Читать книгу The Nipper: The heartbreaking true story of a little boy and his violent childhood in working-class Dundee - Charlie Mitchell - Страница 8

Before I say what happens next, I need to tell you how all this began. I still don’t understand most of what went on when I was two years old, but I’ve managed to piece together what happened from my mum and from other people who knew how it was.

The story began around 1972 in Dundee on the east coast of Scotland, when a sixteen-year-old girl called Sarah (my mum) – who had just left school – met a twenty-one-year-old lad called Jock (my dad) from St Mary’s in Dundee. Mum was beautiful with blue eyes, a pale freckled face and long blonde hair which she wore in a fringe. She came from a decent family and was the middle of six children – with four brothers and one sister.

He was a strong, handsome lad, of average height and powerfully built. He also had blue eyes, dark curly hair and tanned skin from time spent outdoors. He was a promising footballer – his father had played for Dundee United – and he had three sisters and one brother.

They had been introduced to each other by mutual friends at a house party and hit it off straight away. He was a live wire, always cracking jokes, never serious for a minute. He was instantly drawn to her: she was very pretty, warm and bubbly – she loved to laugh and to make other people laugh. They were quite similar people back then, and at first they looked like a match made in heaven.

In the late Sixties, early Seventies, Dundee was a very poor city. Everyone seemed to be unemployed and there wasn’t a lot of things to do. Money was scarce. But they never thought about problems like that as they had found true love. They dated for a couple of years and things were going fantastically. He was always the life and soul of the party, and she loved her life with him, as he always had her in fits of laughter with his childish antics.

They decided to move in together as they were both happy and life was a breeze. They got married quite quickly and moved to a derelict flat up a back alley off Hilltown, a big road that goes right through Dundee. The street – Arkly Street – was a row of terraced houses like Coronation Street, with a welder’s yard and scrapyard at the end. The roofs were crooked and had sunk over the years.

They stayed there for twelve months. The odd argument occurred, but as my Uncle Danny used to say (that’s my dad’s younger brother), ‘Show me a couple that doesn’t argue and I’ll buy you a pint – and that’s a lot coming from a Scotsman.’

Then Mum fell pregnant in March 1973 with her first child, Tommy, born in December 1973, and again two years later in late January 1975 with her second, Charlie – that’s me. I was born in November of that year.

In between those two years Mum started to notice a big change in Dad. He was getting more aggressive and argumentative towards her. He would get jealous for no reason at all, and had even taken to locking her in when he went out to the pub. She had seen him fighting with men in town some nights, but that was normal in Dundee at this time. Men sorted everything out with a punch-up at the end of the night if they had a grievance. That’s just the way it was.

But Mum never thought that Dad would ever turn his anger on her, as they were meant to love each other. And people that are in love don’t lift their hands to each other. Dad obviously had a different view of love, as he was now coming home drunk and beating her and accusing her of having an affair with anyone who looked at her. He was gradually turning into a possessive, aggressive control freak who needed professional help.

The level of the beatings and mental torture he was giving Mum was beyond belief. He would keep her up for hours, snapping questions at her like an interrogation agent, then kick and punch and sometimes bite her.

* * *

I have a recurring nightmare right through my early childhood. I’m hiding in the corner, crouched under a table, terrified. I see what he’s doing to her and I can see clumps of her hair on the floor.

‘Yi fuckin’ bitch, yi think yi can pull the wool over my eyes?’ He’s dragging my mum across the room by her hair, kicking her in the ribs and stomach. He’s pulling all her hair out and she’s screaming and whimpering, bent over in agony, desperately trying to defend herself.

I want to look away but I can’t and the scene is branded in my memory forever.

‘Please stop it, Jock, let me go. I hav’na done anything.’

‘I hav’na done anything. I hav’na done anything,’ he mocks. ‘Yir just the innocent victim, eh?’

‘Yi ken I am, Jock.’

‘Yir a fuckin’ liar, that’s what yi are.’

He punches her in the face and I can’t bear to hear her screams.

‘Now are yi gonna start tellin’ me what’s really going on, yi fuckin’ slut!’

‘Nothing, Jock, nothing’s going on.’

‘Nothing, eh? So who wiz that fella eyein’ ye up yesterday – Mr Fuckin’ Nobody I suppose, or scotch mist maybe?’

He’s now in such a rage that I put my hands over my ears. I want it all to stop.

‘It’s all right, Charlie,’ says Tommy, who’s crouched next to me. ‘It’s all right,’ he says comforting me. ‘Go back to sleep.’

That’s when I wake up…

* * *

As I’ve said, living in Dundee it was the norm for men to be fighting every night. Women were used to seeing men beating each other up. But Dad had never given Mum the impression that he’d do that to her from the bond they’d had with each other. So when he started viciously beating her up and trying to take control of every part of her life, it took her completely by surprise. What’s more, she never knew how and when nasty Jock would appear, as there were never any warning signs. He would suddenly just switch.

It was really hard for women back in those days in Scotland: the men had control over them and everyone seemed to accept that if a man battered a woman, it was none of their business. It was a domestic and that made it acceptable. When I was a little older it turned my stomach to think of the many nights of torture Mum had gone through alone, and it infuriated me that no one ever helped her.

He’d go to the pub, she’d be in with the kids, he’d come home, beat her up and say she’d been trying to sleep with the neighbour, or the postman, or any man within a two-mile radius. At first it was more verbal bullying and mental torture, and then it got worse with beatings and thrashings. She couldn’t even go to the shops for a pint of milk without being questioned for hours on her return – he battered her so badly that he broke her teeth and nose.

Over the next few months Mum started to become numb to the mental and physical torture she had to endure at the hands of Dad, but was becoming seriously worried about us kids, and the fact that one night he might throw one of us out of the window, as he threatened he would do on quite a few occasions if she left. That was another thing about Jock – he was a very clever man. He knew exactly what to say to get inside your head and make you so scared and confused that you couldn’t think for yourself. Mum was now waiting for the chance to leave; she had been trying to hatch a plan for a while, but was too afraid of the consequences if he caught her sneaking out.

Finally Mum decided she’d had enough. Dad regularly went down to the benefits office to claim dole as he was officially unemployed, although everyone knew he worked as a roofer and chimney sweep. One night while he was at work, Mum seized her chance. A few nights previously he had broken her ribs and she had to go to hospital – and that was the last straw for her.

She grabbed a few nappies, and things that were close to hand, and managed to sneak out. Standing in a bus shelter on Hilltown that night, cradling us from the pouring rain, with tears and mascara running down her face, she swore to herself she would never go back to him. But there was still the problem of us kids. Dad was never going to let her leave and take his kids as well – no chance!

Even though he didn’t want us, he would still not let her have us. As it turned out, he was at least partly successful, as within a short while he managed to get me back.

And whatever inner turmoil, despair and anger he was going through, he would make me pay for it for many years to come.