CHAPTER ONE
The snow had been falling heavily, and now the drifts had
reached the window ledges of the small cottage by the side of the main road to
London. Many feared that it would be a
repeat of the terrible weather they had suffered earlier that year when transport
links across much of the country had been completely cut, supplies were
non-existent in many areas, and power supplies were irregular at best and, at
worst, left whole communities without electricity for days.
It was December 1947, and into the fear and concern, William
was born unplanned and unwanted in that cottage in the West Midlands. Kit, his father, had made it clear to his
wife Doris that he did not want any more children. One, Bobby, born fifteen months earlier, was
wanted and loved. A second, William, was
a mistake, an irrelevance, as far as his father was concerned. Given the opportunity, William would have
been aborted, but the old wives’ tale of the effects of gin proved to be
ineffective, much as Kit took the opportunity to buy as much of it as he could
afford on his meagre wages and made sure his wife drank it.
Kit was angry. He had
been particularly angry since Doris’s second month of pregnancy when she had
told him after three years of marriage that she was expecting their second
child, but his anger went far further than the festering, twisted resentment he
felt because she had dared to conceive a child without his permission, although
that particular rage would not show for many years. He was angry at his inconsequential life,
angry at his country that had forced him to endure the horrors of military
service in the Second World War and, above all, he was angry at the way he had
been treated, brought up unloved by a father who seemed unable to give him
anything he really needed.
William’s mother named him.
His father took no interest in him at all, and openly disapproved of the
love that Doris gave the boy. He always
considered William to be unplanned and unwanted, although he never openly
admitted it, not even to his wife.
William’s older brother Bobby would be the one his father
would nurture. He had been planned and
wanted; William was neither.
* * *
* *
William was born in a small, red brick bungalow. By today’s standards it was very basic, with
three rooms that had one window each, the living room in the centre being the
largest. There was a front door, a very
small front porch, and floors made from the cold stone from the Forest of
Dean. There was no electricity or
running water.
The living room also doubled as a kitchen. Opposite the door in an alcove was a large,
black fireplace, a grate for the fire in the centre of it with a small oven
either side. There was plenty of room
behind and to the side of the fire. In
the middle of the room was a large pine table with four chairs. All the cooking and preparation of food was
done in that room, as was the socialising.
Either side of the living room was a bedroom, but at night these rooms
were dark and had no heating at all other than what little warmth might come
from the fire in the living room.
There was a small triangle of grass in front of the house
that ended at the porch. A path led from
the gate to the porch, made from that unusual pinkish stone from the Forest of
Dean. There were vegetable growing in
the garden, planted by William’s father, but they were hidden from view by the
border of flowers, and by the front door there was a large rose bush.
* * *
* *
By the time William was four, his father seemed to have
accepted him in a way. He said nothing
more about William, simply keeping at a distance and when he had to mention
William to Doris, Kit always referred to him as “your child” or “your
boy.” William, at that age, noticed
nothing unusual. In his innocence, he
simply accepted the way things were.
It was also during those first four years of William’s
childhood that his mother gave birth to two girls. One was planned, but the other, like William,
was not, and because of the twisted logic in their father’s mind, William was
to take the blame and punishment not only for his own birth but also for that
of his unwanted sister.
* * *
* *
Just before William’s fourth birthday, dark clouds gathered
over their little bungalow. The storm
passed quickly, and as the clouds receded into the distance, the sun shone in a
brilliant blue sky above them and William watched from just inside the front
door.
Doris saw her son gazing out into the front garden and
paused her housework to stand by him for a moment.
“Look William,” she told him. “There’s a rainbow. They say that wherever the rainbow ends there
will be a pot of gold left by the little people.” She then went about hanging her washing on
the line to dry, and soon returned into the house and left William in the
garden to play.
William was still out at midday, as he often was when the
weather was fine and not too cold. He
was sitting near the front door with his little spade and saw his father coming
down the garden path from the gate towards him.
It was not unusual for his father to return from work at the nearby farm
several times every day. He normally
came back for his meals and whenever he had a break.
This time, however, Kit did not walk past William, ignoring
him. He stopped.
“What the hell are you doing, boy?”
“I’m looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,
Dad,” William answered innocently.
“Doris!” Kit called angrily.
“That boy of yours has dug the roses up looking for a pot of gold.”
William’s mother came out straight away and took William
inside to clean him up without a word, and as William waited for his dinner,
his father replanted the rose bush.
Kit stood by the side of the table, glaring at William. “Why the hell did you think you’d find a pot
of gold there?”
“Because the rainbow ended on top of the rose”
Truthfully, William believed he would find a pot of gold,
although he had no idea what a pot of gold would look like. From what his mother had said, it sounded as
though it was something good, but it had not occurred to him to ask. Explanations of anything to William were few
in that house; he usually had to find out for himself when he wanted to know
something.
It was not too much of a surprise when he received neither
an explanation about the pot of gold now nor an explanation for his father’s
annoyance with him. “You are a stupid
boy.”
* * *
* *
William’s mother made the effort to teach William how to
count and to write his alphabet by the time he was due to go to primary school
at the age of four and a half. He was
proud of his achievement, but when he told his father what he could do, Kit
turned away and ignored him completely.
At the same time, William’s brother, now nearly six years old, sneered
at him as though this new skill of William’s was unimportant. Although Bobby probably did not realise it,
he had quickly learned to copy his father’s attitude towards William, and
frequently adopted that look of contempt for William that only his father could
equal.
It was shortly after William started at school that his life
turned from bad to worse. He and his
brother slept in the bedroom on the left of the house, sharing a big double bed
with William sleeping on the side nearest the door. They both went to bed at about five in the
evening, before their father returned from work at six. Like all children of that age, they would
usually play on the bed or talk and laugh for some time after they went to bed.
He and his brother had returned home from school one day,
had something to eat, and were now in bed, talking.
“Be quiet, you boys,” their mother called to them. “Your father will be home from work soon.”
Although both boys had seen their father’s moods and his
frequent derision of William, neither of them had ever seen their father really
angry. They ignored the warning from
their mother, and they were still playing, talking and giggling when their
father came home from work.
He heard them as soon as he came in, but there was something
different in his tone when he shouted at them: “You two boys had better go to
sleep and give me rest.”
The boys hid their heads under the thick Eider-duck-down
quilt on the bed, still talking and laughing, and thinking they could not be
heard.
There was a crash as the door of their room was flung open
and slammed against the wall. Both boys
lifted their heads above the quilt and stared towards the doorway in
alarm. The door was wide open, and
silhouetted in the lamplight of the living room was the dark figure of their
father. His contorted face was partially
hidden by the long shadows of his features.
The white staring eyes could be seen as if they were alight, as he
shouted, “I told you boys to be quiet and you didn’t listen to me. You had to be naughty and disobey me.”
Neither of the boys had seen their father like this
before. They were frightened, not
knowing what was about to happen.
Kit walked over to the bed and threw back the covers. He grabbed William by the wrist pulling him
roughly from the bed. Once William’s
feet touched the floor, his father bent him over the side of the bed. Taking hold of both William’s wrists in one
hand he held them together in the small of his back, pulled down William’s
pyjama trousers and violently beat William’s buttocks for several minutes.
William was screaming, “Please, Dad,” between the tears and
cries of pain. “Mum, help me.” “Where are you, mum?”
Doris was in the living room, crying as she listened to her
youngest boy being thrashed. She knew
there was nothing she could do to help him.
Perhaps she was also afraid of him, but first and foremost, in Doris’s
eyes, Kit was head of the family and the one who put food on the table for all
of them. Her marriage vow taken in
church before God was to obey him, and she would not break that vow.
Kit was deaf to William’s cries. He stopped beating him only when his anger
subsided, and then he threw William onto the bed and ordered him to cover
himself. He then took Bobby by the
wrist, but instead of thrashing him in the same way, he and gave him a few
smacks on his buttocks and then also threw him on the bed.
“Let that be a lesson to both of you,” their father told the
two boys, but William had noticed that the few smacks his brother had received
were not even enough to bring a tear to his eye.
This was the first of many thrashings William received from
his father. At the slightest excuse, Kit
would go into the boys’ room and inflict his brand of cruel, barbaric justice
on the mainly blameless boy. On many
nights, William’s cries of pain could be heard after that first beating he
received. Sometimes the beating would be
by William’s father’s hands, or sometimes it would be with a leather belt. Kit’s brutality seemed to be driven by
something far deeper than his need to punish the boy for every misdemeanour of
which he believed William to be guilty.
Doing it because Kit was head of the family and therefore judge, jury
and enforcer of justice was only a pretext, as if that was not bad enough. Kit’s motives went far deeper than that; it
was revenge for what his wife had done in giving birth to this child and, as
much as Doris suffered to hear her child being punished, it was also directed
at William for being born.
In fact, Kit detested the thought of any woman being beaten
by a man, and he would never have considered raising his hand against his
wife. She had given birth to two
children he had not asked for or wanted, and now it was up to him to feed and
clothe them. Somehow, in that twisted
mind, by punishing William, Kit was punishing his wife for giving birth to
William and now, just a few months previously, also for giving birth to
William’s younger sister. The anger at
this disobedience of Doris’s was now vented on the helpless boy after
fermenting for five years in Kit’s twisted mind.
Bobby was also punished when the boys did wrong or in some
way annoyed their father, but the smacks he administered to his eldest child
were fewer and lighter.
* * *
* *
At the breakfast table on the morning following that first
beating, the boys were sitting waiting to eat when Bobby said, “William wet the
bed last night.”
Their mother did not say a word. She watched her husband intently, but
although he was listening to the boys, he said nothing either. The two boys finished their breakfast in
silence.
That night, William and Bobby lay awake in bed with thoughts
of the previous evening’s punishment in their minds, and both determined not to
give their father reason to punish them again.
The door flew open, and they both stared in horror at the
silhouette in the doorway. This time,
they could see that their father had his wide leather belt in his hands. For a moment, William thought that his father
had come in to check that they were both asleep, but he was soon disillusioned.
As he had worked alone all that day, Kit had been thinking
about everything happening in his life that was beyond his control. Most of all, he thought about the two
unplanned children he was obliged to feed and care for. His wife had to be punished for her defiance
of him, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he became. Waves of uncontrollable rage coursed through
him. Yes, he had the answer. The boy must be punished, and it was his
right… no, it was his responsibility to discipline his children.
He walked over to the bed and looked down at the two boys,
and there was no mistaking the blind anger in his eyes as he stared at William. William began to tremble, knowing that
something much worse than the previous night’s punishment was going to happen
to him.
“So, boy, you wet the bed last night like a baby. Well, I am going to teach you never to wet it
again. I don’t like babies that wet the
bed, and tonight I will give you something to think about before you consider
doing it again.”
He bent over the two boys to pull back the covers, and he
dragged William from the bed. Again,
William was bent over the edge of the bed with his wrists held firmly in the
centre of his back. This time, the
trousers were left on William’s lower body while his father’s other hand
thrashed him with the belt. Once again,
William was shrieking and crying and calling for his mother to help him. He heard his mother’s voice over the sound of
his own screams: “Kit!” and then after a short pause, “Please?”
The thrashing stopped, although William had no idea whether
it was because his father’s twisted anger had subsided or because of his
mother’s intervention. Once again the
sobbing William was thrown back onto the bed, where he cried himself to sleep
for the second night in a row. Before
his father left the room, he threw the covers over the boys, and the silence in
the room was broken only by William’s sobbing.
* * *
* *
At the breakfast table, Bobby said, “My pyjamas are wet,
mum. William wet the bed again.” He smiled at his father as he spoke, and it
would have been clear to anyone watching that Bobby was trying to show off to
his father and get William into trouble at the same time. Although it was not apparent at this stage,
later in life it would become obvious that Bobby was just as twisted as Kit,
and this was only the beginning of the lessons he was to learn from his father.
William had just picked up his spoon to start on his
porridge. He put it down and his hands
gripped the edge of the table, and he looked at his father with an expression
of fear on his face. His father stared
back, wide-eyed and expressionless.
Finally, Doris broke the silence. “Pick up your spoon, William, and eat your
breakfast.”
William picked up the spoon with shaking hands, still
looking at his father’s face. As his
eyes dropped to the spoon in his hand near the dish he tried to stop the
uncontrollable shaking. The spoon
touched the side of the dish, tapping in rhythm with the nervous tremble in his
hand. His mother stepped over to the
table to place her hand on top of his.
He looked up at her with a tear in the corner of his eye, only to see
her smile and say, “Eat your breakfast, William. Nothing is going to happen.”
William and his brother went off to school. When they returned, they had their evening
meal and were sent to bed as usual.
William could not stop thinking about what his father might do now that
he knew William had wet the bed again.
He desperately tried to keep his eyes open, watching the door and
expecting that at any minute it would burst open. Finally, tiredness got the better of him and
he fell asleep.
* * *
* *
A few days went by, and the two boys were playing after they
had gone to bed one night. Bobby had just tickled William, and William
burst out laughing. He stopped almost as
soon as he had started, realising that making a noise would anger their father,
but he was not quick enough. The door
burst open and their father was once again silhouetted against the light. “So, you just had to disturb my rest with
your playing.”
“It was William, Dad.
He was laughing.”
Yes, that was true, but what their father did not know, and
did not want to know, was that Bobby had made William laugh.
The truth was that Kit really did not care. In his twisted mind, by punishing William he
was punishing Doris for having this unwanted child and his unwanted
sister. Perhaps he actually smiled at
that moment, or perhaps there was some other expression on his face, but it was
too dark in that room for either of the boys to see it. He briefly glanced over his shoulder into the
living room, and then he stepped over to the bed and pulled William out.
“No, Dad,” William protested. “Bobby made me laugh, Dad. No, please no. Mum, help me.”
“You will get extra for trying to get your brother into
trouble,” his father told him with no trace of any emotion in his voice. “I heard one of you laugh, and it was obviously
you.”
William’s cries fell on deaf ears. Kit was thriving on the power he held over
his family.
William’s mother, however, was closing her mind and ears to
the pitiful pleading of her youngest son.
She cried quietly.
Once again William’s wrists were held in his father’s grasp,
pushing his hands up into the small of his back. Kit thrashed William’s buttocks with the flat
of his father’s hand, but William’s cries of pain fell on deaf ears. His father had once more turned into the
uncontrollable monster oblivious to the pain of others, and his mother refused
to accept what was happening.
It was a long time before Kit’s anger was sated sufficiently
to cease his beating and to throw William back onto the bed. He looked at Bobby, cowering under the quilt,
but as far as Kit was concerned, his favourite son was not guilty of any crime.
“Go to sleep, Bobby.
You have school in the morning.”
Once his father had left the room, closing the door as he
went, in the darkness William pulled the quilt over him and cried himself to
sleep again.
The inevitable happened, and the bed was wet in the morning once
more. William’s mother noticed when she
was helping him dress for school, but she said nothing. Bobby, of course, mentioned it at the
breakfast table. He had already worked
out that he was safe from his father’s wrath as long as his father had some
excuse to abuse William. Kit looked
towards Doris and asked, “Is that right?”
She did not answer, but her expression said it all.
That night, as soon as William was in bed he focused his
eyes on the door and strained his ears for the sound of his father coming down
the path to the front door. Bobby was
already asleep when William heard the gate slam shut and, a few seconds later,
the front door opened. He then heard his
mother talking to his father before it went quiet, and William knew that his
father was eating the meal that William’s mother had prepared.
It remained silent for a while, and William fell
asleep. Suddenly, he was awakened as his
father burst into the room and he was pulled roughly from the bed.
“I thought I told you I would teach you not to wet the bed
again, but it seems as though you want to defy me. Well, this time you had better learn your
lesson, because if I have to come in here tomorrow you will get a harder hiding
than you are getting tonight.”
Kit began to thrash his son with the leather belt again.
It had happened so abruptly that William was hardly awake
when it started. Even so, he began
pleading for mercy and crying for his mother to come and save him from the hell
his father was putting him through. The
thrashing seemed as though it would go on forever, but finally it stopped as
suddenly as it had started.
“Get into bed, you bad boy.”
William lay on the bed quivering in pain and fear. His elder brother pulled up the quilt and
William closed his eyes, hearing his father leave the room and close the door,
but not daring to look. The room was in
silence and total darkness once more.
William slipped out of the bed and knelt on the floor beside
it, resting his arms and his head on the edge of the bed. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he cried
himself to sleep.
Some time later, William felt himself being lifted up and
placed on the bed. He opened his eyes
and saw his mother looking down at him.
“Why didn’t you get into bed, William?”
“I don’t want to wet the bed again.”
With a tear in her eye, she replied, “Don’t ever be afraid
of getting into bed, William.” She
pulled the quilt over him and left the room.
It was to be many years before William understood properly
why his mother had not come to him when his father beat him, but even at this
age he felt a deep bond with his mother and knew, somehow, that he could not
blame her and she had done nothing wrong.
As for his father, his attitude was only the symptom of something much
deeper, but neither he nor William would know about it until years later.
* * *
* *
Several days went by before William’s father beat him again,
and again it was a punishment for making a noise after the boys had gone to bed. Afterwards, William wet the bed again, and
again Bobby announced it at breakfast.
William knew he would get another thrashing that night, and
it was in his mind all day at school. He
could not think of anything else except what was going to happen when he got
home. It was too much for him, and he
collapsed in the classroom. The doctor was called,
and he concluded that William had suffered a traumatic experience that had
caused him to have a nervous breakdown.
