any further and cross that line, despite making it clear that he really liked me. I remember one day I was ill with a bad cold and stayed in bed all day. Robbie sneaked into the kitchen and made me chocolate spread sandwiches while the cook was on her break, and all day he popped in and out to check if I was okay. We were very close but never in a sexual way, although if I had given him any sign of being interested, I was sure he would have jumped at the opportunity!

  There were often fights between the boys over the girls. If one boy liked a girl and another started flirting with them all hell would break loose and a fight would take place. This was very common; the girls would stand back and watch, while the staff on duty at the time would do their best to break up the fights.

  The school was on the premises and consisted of ten porta-cabins all clustered together at the back of the games room. From Monday to Friday we were all called for assembly at 9:00 a.m., which took place in the games room. Our names would be called out from a register and then we would each make our way to our classroom. Lessons were very easy and the tasks set out before us were quite simple. Our lessons consisted of basic teachings, which would have been better suited for primary aged children; they were not challenging enough at all. However, at least it was better than nothing. All children left without any qualifications whatsoever; Bryn Tyn just did not have the means to cater for examinations or the preparation for them. All the teachers were part time, some offered their time voluntarily, and some were hired from local schools in the area to work part time as and when they could.

  A lot of the tougher kids from Brixton were very disruptive in class and made it very hard for any of us to read or write. The teachers could not control them at all and in most cases feared them. They would throw objects of any kind at anyone attempting to learn something. You just had to keep those children happy or they could make life very uncomfortable for you after school. After all, it wasn’t like we all went our separate ways to our nice families and nice homes after school; we all lived together twenty-four hours a day. If someone wanted to make your day a tough one, there was not always enough staff on duty to run to or to help you.

  The best way to get through your days was to not stand out in any way, shape, or form. If you were smelly, you would be bullied; if you looked different you would be bullied; if you were well behaved you would be picked on. Occasionally there would be the odd riot for one reason or another, and if you did not join in you would know about it. All in all you could never do right for wrong by someone’s eyes. If you were to do right by one person, then this act would annoy another. You had to be pretty quick and very clever to survive your time in care and come out the other end intact.

  One day we were all informed of a new arrival. A girl called Josie, a similar age to me, was being sent from another children’s home far away. Josie arrived much later in the day. She was tall and feisty and as I learned over time, she was hilarious. I took to her immediately. We soon became good friends and were to become inseparable in the days that followed. Josie was the confident one out of the two of us, and a force to be reckoned with. She was great, and life became a lot more eventful once she had arrived. Josie was a breath of fresh air and I really liked her. She made me laugh all the time.

  Josie and I were always getting into mischief after lights were out and the remaining members of staff who were on night duty were settled in the staff room, writing their daily reports. This was when we would sneak out of our bedrooms and make our way to the kitchen at the end of the long wide corridor. This required some skill on our part as the kitchen was always locked; however, we had mastered the art of picking the old locks inside the building—all that was needed was a hair clip and we were home dry! One of us would keep lookout while the other picked the lock. Once we were in the kitchen we would make ourselves a midnight feast to be proud of, and quite often the other children would sneak into the kitchen to join us.

  We always had a two-hour window before it was time for the night watchmen to complete their rounds. These were performed every two hours throughout the night until the morning staff came on duty. During this time we would all feed our tummies until we were bursting and then we would lock the kitchen up again and make our way to one of the girl’s rooms for a chat. If ever we got caught, which was fairly often, we would be punished and put on short-term scrubs for a couple of days, with all privileges taken away. Scrubs were not so bad during the summer months. Donned in the custom shorts and t-shirts and lace-less Plimsolls, we would sweep all the yards during the day, we were not allowed to watch a movie before bed, and we were not allowed to eat with the other children at meal times. I had become quite familiar with the routine of scrubs, as I often ran away and was always caught. I would be brought straight back and of course placed on scrubs.

  Josie and I were always running away from Bryn Tyn and on one occasion we managed to make our way to Liverpool to Josie’s aunt’s house, but we were soon to be returned to Bryn Tyn. Our punishment this time was one whole month on kitchen duty; however, we had other plans. Within a week we had runaway again; this time to Shropshire to my mother’s in the hope that she would listen to my request to see Jake again. We hitched a lift from a passing lorry driver who was kind enough to drop us off in Shropshire and share his sandwiches along the way.

  Once we reached my mother’s house we were greeted with a very shocked mother who fed us then called the children’s home to inform them we had arrived at her house.

  A couple of hours later, we were picked up by a member of staff who made it quite clear we were in big trouble. Josie and I sat in the back of the van on the way back whispering to each other about our fate on our return. Josie and I were kindred spirits; we got each other, we totally understood each other, we thought alike, and we had the same sense of humour. She made my days happier because she was so funny and we were always up to something! We always looked out for one another and had each other’s back all the time.

  We finally reached Bryn Tyn and were escorted straight into the office for another reprimand. As usual we were stripped of our privileges, which by now were not many due to the number of times we had run away! We were to be put on scrubs for two weeks with no pocket money and meals were to be taken separate from everyone else. We were allowed trips into town on the weekend, and we didn’t have the possibility of earning extra money either. All in all we were just scrubbing the floors for the next two weeks in a pair of shorts and t-shirt.

  Once we completed our punishment we were back on normal privileges, except “trust” we would not have this privilege for a very long time. We stayed put for a while and tried to blend into the background. I often wondered how I would be living my life if I had been born into a normal, loving family. I wondered about the family holidays, the Christmas get-togethers, the family gatherings, all the things I still longed for, but knew this was never to be. This was all I knew—life within the confines of the care system. After a while you become institutionalized. Although you dreamed of a life outside in the world, you also started to fear it. You started to feel differently, and you felt as if everybody could tell just by looking at you that you were from a children’s home.

  You worry about their immediate judgment of you. Most people just assume you must have done something wrong, or they keep a safe distance from you. The truth is that most children in care homes are there for their own safety, and then sadly abused by the very people who are there to protect them. I had suffered with bouts of depression throughout my time in the care homes
. One day I would just wake up smothered by a choking, black cloud—my abyss. I would feel so low that it often brought me to near suicide; I would feel total despair. I could not understand why it would be such a bad thing at times; after all, living in a world without love for most of your life would inevitably affect anyone eventually.

  I was a teenager now, fourteen years old, and all I had known was one children’s home after another. Some were bad and some not so bad, but these places all had one thing in common; they were all filled to the brim, near bursting in fact, with desperate children all wanting the love and attention from someone. All wanted to be seen, and all wanted to be heard. The truth was every child in care has a desperate story to tell filled with sadness and rejection, abuse and violence. We all wanted to be noticed. When a member of staff talked to you and listened to you for a while or showed a little compassion toward you, it’s fair to say you would then shadow that person like a dog trying everything they could to please their master. And I was no different; I would latch onto a member of staff who showed me kindness like my life depended on it.

  When I was shrouded in depression I would write poems—lots of them. I was able to communicate very well how I was feeling on paper; this helped me so much during my darkest days. One particular poem I wrote went like this:

  When my destiny is in my hands,

  I promise to appreciate all of my life.