What Daddy Did (10 page)

Unlike many of my other memories – where there is nothing on paper to back up that
I do
remember things accurately,
I do
know what went on – I have some social work files from this time. In them are various comments relating directly to the reasons for me going to the Children's Psychology Department in Rillbank Terrace (a child and adolescent mental health unit) in Edinburgh in the first place, and what was recorded after my visits there. In the report of 20 December 1968, the files say:

On the way to the door Mother said that Donna was really the trouble maker because she was 'stealing food at all hours'. Mrs Ford said things would be much better if Donna wasn't there.

The outcome of this was that it was recommended I see a psychologist. This strikes me as rather odd – my stepmother says that I am stealing food and I'm almost immediately sent to a psychologist? Perhaps things just worked differently in the 1960s, but I doubt that state-funded psychologists were readily on hand to provide support for one comment made about a child. Perhaps there are other files that say other things, but I wonder whether someone, somewhere, had already had their suspicions aroused about Helen, and decided to keep an eye on things by making me attend Rillbank regularly. What I do know is that I was then taken there on a weekly basis by either my Dad or Helen. In a report dated 5 August 1969, a psychiatrist from the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh states:

Donna is very unhappy and isolated. She suffers from a behaviour disorder which causes her to steal from school and from home.

She suggests regular psychotherapy. Whether anything was done to delve into
why
a 10-year-old girl was so unhappy and had feelings of isolation, I have no idea. Given what my life was like, and how it was about to continue, I guess not. Six months later, on 2 February 1970, another comment in the files says:

Miss H rang Miss B of Rillbank who agreed to visit. Said she found difficulty in making a relationship with Mrs Ford who adopted an aggressive attitude. The father is much more reasonable.

So, there were concerns. People had noticed what Helen was like, but – even after she left – no-one seemed to see the need to get to the root of it all. In a later visit of 24 April 1972, after Helen had left, the files show that I was truanting a lot and there was concern over this. The social worker, Miss J K, suggested that the school refer me to an educational psychologist. My father's reply was, 'Well, she used to see a psychiatrist, but then Mrs Ford went and stopped that.' I do not know why she stopped the visits but I do know that they stopped as quickly as they started. In one report, which has no date, my father is quoted as saying, 'Mrs Ford felt very embarrassed at having to take her to the psychiatrist.'

These files are the only means I have of trying to fill in the blank spaces in my memory and explaining the things I missed as a child, because I only saw what Helen and my Dad allowed me to see. I feel in many ways – even other than the obvious – I was made a scapegoat by Helen. By this time, she was pregnant with her third baby, so the question of me seeing a psychologist came at a difficult time when she would have known that the baby was not my father's. Focusing the attention on me may well have deflected it from her.

At the start of the files I have (from 6 January 1961), I am described as 'a happy child full of life'. At just over 18 months, when I was admitted to the care of Barnardo's, I was described as a responsive, placid child with a happy smile who got on with everyone. To give them credit, they seemed to have kept me that way. When I was 'restored' to the care of my Dad and Helen on 8 July 1964, I was five years, one month and two days old. My character at that time was described as, 'Good. An affectionate child.' Alongside some comments about my half-siblings, the report continues: 'Little Donna is especially charming . . . she has not yet started school but is a bright wee girl . . . the darling of all.' I am further described as clean, healthy, affectionate and polite.

Once I had been taken back to Edinburgh, the reports do raise a few concerns. Given that these official documents are often full of careful wording, I think that it is still relatively easy to hear the worried phrases which are there. By 8 June 1970 the social worker reports on a home visit:

I found Mrs Ford and the children all at home. One child G
[Helen's eldest]
was playing outside all the others were sitting in the kitchen watching television. Mrs F was resplendent in a gold blouse and yellow trousers. Donna is very small for her age and I felt there was a 'cowed' look about her or maybe she is just shy. She was 'cleaning up' another room when I arrived.

I know that, on this occasion, Helen had forgotten that the social worker was due to visit and, as usual, I had been sent to my room as soon as I returned from school. I was a very frightened, abused little girl and this report in particular is the most poignant because it was at the end of this year that the worst abuse of my life occurred. Why did this social worker not investigate her suspicions further? Other entries in this report point to further concerns such as: 'Neither of the girls [my elder half-sister and I] nor A [my elder half-brother] was dressed nicely. There is a marked difference between the Ford children and the other three.' A marked difference indeed.

AS AN ADULT, READING THROUGH
these files makes me so angry. Vital warning signals were not picked up on. I was a little girl who was being abused. My older siblings were also 'at risk'. But although these signs were noted, they were ultimately dismissed and overlooked.

On 5March 1965, just before they were 'restored' to the care of my Dad and Helen, my elder half-brother and half-sister were both reported as being 'happy normal children'. By December 1966, these children had also changed. The police called at my father's workplace to return the two of them as they had run away from Edina Place during the night. Of this incident the files say, 'They had slipped out of the house during the night after being punished by their father and Mrs Ford.' I recall clearly the events leading up to that incident and what happened afterwards.

Helen had given birth to another son, Andrew, in November 1966, and it was clear by then that she was unable to cope with all the responsibility she had. We were all unhappy as we were being beaten and punished on a regular basis, so, after all being hit really badly again one night, the three of us hatched a plan to run away together. I soon chickened out – being the youngest I was too scared to go with them – but they decided to go it alone.

The next morning, Helen came into my bedroom first thing and obviously knew that the others had gone. 'Where are they?' she asked, shaking me into a sitting position and grabbing my arms. 'Where have those other two little bastards gone?' I was bleary-eyed and still sore from the beating of the previous evening. 'I don't know where they are!' I said, and I was telling the truth. The plan we had all concocted was half-baked and, if the others had come up with any detailed escape route, they wouldn't have told me anyway as I was too little in their eyes. 'Don't you lie to me,' Helen shouted. 'You're all in this together, all you little bastards!' She went on and on with her usual tirade, name-calling and hysteria. Naturally, it became physical and she tried to, as she said, 'beat it out of me'. There was no point in her trying, as I didn't know anything, but that didn't stop her.

Later that day, my Dad came home with the two runaways. The police had gone to the GPO where he worked, after finding the children at St Andrew Square bus station trying – in vain – to get away somewhere. Anywhere, I'd guess. My Dad explained all of this to Helen and then went back to work. He had barely left the house when she started on us. Although most of her physical and verbal anger was concentrated on the two older children, she hissed to me that, 'You needn't think I've forgotten about you.'

All of us were set to scrubbing the house, but she dragged me off cleaning duties at one point as she said that I wasn't 'putting my back into it'. Off I was sent to the bathroom and made to stand over the bath, as usual, while she beat me with a belt. I was calling out, 'No, Mummy! No, Mummy! I promise I'll be good, Mummy!' but this seemed to enrage her still further. Whacking at me even more, she shouted, 'I'm not your Mummy! How often do I have to tell you that I'm not your Mummy? You have no Mummy, you little bastard, and you will call me Mrs Ford if you know what's good for you!'

From an early age, we had been brought to the attention of the RSPCC, and from that moment there were files on all of us. There were files from Barnardo's, Social Work Department files, files from Rillbank, doctors' files and school files. Each one of them expressed a concern, yet nothing was done. When these files were produced in the High Court in Edinburgh in 2003, they showed a pattern and a link of opinions that was not picked up on and recognised back in the days when I was left there to my fate.

As an adult I asked my father why he had let things go on. He just turned his head away, without giving me so much as one word for an answer. Why did he do nothing? Why did he not see what she was doing? How could he be so blind? What made him take her word without even asking me? Fathers are supposed to be protectors. They are supposed to love us and nurture us and listen to us and allow us a voice. They are supposed to praise us and instil us with confidence. My father didn't do any of these things. Yes, he gave me a roof over my head, but it was never a home.

How I craved the same attention that he gave his boys with Helen, who were both golden in hair and nature in his eyes, as that was what she told him and that was what he chose to believe. Never once did he see or question my bruises or gaunt appearance, nor did he notice the vacant look I knew I wore when I had been sexually abused.

I felt different after the sexual abuse began. I knew that I acted differently too because I couldn't bear to look at people. I was too embarrassed. I was mortified about what had happened to me, what had been done to me. I didn't really know very much about what had gone on, but I knew it was wrong. That my own Daddy wouldn't notice seems beyond neglect.

My father would come back from work and know only what Helen told him. He may have been tired from work and life but he never noticed me full stop. Even when he had to reprimand me he did it without really looking at me. Did he just switch off? Did he believe what Helen told him, that I was bad? Or did he just not care?

I have very mixed feelings about my Dad. I always wanted his love and approval but I thought he was a weak man. He was controlled by Helen when she lived with him, then when she left, he was controlled by drink. Was he an alcoholic? I don't know. He claimed that he went out to the pub because he needed adult conversation; he claimed he needed a drink to relax him. He didn't go a day without a drink so I would say that he was definitely dependent on drink, and if being dependent on drink deems you an alcoholic then, yes, that's what he was.